California high school sports participation at all-time high with more than 815,000 athletes
California high school sports participation is at an all-time high, the CIF State office announced in a press release on Monday. This marks the eighth year in a row that the state has had an increase in participation.
These findings came from the 2019-20 CIF Sports Participation Survey, which asked the state's 1,606 member schools to record the number of participants they have in each sport. The survey was part of a National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) nationwide survey.
According to the survey, participation in athletics is up by 0.16% since the 2018-19 survey, with 815,313 student-athletes competing in education-based athletic programs in California.
Volleyball and track and field saw an increase in participation from both genders. There were 1,830 more participants in volleyball from a year ago, which is a 2.68% uptick. Track and field had 2,050 more participants, a 2.03% increase.
Football had a 1.69% drop in participation from a year ago, which comes out to 1,549 student athletes. Football still has the largest participation numbers among boys' sports with 89,756 participants. On the girls' side, soccer has the largest number of participants with 48,647.
