Wisconsin Ranks 14th In Number Of High School Athletes

In Wisconsin high schools, football is the most popular sport for males. For females, it’s volleyball. Track and field isn’t far behind for both genders.

Nationally, the number of high school athletes is growing at record levels, but numbers are flat in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin ranks 14th in the United States for overall high school sports participation with 183,044 athletes in the 2016-17 school year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Wisconsin’s ranking has historically been high, however reduced enrollment in rural districts and not adding sports are creating a dip in participation.

“Leveling off is something you’d expect unless you’re adding sports,” said Todd Clark, director of communications for the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association. “There are some sports that continue to grow in popularity and some are stagnant based on limited number of individuals available to be on a team.”

Clark said there are many different reasons why communities can’t round up enough kids for a varsity team. Reduced school enrollment is one of them.

“Our research shows that the amount of decline in enrollments is pretty equal to the percentage decrease in participation in football,” Clark said.

Westfield High School, Chippewa Falls’ McDonell Central Catholic High School and North Fond du Lac High School have announced they won’t have varsity football teams this year because of low participation.

“In the last decade, there’s been one or two schools that needs to drop their varsity program and go down to a junior varsity,” Clark said. “And of course we’ve added eight-player football throughout the state, and we have roughly 24 or 26 eight-player teams as well. You need less players that member schools have joined with that model.”

McDonell Central was planning to start the eight-player model this year but couldn’t get enough members for a team.