The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) has released a summary of their annual participation statistics for the 2013-2014 school year.
Boys’ swimming came in as the 10th most popular sport among boys, by the number of participants, and girls’ swimming came in at 8th by number of participants.
The boys’ and girls’ top 10 remained unchanged for any sports, though volleyball did make a big move to approach basketball among girls.
The full report has not yet been released, but the NFHS reported a highlight that 7,795,658 students participated in the NFHS’ 51 member state high school associations, which is an increase of 82.081. That’s a new record-high for participation in the United States.
The top 10 sports for boys and girls are below:
Boys
- Football
- Track & Field
- Basketball
- Baseball
- Soccer
- Wrestling
- Cross Country
- Tennis
- Golf
- Swimming and Diving
Girls
- Track & Field
- Basketball
- Volleyball
- Soccer
- Fast-Pitch Softball
- Cross Country
- Tennis
- Swimming and Diving
- Competitive Spirit Squads
- Lacrosse
Why all the negativity? For being an Olympic sport with incredibly high overhead, this is actually a pretty great report card from the HS federation. The infrastucture is not there in the American school system to reach much higher into the top 10. The ROI on a pool vs a field or gym is not appealling to the majority of districts. The SwimToday posters need to get out of the pool deck team info bulletin boards and in the storefront windows of local teams local sponsors. If every team in America succeeded at bringing in (and keeping) 10 new swimmers into their rosters every year for the next 10 years, USAS growth would be incredible!! Read between the lines: retention… Read more »
In So Cal the mix is significantly different. You can add water polo above swimming for boys for sure and put wrestling, cross country, and golf lower than boys swimming.
PAC12BACKER – right now, we still don’t have official 2013-2014 numbers, but boys swimming had 22k participants in California in 2012-2013, as compared to 16k for water polo. Wrestling has 27k, cross country has 29k, and golf has 11k.
Don’t think they break it down by region, but that’s for the whole state. My guess is that participation in swimming/wp is skewed higher in socal versus norcal, but Not sure that water polo could make up the 13k gap on cross coutnry.
Golf is ahead of swimming because it’s an easy way to not do PE and get athletic benefits.
I think part of it has to be the workload. I bet most golf teams are something like 3x per week, because of course costs and the fact that golf doesn’t need much strength/endurance training.
On the other hand swimming is like 10 times per week, which has to definitely turn some people off if you’re not at least a solid swimmer. It’s not a sport where it’s fun to sit on the JV bench with your friends, it’s more a sport where you suffer through practices designed for people a lot faster than you.
Unless you live in area that is short on pools, and you can only practice three times a week…when we’re lucky.
I don’t know… The average high school swimmer probably swims 5x a week max. Not talking about elite swimmers here.
With the exception of football, the sports ranked above swimming have almost no overhead costs. With schools cutting back on spending, high school swimming will be relegated to a minor sport in most areas.
Probably because many schools still have better access to a golf course than A pool, which is sad. Pools are more expensive than renting time and clubs at a golf course I guess. Maybe part of the puzzle why USA isn’t even more dominant in swimming than it is.
At least we’re ahead of lacrosse and cheerleading. Anyway, these figures are probably skewed because many schools don’t have swimming due to a lack of facilities. The one I don’t understand is golf, which is ranked just above swimming for the boys. How many people are on a high school golf team? Does anyone know how this is possible?
Isn’t it really just a nice way of saying it’s the least participated-in major sport at most high schools? A shame really – I suspect intimidation about being in the water holds a lot of people back. It’s also a hard sport to participate in when you are not “good at it”. It’s one thing being on a team that isn’t that great…at least you are with friends. Another thing getting swum down by some age group phenom getting ready to lap you in a 100.
Guess it depends what you define as “major sport.” Swimming is ahead of both volleyball and lacrosse for boys.
Well, as suppose I define major by number of high schools that offer the sport as an option. In CA at least, lacrosse is pretty rare at the high school level. Boys volleyball is played, but not commonly by small schools.
James – in 2013-2014, there were 204 boys lacrosse programs as compared to 859 boys swimming programs – keeping in mind, these numbers only come from those sports sponsored by a league that is NFHS recognized. That report misses, for example, that there are many water polo programs in Texas, but the UIL doesn’t sponsor the sport (yet – they’re considering it), so it wouldn’t be in the numbers.