Every spring, high school athletic departments are required to provide the Georgia High School Association with the number of students who participated in a sanctioned sport that school year. The GHSA has collected participation data since the 1987-88 school year, and it in turn submits the data to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), the governing body under which most high school athletic programs participate.
The data is useful for all kinds of things. It helps the GHSA with forecasting possibly scenarios for realignment, the process by which schools are divided into regions within six classifications. It’s also required under Title IX, the federal law passed in 1972 prohibiting sex discrimination in education, including high school and college athletics.
The data also gives local high school athletic directors the opportunity to gauge the health and progress of its overall athletic department and the sports within it.
“You can kind of see where your programs are going,” North Forsyth athletic director Nathan Turner said. “You can evaluate it and see what programs are growing and what programs aren’t growing. You can use that as a reflection tool of why is this program not sustaining and achieving? Or why is this program’s numbers up? What are they doing?”
Here are a few interesting things from this past school year’s data:
Lacrosse booming
Lacrosse first became a GHSA-sanctioned sport in the 2000-01 school year. This past season, 6,830 players and 186 teams competed, according to the GHSA survey. That makes it the 12th-largest sport in the state out of 17 state-sanctioned sports.
But in Forsyth County, lacrosse is tied for the second-largest sport with track and field. That’s right, the sport has leap-frogged traditionally popular sports like soccer, basketball and baseball. Case in point: Lambert had more players in its boys lacrosse program (82) than Forsyth Central did in football (80).
The sport’s popularity in Forsyth County is, of course, a force of geography. The transplant-nature of metro Atlanta has brought lacrosse mercenaries from all over, particularly the north, and the county seems to be converting.
Track and field still strong
Speaking of track and field; it’s tied for the second-largest sport in Forsyth County high schools with 504 athletes, which is consistent with the state of the sport in Georgia as a whole. Track and field is the second-largest sport in the state, behind only football, with 23,995 athletes this past season.
Perhaps that’s notable only because the sport rarely registers with popular consciousness in the same way that mainstream sports like baseball, basketball, football and others do. It’s not regularly featured on television, and only figures prominently every four years for the Olympics.
And yet, on the high school level, it’s participation is as healthy as ever.
Math doesn’t add up for Pinecrest
This past season, Pinecrest Academy had 321 high school athletes. Which is fine, except the Paladins only had 294 high school students.
How is that possible? Easy: the GHSA counts athletes who participate in multiple sports once for each sport they participate in. Clearly, Pinecrest has LOTS of multi-sport athletes.
That’s to be expected for a Class A program. When ranked alongside Forsyth County’s public high schools, Pinecrest ranks last in participation for almost every sport. Class A athletic programs survive off the multi-sport athlete.
But there is one notable exception for the Paladins: boy soccer, where Pinecrest has as many players (37) as Lambert and North Forsyth and more than Forsyth Central (36) and South Forsyth (32). Maybe it’s no surprise the Paladins reached the Class A private school quarterfinals this past season.
Gender equity
“A goal of ours would be to get gender equity as equal as possible,” Forsyth Central athletic director Dan Kaplan said.
Indeed, much of the motivation behind athletic participation surveys is to monitor the progress of gender equity in high school sports in schools, counties and the state.
Georgia has a checkered history on that issue. In 2010, the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) filed a complaint against Henry County just south of Atlanta and 11 other school districts across the country for failing to provide high school girls with equal opportunities to play sports. Henry County Schools eventually made efforts to add high school girls teams in lacrosse and gymnastics.
This past June, the NWLC ranked Georgia dead last for gender equity in high school sports for the percentage of high schools with gender equity gaps greater than 10 percent.
“While there is no set gap that constitutes a violation of Title IX,” the NWLC report states, “… gaps of 10 percent or more indicate that schools are likely not complying with the law.”
By that definition, Forsyth County is in OK shape. Its gender equity gap this past season was 9 percent. West Forsyth (6 percent), Lambert (6.7 percent) and Forsyth Central (7.2 percent) in particular had strong numbers, especially when compared to Georgia as a whole; the state’s overall gender equity gap was 11.7 percent in 2014-15.
But a few Forsyth County schools fall short on gender equity: Pinecrest Academy (10.3 percent), South Forsyth (13.8 percent) and North Forsyth (14.9 percent).
Gender equity is calculated by taking the percentage of high school students who are girls and subtracting the percentage of high school athletes who are girls.
