High School Swimming Continues to Grow in Popularity

By Phillip Whitten

PHOENIX, February 9. HIGH school swimming — long one of the most popular interscholastic sports in the US -– is riding a new wave of popularity, even as the sport continues to find itself under assault at the collegiate level.

According to statistics supplied by the National Federation of State High School Associations' “Athletics Participation Survey,” participation in high school swimming increased by 5.6 percent between the 2002-03 and the 20004-05 seasons. What’s more, the increase is being seen throughout the country.

In 2002-03, there were 236,080 high school athletes competing in swimming and diving. That number increased by 2.1 percent to 241,127 the following year. There was an even bigger jump in 2004-05 – an increase of 3.4 percent to 249,283 – probably due, at least in part, to the influence of superstar Michael Phelps and his six gold medal performance at the 2004 Olympic Games.

The figures for the 2005-06 season have not been released yet, but it is believed the Phelps Effect has boosted the number of participants past the quarter million mark.

Sports writer Robert Lee, writing in The Providence Journal, notes that the number of high school swimmers in Rhode Island, the nation’s smallest state, jumped from 756 to 828 – an increase of 9.5 percent – in the year between 2003-04 and 2004-05.

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