About 20 Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) freshman girls tried out for a sport this fall. That’s a noticeably smaller number than in years past, when 30 or more female freshman athletes turned out.
“Right now I think we have 15 in the field hockey program, and then we probably have three or four girls in the soccer program, and then we might have one girl on the cross-country team that’s a freshman,” MVRHS athletic director Mark McCarthy said. “So the numbers are down across the board.”
There wasn’t enough of a showing to field a girls junior varsity (JV) soccer team. The program kept all 25 girls who tried out, opting for a bigger varsity squad over cutting younger girls who didn’t have the option to play JV.
“There were enough to keep them in the program, keep them interested, keep them practicing, so next year if we get a bump in freshmen from the eighth graders coming up, hopefully we will be able to form a team then,” Mr. McCarthy said.
Last year, low numbers in the boys hockey program resulted in the cancellation of the JV team. The school committee approved a request Monday to allow eighth grade players to practice and play with the JV squad, which is acceptable under MIAA rules. Other teams may use that solution if the situation persists.
According to a school census, there are 145 students in the freshman class, as compared to 160, 160, and 179 in the sophomore, junior, and senior levels.
Over the course of a year, Mr. McCarthy said, he typically sees at least half, or more, of the high school students participate in sports.
“So if you figure we’re down 20 kids, that’s at least another 10 athletes that we don’t have,” he said.
The high school relies largely on Island youth sports programs to generate interest in school athletics, but there is no direct correlation. For example, the girls field hockey program has plenty of players, despite the lack of a youth feeder program.
“The thing with field hockey is that they are coming in all on the same page, because nobody’s been playing field hockey up to this point. They’re all coming in new and learning the game,” Mr. McCarthy said.
He cannot predict if participation in winter and spring sports will also be low.
“I don’t know how this might affect basketball or girls hockey,” he said. “Or swimming. I know swimming numbers were low, so it will be interesting to see how many freshman go out for that.”
Leaders in the athletics program encourage students to get, and stay, involved in school sports. “The coaches know what’s going on, and they’re very in tune with the youth programs,” Mr. McCarthy said. “They will work to try to recruit kids within each of the programs; they do that every year. I think this year just happens to be a down year in terms of numbers of students, which then will translate into number of athletes.”
Predictable pattern
Rocco Bellebuono, MVRHS women’s soccer coach, said the low numbers this year weren’t hard to predict. Some of the club programs are pulling from a wide range of ages just to be able to field a full team.
“For the girls, it’s going to continue to be a numbers problem for the next three or four years, or maybe a little more optimistically it could be two,” he said. “As soon as I came in last year as head coach, I said there’s a tremendous problem and we’ve got to do everything we can to fix it.”
The challenge is to keep girls in the game at a younger age. He said there’s a very predictable pattern, starting from the youngest age group in the youth program. In the mini-kicker program, there is an average of about 30 girls, he said. By U8, that number is halved. By U10, only a handful of girls remain.
“Well, five girls doesn’t make a team, so you start picking from the age group above or picking from the age group below and cobbling a group of girls together,” Mr. Bellebuono said. “What we said is basically that’s not acceptable; there’s no reason why girls shouldn’t want to play soccer.”
Coaches within the youth program have started restructuring the organization of teams. Starting this year, teams are more gender-specific. Continuing to mix the genders as players get older and develop can be a challenging or uncomfortable dynamic for the athletes, Mr. Bellebuono said.
A gender-specific program also allows girls to form a social dynamic and learn and grow as players together.
“So we figured by doing that at a younger age with the girls, hopefully we’ll keep more of them involved in the game, and be able to field stronger teams moving forward,” he said.
The results of the restructure, however, will take a while to make a noticeable change, if any, within the high school program.
“It’s a long-term process obviously,” Mr. Bellebuono said. “These girls wouldn’t even be coming through the high school program for five, six, or seven years. But you’ve got to start somewhere.”
Despite those changes within the youth program, Mr. Bellebuono and other coaches must contend with low numbers this year, and in the near future. Not having the numbers to field a JV team this year has been a challenge.
“It’s a double-edged sword, because now you’ve got a plethora of young players that come to training every day, and they work hard and they’re trying to get better, and then they might not see the game, they might not see the field,” he said.
He fears that the younger girls, who would otherwise be on the JV team, could get discouraged.
“Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about the situation except try to be clear with the players and try to make sure that we keep them engaged, because we can’t afford to have them give up and say, ‘It’s not worth it,’” he said. “I think the trick is to find a way to keep everyone enthusiastic about participating at whatever level they can, and doing everything we can to make sure they get enjoyment out of the experience.”
Mr. Bellebuono said he doesn’t think the low number of female freshman athletes is a result of an Island-wide shift in athletic participation. Instead, he thinks it may just be a natural ebb in the flow of high school athletes.
“I don’t think it’s a dynamic change,” he said. “I think it’s just a glitch in the system.”
