HS sports participation continues to grow in NJ as national numbers hit record highs

After enduring a painful setback during the COVID-19 pandemic, high school sports in New Jersey and nationwide have made a dramatic comeback — with lots more pins and touchdowns.

A record 8 million student-athletes participated in high school athletics during the 2023-24 school year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, which oversees 51 member state associations, including the District of Columbia.

“The comeback from the pause of school sports during the pandemic has been so gratifying,” said Karissa Niehoff, chief executive officer of the Indiana-based NFHS, “and certainly indicates the staying power of education-based sports in our nation’s schools.”

For the second consecutive school year, New Jersey saw increased participation, adding more than 8,000. The 280,798 reported by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association marks a return to pre-pandemic numbers and places the Garden State at No. 9 in the nation.

“Total participation increased nationally by 2%, with 2.2% growth among our member schools for NJSIAA-sanctioned sports,” said Colleen Maguire, the association's executive director. “It’s exciting to see that we’ve now reached pre-COVID pandemic participation levels in many sports.”

Nationwide participation for 2023-24 increased by 210,469 student-athletes to 8,062,302, according to the NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey. That surpassed the previous record of 7,980,886, set during the 2017-18 school year. (Due to the pandemic, there was no NFHS survey for 2019-20 or 2020-21.)

In New Jersey, participation in 2023-24 rose by 8,639 and includes increases in two high-contact sports: football and wrestling. That 280,798 total is just 260 shy of the 281,058 registered in 2018-19.

North Jersey was an epicenter of the pandemic in 2020, due to its proximity to New York City, and saw a decrease in sports participation, especially for sub-varsity programs. But over the past two school years, there has been a bounce-back.

“I saw numbers start to increase in many of our conference sports,” said Stan Fryczynski, executive director of the North Jersey Interscholastic Conference. “We are finally getting a rebound in varsity levels after COVID had put a big hit on participation. Underclass levels are slowly starting to rise again for some of our schools as well.”

Girls flag football participation soaring

Fueling the rise of participation in football in New Jersey and nationwide is girls flag football — America’s fastest-growing sport.

More than 30 states have sanctioned girls flag football or created pilot programs. Participation has almost tripled over three school years, from 15,716 in 2021-22 to 42,955 in 2023-24. (Men’s and women’s flag football will be a sport at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.)

“Another positive aspect of adding flag football is that data captured from the states that have sanctioned the sport for girls shows about half of the girls playing the sport were not engaged previously in another high school sport,” Niehoff said.

New Jersey saw more than 3,000 girls playing flag football last school year, Maguire said, and it could be elevated from a pilot program to an official sport. Girls flag football remains unsanctioned largely because that allows athletes to play while also playing a sanctioned sport during the spring season. such as softball, lacrosse or track and field.

“NJSIAA is closely monitoring the growth of girls flag football and working with its five football leagues and conferences on a plan to ask NJSIAA member schools for their support in officially sanctioning girls flag football as our 34 ^th sport,” Maguire said.

The popularity of girls’ flag football, with support from the NFL, has been so feverish that the NFHS recently announced that it will create standardized playing rules in time for the 2025-26 school year. The NFHS Board of Governors approved an 11-member Flag Football Rules Committee, which will convene in January and provide a rulebook by May.

“With the national rules structure in place, those [participation] numbers are certain to explode over the next few years,” Niehoff said.

Girls wrestling continues to grow

New Jersey wrestling, like football, also has seen a rise in numbers, from 10,125 in 2018-19 to 13,248 in 2023-24, and girls’ participation has more than tripled.

In 2018-19, the first season there was an official NJSIAA girls’ championship, there were 477 wrestlers divided into 10 weight classes. In 2023-24, there were 1,669 wrestlers divided into 12 weight classes.

Rancocas Valley has a thriving wrestling program, and athletic director Mike Lamb said the birth and rise of the girls’ team came from building a positive atmosphere. Girls who had played softball signed up for wrestling to stay in shape, and the team remains steady with 25 to 30 on the roster.

“When they saw the culture of the wrestling program, the girls working out right next to the guys and it wasn’t weird, the girls felt like they belonged,” Lamb said.

Kingsway is among South Jersey’s largest schools, and athletic director June Cioffi said participation numbers never waned and “the volume of student-athletes participating at our school is crazy.” Cioffi estimates 800 apiece during fall and spring seasons and 600 during the winter.

“We never saw a drop in numbers, even during the pandemic, especially in our female sports,” Cioffi said. “One of the keys is we never lost any of our freshmen teams, either, and we still have the strength of our middle-school programs.”

The past, the future

New Jersey has come a long way since the height of the pandemic in 2020. Remember, COVID-19 led the NJSIAA to halt winter state tournaments in March 2020 and- to cancel the 2020 spring season. In the fall of 2020 and winter of 2020-21, sports played limited regular seasons and no state tournaments.

"The future of sports, especially in our conference, looks bright,” said the NJIC’s Fryczynski. “High school athletics is an important fabric of education. It will always be here. The pandemic definitely put a huge dent in participation levels, and four years later, we are finally starting to see the numbers tick upward in a variety of sports. We slowly have had schools add new athletic programs (cross-country, bowling, tennis, boys volleyball, girls flag football). This certainly is a positive."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: HS sports participation continues to grow in NJ as national numbers hit record highs