Girls basketball challenged by declining numbers
Once thriving, participation rates have been declining
When Deep River’s Valley Regional High School had to cancel its 2023-24 girls basketball season a growing trend over the past two decades was magnified.
Just nine months after finishing as state runnerup Valley was faced with the reality it did not have enough players to field a varsity program.
“Obviously, this has been a constant thought in my head the last few months,” Valley coach Jaimie Bickelhaupt said. “The question is what haven’t we done? We ran clinics and camps for younger players, invited them to our games and practices. We really tried to save the culture here the last three years and not just throw our hands up. I am not sure what to do?”
Girls basketball was the most popular girls high school sport in 2002 according to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), with most schools sporting full varsity, JV and freshman rosters.
In 2022, girls basketball fell to the fourth most popular girls high school sport nationally, according to the NFHS, with a 19 percent decrease in participation since 2002.
Girls participation in other sports has grown in that time with track and field rising 10 percent, volleyball 15 percent and soccer 27 percent nationally.
Now, many Connecticut schools are struggling to field freshman and JV girls basketball teams. Some play with minuscule varsity rosters and face challenges to hold competitive practices on their own.
The CIAC, the state’s governing body for high school sports, says it does
not track the number of subvarsity teams, but commissioners of some of Connecticut’s largest high school conferences confirmed a decline in junior varsity and freshman programs.
The latest CIAC handbook reported there were 98,972 athletes in CIAC-sanctioned sports last year, a 1.8% increase from the previous year. Girls’ sports participation rose from 42,551 to 42,934. Outdoor track and volleyball saw the largest increases in girls’ sports in the CIAC.
There are 3,523 girls playing basketball in the CIAC this season, up from 3,509 last season, but down overall from the 3,750 girls who played in the 2017-18 season.
“It’s insane what’s going on,” McMahon girls coach Chrys Hernandez said. “We are so depleted, so are other coaches too, it’s not just here. We have to pull managers and coaches to help run practice.”
McMahon, which plays in Class LL, the state’s largest division, has 16 players in the program, no seniors and six freshmen, two of whom start on varsity.
McMahon is one of five FCIAC teams not fielding freshman teams this year, along with Norwalk, Trumbull, Westhill and Wilton.
The South-West Conference has five schools with no freshman teams (Bunnell, Kolbe Cathedral, New Milford, Notre Dame-Fairfield and Stratford). Nine CCC schools in Greater Hartford are playing without freshman teams and two don’t have JV. In Greater New Haven, only six of the SCC’s 20 schools field freshman programs: Amity, Cheshire, Daniel Hand, Hillhouse, Sacred Heart Academy and Shelton.
Guilford is the only SCC team without a JV team.
“It’s hard for kids because they don’t get experience playing which is what JV and freshman basketball is for,” Guilford coach Thatcher Zuse said. “We should have a big freshman class next season but it could take years to fix.”
Gregg Simon, associate executive director at the CIAC, coached girls basketball at Newtown from 1992-2003. He said some years he had as many as 45 players come out for the program, adding players were excited about basketball, in part due to the rise to prominence of the UConn women’s team.
Simon said the CIAC can’t do anything about declining participation beyond encouraging member schools to try to get more athletes to play multiple sports.
“So many kids fall victim to specialization and it becomes difficult to field teams in other sports,” Simon said. “Basketball is not alone, softball numbers are dwindling too. I don’t see the numbers rebounding unless other athletes decide to play basketball. It’s a vicious cycle of kids not coming out right now. We would love to be a part of the solution.”
Simon said smaller schools, like Valley Regional, will continue to be impacted more by athletes specializing and not playing basketball.
Last season, in the same Mohegan Sun Arena where Valley played its final game, New London won the Class MM championship with seven players on the roster. While it ended with a championship, the season could have just as easily ended in a series of forfeits if a few players were unable to play at the wrong time.
This season, New London has 18 players on the roster, eight of whom are freshmen. They are still playing seven to eight players a night on the varsity but now have a JV team to develop players, according to coach Tammy Millsaps.
Millsaps said what has improved is the quality of practices and the team morale with more players in the gym.
“It’s day and night from last year,” Millsaps said. “It not only helps run practice but helps with the mentality. Seven kids in a cold gym on a Saturday morning is not fun for anyone. I think we are moving in the right direction.”
Millsaps said a lack of JV programs will be the biggest detriment to the sport.
“JV gives kids an opportunity to play in a more relaxed environment and get minutes when they are not ready to play varsity,” Millsaps said. “Without a strong JV program in place, it is hard to have a good varsity program.”
At Valley, Bickelhaupt said she would beg boys players to stay after their practice and bring in alumni players to help her team.
In Trumbull, there is no freshman team and with three players out with ACL injuries, the team is having a hard time practicing with enough quality to help the varsity team.
Trumbull coach Steve Tobitsch has had to get creative, bringing in former players to practice and holding joint practices with other schools in similar situations on Sundays.
“Holding practice is 100 percent harder this year because the younger kids we have can’t recreate varsity game speed,” Tobitsch said. “I sent out an email at the beginning of the season and I got a lot of responses from teams that were interested because they had the same problem we did.”
Trumbull has one three-way athlete on its varsity team in senior Erin Foley who plays basketball, field hockey and lacrosse.
Tobitsch and other coaches interviewed for this story all pointed to sports specialization of fall and spring athletes as the main reason girls basketball numbers are down.
“It is less of a commitment and they feel it helps them go play those sports in college. We have lost kids to volleyball, lacrosse, field hockey and soccer,” Tobitsch said. “The kids have the power of choice and a lot of them feel they don’t need to play a winter sport. There’s a lot of pressure on kids to focus on one sport. You are lucky if you get a kid who is a two-sport athlete, the three-sport athletes are incredibly rare”
While teams have some players who consider basketball their number one sport, the declining numbers can only be reversed if non-basketball players come back, according to the coaches.
“We need athletes in all the schools. You need athletes to come and play basketball,” Hernandez said. “Basketball is great cross training and only would make you better at your other sports but this is the culture now.”