After Reagan the school boards across the state cut home economics, shop, art and athletics pretty much across the board. Not going to spend a penny that is not mandated by the state to confer a diploma.

I'm pretty sure that the only reason that there is any sports at our local school is because the boosters do all the fundraising to pay the coaches and the transportation. Players are expected to pay for each sport they participate in. The coaches are someone's dad or the math teacher who played sports in HS and remembers it fondly. Sometimes they are ok. But without any real coaching training sometimes you get people as coaches that absolutely should not be training children.

Also anyone who is any good at sport these days is expected to 'specialize'. That means playing one sport year round. Which normally means moving to non-school leagues. So that cuts down on the number of athletes on the school teams.

Add to that COVID restrictions and parents like me. I told the kids I'd give them one sport a year. It was all I could afford. The costs of uniforms, shoes, gas for trips for practices and games.. all on top of the 'participation fee'... times three.. gets freaking expensive.

In the end however it didn't matter. They didn't last in high school sports. No one plays for fun anymore. They play for their college resume. Like taking two years of a foreign language and racking up X number of hours of 'socially significant' volunteering. As my kids were never going to be able to go to a private college they didn't bother playing a sport. I was not cut out for the cut-throat nasty politics between player families and coaches. So they never got any play time. They were bored benchwarmers. And since they were going to state schools for college they didn't need the resume filler. So they quit.

edit: word