Trending
According to the U.S. Department of Education: Out of every 100 ninth-graders, 68 will graduate from high school, 40 will enter college directly, 27 are still enrolled in college in their second year, and 18 will graduate from college.
These numbers include all students who are entered in college.
One in approximately 16,000 high school athletes will have a career in professional sports.
98 out of 100 high school athletes never play collegiate sports of any kind at any level.
Less than one out of every 100 high school athletes receive a scholarship of any kind to a Division I school.
Approximately: 471,000 high school baseball players; 31,000 college baseball players; 800 drafted baseball players.
Approximately: 1.1 million high school football players; 68,000 college football players; 255 drafted football players.
99.883 percent of high school athletes who participate in sports with major professional leagues will have to find ways to make a living outside of sports.
According to scholarshipstats.com, for the 2011-12 school year, there were 4,484,987 high school male athletes and 341,588 (7.6 percent) competed in college in just about any sport you can imagine.
The seven most popular sports were football (1,123,744), track and field (645,513), basketball (535,569), baseball (474,219), soccer (412,351), wrestling (272,149), cross country (248,494).
The top sports by percentages were fencing (32.3), gymnastics (14.7), ice hockey and lacrosse (11.7), baseball (11.2) and rifle (9.3).
The numbers show that 3,207,533 females played high school sports and 246,162 (7.7 percent) went on to play in college in just about any sport imaginable.
The top seven sports were track and field (529,200), basketball (436,100), volleyball (418,903), softball (381,116), soccer (371,393), tennis (218,093) and cross country (212,262).
The top sports by percentages were fencing (38.1), ice hockey (22.7), rifle (13.3), lacrosse (11.7), synchronized swimming (11.3) and water polo (9.8).
I’m just ust curious, but does anyone see a trend with the number of top populated sports and the number of top sports via percentages?
As the 2014-15 high school sports seasons get under way, there is a really good chance that really good athlete in your family is heading to college to study and play nothing more than intramural sports.
And, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Not everyone gets a scholarship.
Not everyone gets offered a scholarship.
Not everyone can qualify for a scholarship.
Grades.
Grades.
Grades.
Those get you into college.
Education keeps you in college.
Sports is a means to get into college and get that valued education.
Our family has visited a handful of colleges for my son, who wants to play soccer or basketball at the next level.
One thing I have been thoroughly impressed with at each academic institution is the cooperation between the academic and sports worlds.
If there is not that cooperation, the student-athlete suffers.
Professors cannot think that education is here (hand way above head) and sports is here (hand at the ankle).
If the academic world at an educational facility thinks like that, there is a huge problem and it is at the hands of the educators, not the coaches.
I have said in this column a gazillion times that sports are a great teacher and all students should have more than one teacher.
I understand that economics quiz, the art project and the science lab are really important, but, believe it or not, equally as important, is that league championship game in soccer, the NCAA first round volleyball match and the Division III track and field national championships.
Sometimes, people don’t want to believe that.
Coaches must also understand and continue to harp on their athletes how important it is to study and take that 10 point history quiz as important as taking 100 foul shots.
Coaches must not ever think that sports are here (hand way above head) and education is here (hand at the ankle).
If there are educators and coaches who think that way, there must be a really stern meeting between the two, the athletic director and the president.
When that tug-of-war exists, the kids lose and that shouldn’t happen.
Parents, there have been a lot of really, really good athletes since I stepped into this profession in October 2005 who have gone onto college and put away the cleats, tennis shoes or golf clubs.
There have also been a lot of really, really good athletes who played for a year, or two, and realized their athletic careers were over and education was, indeed, the main priority.
Remember – they are playing and we aren’t.
Google Christian Lunsford, watch and listen.
(Mathison, a Weirton resident, is the sports editor of the Herald-Star and The Weirton Daily Times and can be contacted at mmathison@heraldstaronline.com and followed on Twitter at @MathisonMike)