Que Tucker played high school basketball as a student at Stoneville High School in Reidsville in the late 1960s. At the time, it was the only sport girls could play, but it wasn’t the only sport Tucker was interested in.

“I look back and I think about what I could have participated in because I wanted to. I mean, I high jumped when I was in high school, but it wasn’t on an organized track team, it was just in a sawdust pit at a field day with four or five schools in Rockingham County,” Tucker said.

Title IX of the Civil Rights Act was not signed into law until 1972, so opportunities for girls in sports were limited.

“You know that old saying that we used to see a lot – ‘we’ve come a long way, baby.’ I look back and I think about that now, and we truly have come a long way,” said Tucker. “I think we see that in so many different areas.”

Now the first female commissioner of the N.C. High School Athletic Association, Tucker is seeing the results firsthand. According to data released by the NCHSAA, there have never been more girls playing high school sports in North Carolina than there are today.

During the 2023-2024 school year, the number of girls playing high school sports in the state surpassed 90,000 for the first time ever. Every single sanctioned girls sport saw participation rise, bringing the total number of female participants to 91,111, representing an increase of 6.6% from the prior school year.

The previous all-time high was 89,826 set during the 2016-2017 school year.

Such an increase in girls sports participation is counter to many recent trends, both in North Carolina and nationally. Some sports in North Carolina are even setting new marks for record participation by girls.

There are more basketball, golf, indoor track, lacrosse, soccer, outdoor track, softball, and volleyball teams for girls in North Carolina today than at any time before. Golf, indoor track, lacrosse, outdoor track, and volleyball also set new records for the number of athletes participating.

Volleyball, one of the fastest growing sports in North Carolina, added 524 new athletes last year and surpassed 10,000 participants for the first time ever. For the second straight year, the number of girls participating in outdoor track eclipsed 11,000. And while the numbers are smaller compared to other sports, girls golf participation surpassed 1,500 for the first time.

Even sports that have seen dramatic declines over the last decade are seeing positive trends. Girls basketball, which lost 16.5% of its participants form 2014 through the 2021-2022 school year, has now seen positive growth each of the last two seasons. In fact, the number of girls basketball players in North Carolina has now surpassed the number of girls playing the sport before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Softball, another sport that has seen a decline in participation for several years, has also seen back-to-back years of growth.

“Sometimes it’s hard to put your finger on why the numbers rise like they do. Obviously, we’re glad they have risen, but sometimes it’s hare to put your finger on it,” Tucker said.

The pandemic effect

After the COVID-19 pandemic, girls sports participation dropped 12.5% in North Carolina to 76,612 athletes. It was the lowest participation rate among girls in two decades. But in just two years, the NCHSAA has seen a full recovery and is now setting participation records.

While it was not shocking participation dropped during and immediately after the pandemic, the drop in female participation was alarming, and significantly higher than the 6.4% decline seen in boys sports.

“I just think that perhaps coming out of COVID … perhaps our girls were a little slower to get back into the mix of playing multiple sports, maybe even just playing one sport” said Tucker.

Boys participation returned to pre-pandemic levels during the 2022-2023 school year and grew another 4.5% this past school year to 117,611.

Girls participation has never matched or surpassed boys participation in North Carolina high school sports, but the impact of the pandemic was seen more widely on the girls side. Multiple surveys of athletic directors conducted by HighSchoolOT in 2020 and 2021 showed a high level of concern about girls sports participation.

But now the pandemic may be creating new opportunities.

This past fall, a new record was set for the number of schools offering girls golf and the number of girls participating in the sport statewide.

Millbrook High School athletic director Chris East, who previously coached boys and girls golf at Millbrook, thinks that could be because of the pandemic.

“It’s something that’s starting to take off because that’s something that people could do during COVID and the interest is pretty high,” East said.

He said many students also have a desire to be connected to others after experiencing the isolation of the pandemic.

“Kids need to feel connected. You could see the fallout of COVID, kids learning through a screen instead of in person. To me, for you to have some connection to your school, for you to be able to represent your school in some shape or form – not necessarily just athletically, but it could be band, or theater, anything along those lines – give those kids a feeling that they need to part of something, I think that just makes them a better all around individual,” said East.

Females in sports are getting more attention

The attention given to women’s sports at the collegiate and professional level has never been higher than it is today, and there may be no better example than in the sport of basketball.

Whether it’s South Carolina’s women’s basketball team finishing an undefeated season, the rise of the WNBA, or the individual stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, the audience for women’s sports is growing rapidly.

We don’t yet know if girls participation in high school sports grew nationally or if North Carolina is an anomaly, but many people involved in this state believe the momentum behind college and professional women’s sports is directly correlated with the growing interest of high school girls in playing sports.

“The access to the ways in which sports is being presented is much more available than perhaps it has been,” Tucker said, noting that people can watch sports on all their devices. “I do believe that just the rise in the attention given to female sports has been much more publicized than it ever has been.”

In 2023, the Panther Creek girls basketball team won the NCHSAA 4A state championship for the first time in school history. Head coach Danielle Sullivan, who just completed her 11th season with the Catamounts, has seen the sport grow at her school.

“I think the dynamics and just the influx of energy and media attention and positivity that the college game has brought has done a drastic kind of overhaul of women’s basketball. I think that they’ve been able to add some excitement,” Sullivan said. “For myself, even growing up, there were some Sheryl Swoopes and Lisa Leslies, some big names, but it wasn’t as exciting as guys following the NBA. I think the college game, the WNBA, I think it’s generating a ton of excitement.”

Sullivan pointed to the schools like Iowa, South Carolina, and Connecticut, but said the interest in women’s college basketball locally has also played a factor.

