Girls Gaining Ground in High School Athletics but They Still Trail Boys

Coming from far behind their male counterparts in almost all areas of sport, U.S. high school girls continue to make athletic strides in school, joining teams in large numbers and setting performance records every season, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation in New York.

Yet girls’ participation “still lags behind that of boys, and girls’ progress is also beginning to slow,” said Kathryn Reith, assistant executive director of the foundation.

After the 1972 passage of Title IX, the federal law that banned discrimination in high school athletics, girls’ participation in sports rose more than 600%--from 294,105 in the 1971-72 school year to 2.1 million in 1977-78, according to the National Federation of High School Assns. But since 1978, there has been a drop of about 142,000, a nearly 7% decrease, partly attributable to a decline in enrollment.

While more than half of all boys participate in high school sports, fewer than a third of girls are involved in school athletics, a study by the Women’s Sports Foundation showed.

Many girls are lured from sports by other after-school activities. A sizable number say they are assuming domestic responsibilities for their working parents.

When Jackie Cyriac, a 10th-grader at Taft High School in the San Fernando Valley, is not in school or practicing speech and debate, she does housework and cares for her 9-year-old sister and 3-year-old brother while her parents are at work.

“I like tennis, but I just don’t have time for it,” she said.