HS participation by sport

dinglefritz

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Jan 14, 2011
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Jul 4, 2016
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The fear of injury thing is exaggerated in my experience. This is the most important quote from the article:

“And football is hard. People don’t like hard. If you have a kid who likes football and basketball, going to play for two hours in the gym is different than going out in the hot sun or cold rain and practice football.”
 

HuskerAlum92

Junior
Jan 8, 2007
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“And football is hard. People don’t like hard. If you have a kid who likes football and basketball, going to play for two hours in the gym is different than going out in the hot sun or cold rain and practice football.”

I like how the second article argues that’s the reason why California is being impacted more. Basically, football is hard and Californians are soft. And it’s not embedded into the culture like it is in Texas or the SE, so it’s okay quit if you’re not a star.
 
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Solana Beach Husker

All-Conference
Aug 7, 2008
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Interesting graph in linked story regarding high school participation by sport. Five year changes:
Football: -4.7%
Baseball/Basketball/T&F: all roughly +3%
Soccer: +11%

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jan/30/high-school-football-numbers-drop-brain-trauma

I still think there will be plenty of talent to go around and that talent will be more polished as HS's consolidate into club teams and less time is spent with the less talented kids who never go out. I mean baseball participation was dipping for years and there has never been more "clean" talent than now, so many guys throwing 100 and so many great athletes. The real damage will be done farther down starting will lower division football. You don't have to worry about NU until Kearney struggles to field a team. In the old days you might have a star on your team but you also had the bankers kid, the lawyers kid, the surgeons kid, and they all need touches so the star was left not getting as much development. In the future that star will be taken care of and put with other studs on a club team that travels states to play other club teams and those kids will be exponentially more polished by college.
 

Iroh

Junior
Sep 22, 2018
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Having kids that are high school age, I would argue many kids have played more sports growing up than my generation ever did. To the point of burnout so they got tired and quit.

The conversation we had was, why risk CTI or other injury in an activity that has no more or less life benefit than other sports or school activities. Nothing against the sport if you love it, but the risks outweighed the rewards...

The phone argument has some merit, but this generation has a big selection to keep themselves entertained. And to be honest, if I would have had the choice to go out and roast/freeze doing chores or play on my phone, I would have played on my phone!
 
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Nebraska Fan

Senior
Sep 1, 2004
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My guess is club sports impact participation starting with middle school in larger communities. If you want to play JV ball the coaches are already familiar with kids who have been playing youth football and they already have a depth chart in their head. What are the chances I am going to get the coaching I need if I haven't been in a formal program outside of school?
 

RedMyMind

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Aug 22, 2017
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I know as an adult I would never play sports due to the risk of injury, even in non-impact sports.

Sports aren't really activities that promote physical health. They are games we play for fun/money at a detriment to our health. Some worse than others.

Now Ping Pong? Sign me up. :)