A sport is a sport.. So even though we traditionally think of prep sports as football, basketball, and baseball. have a tennis and wrestling team. The rise of individual or independent sports. This is actually a wide net of different activities but let's talk about a few and how it's changing the prep sport world. There may be clubs for these activities but not school sponsored teams. So what activies are we talking about? Some are a little more obvious and some we've been doing since we're little kids for fun.. An example of the obvious would be something like tennis or wrestling. Let's take a look at what's coming in the high school sport arena. Even beyond these individual sports which are halfway there, you have different activities such as ping pong, discus golf, roller derby, and fencing.Dad's taking sons to pee wee football, bball, and baseball.S. Most high schools in the U... In a nutshell, there's some new kids on the block. high school athletic departments, a big wave of change has slowly rolled on during the past decade or two. We're not talking competitive eating here although, you could probably argue for that as well. Although the big three are pretty comfortable in their current positions across U.let's keep in mind that interest in other individual sports in constantly increasing in popularity at the high school level. Both are pretty prevalent at the high school level. That's probably part of drives the continued popularity of these sports. An example would be snowboarding, boxing (probably for obvious liability reasons), or various martial arts which is everything from karate to jujitsu. All have competitive elements in them and all are gaining popularity with today's youth. That's only half the story. You then start to get into different activities that most schools don't have competitive teams for. The trend has been a decreasing participation rate (per capita) for traditional team sports such as the big three and an increase in interest, time, and participation in what's loosely called individual sports.When we traditionally think of sports at the high school level, the big three come to mind.. If you can complete against others and there's a level of skill and/or ability needed in order to succeed, then that by definition is a sport. Prep Football, Basketball, and Baseball.S. They've been around for ever and have actually crossed over into the "mainstream" prep sport segment. Obviously, these can be incredibly competitive and it's very easy to trampoline with safety net see how they are individual sports at the prep level but you just don't find a wide availability at an organized level across high schools. You're going to get bad looks pretty quickly and with good reason. Also in this "almost there" category would be swimming and golf. I personally can't eat 42 hot dogs without turning white and going into shock. There's some serious tradition imparted on these sports which go back decades if not generations. Now for the purist in high school sports which is probably driven by a person's age and what they're familiar with, these may not feel like sports in the traditional sense but try telling that to someone whose world revolves around competition in one of these different sports
