Girls Are Leaving High School Basketball in Droves. What’s Going On?
By Ken Reed
High school basketball teams are starting to practice in preparation for the 2022-23 season. But fewer girls will be playing this year.
Nationally, basketball has gone from the number one sport for girls in high school to the fourth most popular girls high school sport over the course of two decades.
Why? That’s the million dollar question. There are a bunch of theories but not much in the way of solid research.
Girls basketball has lost 19% of its players since 2002, while the top three girls sports, in order, all gained — track and field (+10%), volleyball (+15%), and soccer (+27%). In some states, the decline is even worse than the national number. In Texas, girls basketball participation is down 38% over 20 years. Iowa has half the number of female high school basketball players as they did in the late 1990s. The number of girls basketball teams in Nebraska has dropped by 12% over two decades. Meanwhile, the number of girls playing high school sports overall in Nebraska is up nearly 11% in the last decade.
Even basketball-crazy Indiana is feeling the effects of this trend. Indiana’s New Albany High School had to halt the girls junior varsity program in midseason last year because of dropping numbers. New Albany High School has 1,800 students and won the big-school girls state basketball championship in 1999.
Boys basketball participation at the high school level has also dropped over the last two decades but only by 4%, 15% less than the girls game.
Ironically, the drop in girls high school basketball participation occurred during a period when the women’s game grew in popularity. TV ratings for the women’s NCAA basketball tournament and the WNBA are on the rise.
Here’s a list of theories from coaches and other observers as to why the girls game is faltering:
* More girls are specializing in one sport year-round and many of them are not choosing basketball.
* Schools have added other sports for girls during the last 20 years, and those sports have pulled some girls from basketball.
* Some girls see basketball as too physically demanding.
* Club teams are a bigger phenomenon in sports like volleyball and soccer than they are in basketball and club teams have a lot of power over athletes and their parents.
* And then there’s this theory: Some girls believe basketball isn’t “girly” enough and the uniforms aren’t cute enough.
“It’s sad,” said Erica Delley, first-year head coach at Dallas’s Kimball High School (which was a regional power when Delley played there in the early 2000s). “That’s why I came back, to make a difference and try to encourage kids to play.”
Here’s hoping she and others who love basketball are successful.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans

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Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
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Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- Reed Appears on Ralph Nader Radio Hour League of Fans’ sports policy director, Ken Reed, Ralph Nader and the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner discussed a variety of sports issues on Nader’s radio show as well as Reed’s updated book, How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan. Reed's book was released in paperback in February, and has a new introduction and several updated sections.
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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