Collegiate Sports

[blackcat]

This is not surprising.

By Dan Shulman Globe Correspondent August 24, 2018

Football remained the most popular high school sport for boys during the 2017-18 school year, but its participant numbers declined for the second straight year.

There were 1,035,942 participants in 11-player high school football in 2017-18, according to the latest National Federation of State High School Association high school athletics survey. That represented a 2 percent drop from 2016-17. The decline from 2015 to 2016 was 2.5 percent.

“While we continue to try to make football a viable option, we understand that some parents continue to have a concern about the physical nature of the sport,” said Karissa Niehoff, executive director of the NFHS. “Certainly, the goal is to involve more and more young people in sports and activity programs, because the benefits of participating in sports and activities is the same whether it is football, baseball, lacrosse, music, band, or debate.”

Football safety has been a major issue at all levels of the game, and several medical professionals have been outspoken in their belief that the game should be avoided, particularly at the youth levels. Twenty schools in the US dropped football prior to the 2017 season.