Student-athlete participation reaches record high for KHSAA

July 18, 2019 | 4:45 pm

Updated July 18, 2019 | 4:45 pm

Illustration by The Owensboro Times

Student-athlete participation in Kentucky high schools increased slightly for the 2018-19 school year, breaking the record level that was set just a season ago.

Of the 106,931 rostered participants — up 690 from 2018-18 — competing across the KHSAA’s 13 sports and six sport-activities, 32 percent participated in multiple sports. Participant counts are cumulative among all KHSAA rosters.

Participation numbers have been impacted over the last eight years by the addition of six sport-activities — archery, bass fishing, bowling, competitive cheer, dance and esports — as well as the recently added sport of field hockey.

Football remains the most popular sport in the state in terms of participation with 13,075 student-athletes (including 42 females) across all levels playing for 221 schools. Though participation in football dropped by 229 student-athletes, the 13,075 participants last season eclipse KHSAA’s average of 13,033 participants from 2002-2017.

It’s the third straight year football numbers have dropped. While it’s trend across the country, KHSAA commissioner Julian Tackett said there is still room for concern for the future.

“This continues a three-year (downward) trend from the all-time high of 14,305 in 2015-16 and certainly follows a national trend in this one sport,” Tackett said in a release. “While our varsity numbers were again only down less than one student per team — 11,638 total compared to 11,830 the year prior — it has to be concerning to our schools that non-varsity participation continues to decrease, as this is a predictor of future varsity participation.”

In addition to football, six more sports and sport-activities saw a decrease this past season, including basketball, cross country, golf and softball.

Boys’ and girls’ golf both hit record lows after steadily declining since record participation in 2002-03. The boys’ have gone from 2,722 to last year’s low point of 2,035, while girls’ have gone from 1,379 to 1,138.

“We have to do things at the local and early levels to get more kids at more schools opportunities to address sports in decline like that,” Tackett said.

Among the sports with separate teams for each gender, track and field was the most popular sport in the state with an all-time high of 12,464 participants. Soccer finished close behind with 12,450 participants, followed by basketball at 12,211.

Track and field saw the greatest year-over-year growth in terms of increased participants, with 438 additional student-athletes. Archery ranked second with 218 new participants, while competitive cheer (181), bass fishing (154), dance (145), and swimming and diving (119) each added more than 100 new competitors.

Of the sports offered to girls, volleyball was the most popular sport with 6,264 participants, followed by soccer (5,847), softball (5,626), track and field (5,591), basketball (5,273) and competitive cheer (5,081). Overall female participation reached a high of 49,193 rostered participants, with 11,114 multi-sport student-athletes.

Among boys’ sports, baseball was second in with 7,143 participants. Basketball ranked third overall at 6,938, followed by track and field (6,873), soccer (6,603), cross country (3,157) and archery (2,597). Overall male participation also established a new record high with 57,738 rostered participants, with 14,744 multi-sport student-athletes.

Competitive cheer was the most popular sport-activity with 5,247 total rostered participants last year, followed closely by archery (5,101), bowling (1,908) and bass fishing (1,606).

Tackett said KHSAA continues to look for ways to engage students, and they want to address as many barriers to people getting involved at that first entry level as is possible if interscholastic events are to remain relevant for the long haul.

“Without a doubt, participation in school-based and school-identifiable interscholastic programs are the number one dropout prevention and academic achievement incentivizing program available to our schools,” Tackett said. “We must evolve to be relevant and we will continue to analyze trends and look for new and improved opportunities while more thoroughly and constantly reviewing our long-standing offerings to be sure local expansion and growth remain an option.”

July 18, 2019 | 4:45 pm

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