NC State, for example, is coming off an appearance in the Final Four. The Wolfpack played in front of big crowds at Reynolds Coliseum. One of the key players for NC State played basketball within the NCHSAA — Saniya Rivers, who attended both Laney High School and Ashley High School in Wilmington.

“They’re generating so much excitement that the girls are wanting to be a part of it,” said Sullivan. “I think it’s a few things that are all fighting in the right, positive direction, to where you’re seeing females make positive impacts on huge stages and use their platform for good, and little girls see that.”

Sullivan and Tucker both agreed that social media plays a big role as well, and Sullivan said high schools are working on outreach to middle school programs to get girls interested early.

Panther Creek and many other high schools host middle school nights where middle school students get into games for free.

“We try to make sure we’re seen at the middle school games and that we invite them to come and be in our gyms,” Sullivan said. “After we had our state championship run there was one little girl in particular who my son ended up playing (youth sports) against. She recognized who I was as the coach of Panther Creek, came to our games, and we made it a point for Olivia Tucker and Taylor Barner to go over and introduce themselves, and she was elated. It was somebody she had watched and knew they were going to go play Division I basketball.”

New opportunities for girls in sports

This past winter, the NCHSAA officially sanctioned girls wrestling for the first time.

A total of 1,432 girls wrestlers from 248 different schools participated in the sport, which culminated in an individual wrestling state championship tournament. It was the product of several years worth of work, which included a non-sanctioned girls wrestling invitational.

“We’ve known for a number of years that it has grown, and I think after it was well known and well publicized that the 2023 school year would be the last year of an invitational, and that then the next year it would be standalone, I think we’ve just had a lot more girls participating in that sport in and of itself,” Tucker said.

In fact, the number of girls participating in wrestling grew by 74.4% from 2023 to 2024.

“I think it’s very important, if for no other reason, we want to be an inclusive organization. We believe that every student-athlete who goes through the front door of a school should have the opportunity to participate in sports,” said Tucker. “It’s part of our mission. It’s part of what we want to do and what we want to be about, for us to provide those opportunities for females, for anybody who participates or who goes into the front door of our member schools.”

The NCHSAA Board of Directors approved the sanctioning of girls wrestling during the 50th anniversary of Title IX in 2022.

“It took us a long time to get to where we were able to sanction wrestling, and our wrestling coaches, to their credit, they worked hard to try to maintain, to try to sustain the interest so that their numbers would be there,” said Tucker.

The hard work of wrestling coaches has not gone unnoticed at the school level either. East said the Millbrook wrestling coaches have done a good job of bringing out new female athletes.

“I think our coaches do a good job of working the hallways and trying to find those kids that need some form of connection to the school in some way. I know I can say that a lot about our wrestlers because there are kids that basically don’t do anything else and they’re out there wrestling, which I thought was pretty cool,” he said.

Girls wrestling is the newest sanctioned girls sport, but there is another girls sport that is quickly gaining steam — flag football.

HighSchoolOT has identified 116 schools that plan to field girls flag football teams during the 2024-2025 school year, and many school districts plan to hold an unofficial state playoff in November and December.

The Carolina Panthers have supported the establishment of flag football in North Carolina high schools, and organizers have not been shy about their desire to see the sport sanctioned by the NCHSAA. Tucker says the NCHSAA has had discussions about flag football and remains open to new opportunities for their student-athletes.

“It’s exciting. It seems as though the females are enjoying it,” Tucker said, noting that the National Federation of State High School Associations has been asked to write official rules for flag football. She also said there are some challenges that must be overcome before another new sport can be sanctioned by the NCHSAA though.

“I think that the NCHSAA will always look at anything that is in compliance with the bylaws. It is important we also recognize we want these sports to be able to sustain themselves,” she said.

The NCHSAA currently requires 25% of the full membership or 50% of a single classification to field a team in a sport before it can be considered for sanctioning. Bylaws also require that threshold be maintained for two years.

“We’re getting close, that’s a great thing and I don’t want anybody to think that we’re not supportive of flag football. I want us also to know that it is important that we’re able to sustain it, and that our schools will be able to sustain it financially,” Tucker said. “The NFL has done a great job of trying to promote it … and we appreciate that they put some money into it. We’re grateful for that. But then what happens when the NFL or certain teams say, ‘OK. That’s all we’re going to be able to do.’ Will the programs be able to continue on for however long so that they can sustain themselves? So we’ll watch that and that’ll be, I’m sure, one of the directives from our board.”

The schools providing flag football already have seen interest skyrocket and the sport is bringing out more female athletes.

“These are girls who may have never picked up and played football any more than just throwing a football with their brothers in the backyard, and they’re able to come in and be part of the team, make an impact, wear a school jersey, and be a part of something,” Sullivan said.

“I think the more opportunities that can be generated for females to be part of a team, be able to compete, that is going to drive participation across the board. The more opportunities that are there, I think there are only good things that come from that.”

No matter if — or more likely, when — flag football becomes a sanctioned sport in North Carolina, Tucker knows girls sports have come a long way since her days as a high school student in Rockingham County. Reflecting on that progress leaves Tucker with a satisfied feeling.

“You look at all those places now where women are excelling, and to think about how far we’ve come, that’s a pretty warm feeling. It’s an exciting feeling to recognize that we’re accepted,” she said. “You look at the tweets and things you see from our prominent male figures as they react to certain things females are accomplishing in their sports — whether it’s Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese, or the University of South Carolina going undefeated, or I think about our women’s gymnastics team and Simone Biles — again, that’s acceptance.”

Source: highschoolot.com