Number of high school athletes
Lambert 988
West Forsyth 956
North 856
South 853
Central 633
Pinecrest 321
Number of high school boy athletes
North 574
Lambert 558
West 542
South 541
Central 398
Pinecrest 185
Number of high school girl athletes
Lambert 430
West 414
South 312
North 282
Central 235
Pinecrest 136
Baseball
1. West Forsyth 63
2. North Forsyth 60
3. Forsyth Central 58
4. South Forsyth 57
5. Lambert 55
6. Pinecrest 18
Boys basketball
1. West Forsyth 39
2. Lambert 38
3. South Forsyth 38
4. North Forsyth 37
5. Forsyth Central 35
6. Pinecrest 22
Girls basketball
1. North Forsyth 34
2. Lambert 30
3. West Forsyth 29
4. South Forsyth 27
5. Forsyth Central 16
6. Pinecrest 12
Competition cheer
1. Lambert 40
2. West Forsyth 35
3. North Forsyth 34
4. South Forsyth 32
5. Pinecrest 28
6. Forsyth Central 20
Boys cross country
1. North Forsyth 42
2. South Forsyth 40
3. West Forsyth 37
4. Forsyth Central 31
5. Lambert 30
6. Pinecrest 14
Girls cross country
1. Lambert 48
2. South Forsyth 42
3. West Forsyth 28
4. North Forsyth 25
5. Forsyth Central 20
6. Pinecrest 9
Football
1. Lambert 158
2. West Forsyth 140
3. South Forsyth 133
4. North Forsyth 112
5. Forsyth Central 80
6. Pinecrest 36
Boys golf
1. West Forsyth 20
2. South Forsyth 17
T3. Forsyth Central 13
T3. North Forsyth 13
5. Lambert 12
6. Pinecrest 7
Girls golf
1. Lambert 12
2. West Forsyth 11
T3. North Forsyth 7
T3. South Forsyth 7
5. Forsyth Central 4
6. Pinecrest 0
Gymnastics
1. Forsyth Central 14
2. South Forsyth 11
3. West Forsyth 11
4. Lambert 10
5. North Forsyth 0
6. Pinecrest 0
Boys lacrosse
1. Lambert 82
2. South Forsyth 64
3. West Forsyth 61
4. North Forsyth 34
5. Forsyth Central 30
6. Pinecrest 23
Girls lacrosse
1. Lambert 60
2. West Forsyth 48
3. South Forsyth 32
4. North Forsyth 29
5. Pinecrest 22
6. Forsyth Central 19
Boys soccer
1. West Forsyth 48
T2. Lambert 37
T2. North Forsyth 37
T2. Pinecrest 37
5. Forsyth Central 36
6. South Forsyth 32
Girls soccer
1. West Forsyth 36
T2. Lambert 34
T2. North Forsyth 34
4. Forsyth Central 33
5. South Forsyth 31
6. Pinecrest 26
Softball
1. West Forsyth 32
2. Forsyth Central 29
3. North Forsyth 26
T4. Lambert 23
T4. South Forsyth 23
6. Pinecrest 13
Boys swim/dive
1. Lambert 46
2. South Forsyth 29
3. North Forsyth 24
4. West Forsyth 21
5. Forsyth Central 15
6. Pinecrest 12
Girls swim/dive
1. Lambert 58
2. West Forsyth 35
3. Forsyth Central 30
4. South Forsyth 27
5. North Forsyth 25
6. Pinecrest 21
Boys riflery
1. North Forsyth 6
2. Forsyth Central 0
3. Lambert 0
4. Pinecrest 0
5. South Forsyth 0
6. West Forsyth 0
Girls riflery
1. North Forsyth 5
2. Forsyth Central 0
3. Lambert 0
4. Pinecrest 0
5. South Forsyth 0
6. West Forsyth 0
Boys tennis
1. South Forsyth 25
2. Lambert 24
3. North Forsyth 13
4. Forsyth Central 12
5. West Forsyth 11
6. Pinecrest 8
Girls tennis
1. South Forsyth 28
2. Lambert 24
3. Forsyth Central 15
T4. North Forsyth 10
T4. West Forsyth 10
6. Pinecrest 9
Boys track and field
1. West Forsyth 71
2. South Forsyth 63
3. North Forsyth 62
4. Forsyth Central 58
5. Lambert 43
6. Pinecrest 0
Girls track and field
1. Lambert 55
2. West Forsyth 49
3. South Forsyth 46
4. Forsyth Central 29
5. North Forsyth 28
6. Pinecrest 0
Volleyball
T1. South Forsyth 38
T1. West Forsyth 38
3. Lambert 36
4. Forsyth Central 26
5. North Forsyth 25
6. Pinecrest 23
Weightlifting
1. North Forsyth 40
2. Forsyth Central 0
3. Lambert 0
4. Pinecrest 0
5. South Forsyth 0
6. West Forsyth 0
Wrestling
1. North Forsyth 54
2. South Forsyth 43
3. Lambert 33
4. West Forsyth 31
5. Forsyth Central 30
6. Pinecrest 0
* North Forsyth participation numbers are from 2013-14 school year
