Published: January 31, 2009 12:15 am      

CORTESE: Participation in high school athletics at an all-time high

Great news from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS). High School sports are doing just fine, thank you. Nothing makes me happier than to see that their findings for the 19th straight year show that participation in athletics has increased once again.

Their figures show that the 2007-08 school year set an all-time high of 7,429,381 participants. The boys and girls each reached all time highs. (3,057,266 girls and 4,372,115 boys ) The girls figure surpassed 2006-07 total by over 35,000, and the boys passed the former record of 4,367,442 set in 1977-78.

Mr. Robert F. Kanaby, the Executive Director of the NFHS said, “The fact that we experienced all-time records for both boys and girls reflects the fact that the high school sports participation experience is more viable than ever and is of great interest to our nation’s young people.

How exciting it is to see that almost 55% of students enrolled in high schools want to be part of such a worth while endeavor as athletics.

The survey showed competitive spirit squads gained the most female participants with an increase of 16,130, followed by girls soccer with an increase of 8,913 and girls cross country with 6,973.

On the boys side lacrosse gained the most participants with 11,336 followed by boys soccer with 5,562 and cross country with 5,042. Something interesting for the Edmond community is boys swimming and diving grew by 5,156. (I noticed Edmond Schools are looking to partner up with other community resources to build a swimming complex.)

According to the survey basketball remains the most popular sport for girls with 449,450 participants, followed by outdoor track and field (447,520), volleyball (397,968), fast pitch softball (371,293), soccer (346,545), cross country (190,349), tennis (172,455), swimming and diving (147,197) and golf (69,243).

In boys sports, 11 man football once again topped the list with 1,108,286 participants, followed by basketball (552,935), outdoor track and field (548,821), baseball (478,029), soccer (383,5610, wrestling (259,688), cross country 221,109), golf (159, 958), tennis (156,285), and swimming and diving (111,896).

If it were not for all the extra -curricular activities our schools provide students, I am sure many more kids would drop out. Teaching reading, writing and arithmetic is the major charge our schools must and should provide. However, band, drama, athletics and other such activities do teach many things that can’t be learned in a class room.

Also, many who find school itself a real drag stay enrolled because of the hold the other activities have on them. I speak from experience. My feeling is instead of calling them extra-curricular activities, lets call them co-curricular activities.

Thought for the week: “Teaching students to count is important. So is teaching them what counts.”