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Published: 2022-04-26 11:32:40
Updated: 2022-04-26 11:32:40
Posted April 26, 2022 11:32 a.m. EDT
By Nick Stevens, HighSchoolOT managing editor
Raleigh, N.C. — Overall participation in high school sports seems to be rebounding for many N.C. High School Athletic Association schools, and the decline has leveled off for many more as COVID-19 restrictions and concerns abate, but that isn’t the case for every school or every sport.
Many NCHSAA schools report substantial declines in sports participation in two areas: girls sports and junior varsity sports, according to a survey of athletic directors conducted by HighSchoolOT this month. But the trends are not all bad.
According to the HighSchoolOT survey, 26.6% of athletic directors report a decline in overall participation this year. That is a significant number — more than one-fourth of the 184 schools that responded to the survey. However, the number of schools reporting a decline in participation has dropped substantially from the last HighSchoolOT survey conducted at the end of the 2020-2021 school year where 79.4% of schools reported fewer athletes. In addition, this year’s survey showed 29.9% of schools have actually seen an increase in participation during the 2021-2022 school year.
This year, the 3A classification has seen the largest decline in participation with 34.6% of 3A schools reporting fewer student-athletes playing sports. 1A is a close second with 31.6% reporting a decline in participation, while 22% of the 2A schools report a decline in participation. 4A had the smallest decline at 18.2%.
Some athletic directors noted in their survey responses that schools in rural areas or with lower income levels have struggled to grow participation.
One trend from the 2020-2021 school year that still exists: junior varsity sports are being hit much harder than varsity sports. 21.2% of NCHSAA athletic directors say they have dropped a varsity sport this year due to a lack of participation, but that number more than doubles when talking about junior varsity sports. According to the survey, 52.7% of schools have dropped at least one junior varsity sport this year because they did not have enough players to field a team.
“[The NCHSAA] is going to have to help us with rules (allowing) us to use JV and varsity players on the same nights in some sports,” one athletic director told HighSchoolOT. The NCHSAA Board of Directors will discuss this topic at its spring board meeting this week.
The data collected by HighSchoolOT shows softball, girls basketball, and girls soccer have been impacted the most at the JV level. 21.7% of the athletic directors who responded to the survey say they’ve dropped JV softball this year due to a lack of participation in the sport. 17.4% say they have dropped JV girls basketball, while 12% have dropped JV girls soccer.
Varsity sports get most of the attention when it comes to high school, but the declining JV numbers could have a long-lasting impact. Student-athletes who play JV sports today become varsity players in the future. If the JV numbers don’t rebound, more varsity teams could be in danger down the road. It’s also possible that varsity participation has declined at some schools so athletes who would normally play JV are being moved up to varsity, thereby leaving JV teams without enough players.
A decline in girls sports participation is fueling much of the decline at the JV level. The three hardest-hit JV sports are all girls sports — softball, girls basketball, and girls soccer. The impact on girls sports is something athletic directors noted in their survey responses.
“It has always been tough to get girls to continue playing after 8th grade, but the past two years have made that harder,” one athletic director said in the survey.
“The overall decline at my school seems to be more on the female side of things,” another athletic director said.
The data shows girls sports have been hit harder than boys sports at both the JV and varsity levels, although it is more amplified at the JV level.
Softball has seen the largest overall decline with 42.6% of athletic directors saying they have fewer athletes playing softball this season, according to the HighSchoolOT survey. In girls basketball, 39.57% of schools have seen a drop in participation, while 36.1% report a drop in girls cross country, 33.6% have seen a decline in girls swimming & diving, and 28.8% say participation has dropped for girls soccer.
More than 20% of schools report participation declines in girls golf, girls track & field, and girls lacrosse.
“Participation and JV teams at schools we compete against has seemed to be more of an issue. Girls basketball is the most concerning followed by softball,” one athletic director commented.
Some of these trends existed before the COVID-19 pandemic happened, but many athletic directors believe the pandemic has accelerated the trend.
The NCHSAA will look for potential solutions this week. One of the possible solutions is the addition of a 5-quarter rule for basketball, which would allow 9th and 10th grade students to play up to five quarters of basketball in a given day. That means a JV player could be a reserve on the varsity team, or vice versa. The idea, which is similar to the 8-quarter rule that has existed in football for many years, is that the flexibility for coaches would allow both JV and varsity programs to exist.
The 5-quarter rule proposal has been made to the NCHSAA Board of Directors by the N.C. Basketball Coaches Association, and several athletic directors expressed support for the proposal in the HighSchoolOT survey.
Despite the concerns in some areas, the overall trends are more positive this year than last.
When asked how concerned they were about participation at their school for next school year, just 8.7% said they were “very concerned” compared to 29.6% at the end of the 2021-2022 school year. In fact, 51.1% of athletic directors said they were either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about participation next school year, which is down from 68.6% last year.
The number of athletic directors who are concerned about having to fold programs due to a lack of participation is also declining. Last year, 53.8% of athletic directors were either “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” they would have to take such drastic steps, but that number has dropped to 35.4% this year, including 7.1% who are “very concerned.”
Sports participation concerns are not limited to North Carolina though. There has been a downward trend nationally that the National Federation of State High School Associations has been following.
The NFHS releases participation data annually, but has not collected that data the last two years due to COVID-19. The last data released by the NFHS was from the 2018-2019 school year, and for the first time in three decades, participation dropped nationally.
The NFHS says it plans to release data from the 2021-2022 school year later this year. That data will provide specific figures on the number of players by sport and gender in North Carolina and the other 50 state associations.
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