By Alan Goldenbach
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, September 24, 2009

Reporting on its data from the 2008-09 school year, the National Federation of State High School Associations says participation in high school sports, among boys and girls, increased to a new high -- the 20th consecutive year that number has risen. The federation lauded it as high school sports' ability to thrive in spite of the nation's struggling economy.

The survey showed that a greater percentage of high school students played a sport in 2008-09 (55.2 percent) than in 2007-08 (54.8 percent).

The sport with the biggest increase in participation from 2007-08 was swimming and diving, which saw a bump of 11.6 percent (289,060 overall). This might have been affected by Michael Phelps and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Lacrosse continued its ascent among teenagers, as high school participation increased 6.7 percent over the previous year.

Meanwhile, there was a decrease in the number of students playing boys' basketball (1.4 percent), girls' basketball (1.3 percent) and soccer (0.2 percent). Not surprisingly, football was the most popular sport, with 1,112,303 participants nationwide, nearly twice as many as the next most popular, track and field (558,007). Track and field supplanted basketball as the most popular girls' sport.

According to a source at Montgomery County public schools, however, sports participation in Montgomery dropped in 2008-09, down nearly 20 percent from 2007-08. A noticeable drop-off occurred in the winter and spring, once the economic downturn was clearly not a quick blip in the market. Furthermore, the source said the number of students who received a waiver of the county's $30 athletic participation fee tripled from the previous year.

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