Blake: At Union High, participation decline caused by more than the pandemic
Posted September 23, 2022 1:27 a.m. EDT
Updated September 23, 2022 1:30 a.m. EDT
Right before you reach the bottom tip of funnel-shaped Sampson County, you'll find little ol' Delway, N.C. It was was the perfect place to be last Friday night — if you don't mind taking a whiff or two of a nearby hog farm.
National and statewide high school sports participation numbers were released just a few days earlier, confirming a marked decline from 2018-19 to 2021-22. There was an easy explanation: the pandemic.
But there are more factors than just that, and they are so very noticeable in Delway.
After all, participation trends were a hot topic well before COVID hit.
In recent years, the suburban/urban/rural divide has widened in N.C. high school sports. Suburban and urban schools are more likely to increase participation as their towns and cities boom. Rural schools like Union, which is bordered on every side by farmland, are more likely to see a decline as their populations do also.
When graduates leave a rural area for college, there's now an expectancy that few will return, settling down elsewhere to find jobs, get married, and start families. Today's rural kids are tomorrow's suburban dwellers.
The closest incorporated town to Union High is Garland (population 595 in 2020, down 26.4 percent since 2000). Union's attendance dipped from 529 in 2017 to 435 in 2019, a 17.8 percent drop.
"A lot of kids I coached 15 years ago, they grow up and move away," football coach Douglas Burley said.
Another divide in N.C. high school sports has been the increased correlation between affluence and winning. The people in Union's district work on farms for the most part and, in 2019-20, almost half — 42.8 percent — of Union students were on either free or reduced lunch.
Many potential Union athletes don't play because they need to make other after-school plans, like take care of younger siblings or work jobs to bring in a little extra cash to the household.
The difference between here and other places is felt at the ticket gate as well.
When Burley drove the girls soccer team to its second-round playoff game last spring, not a single parent could made the hike to Perquimans for a can't-miss moment in their daughters' careers. The only Union representatives were him, the coaches, and the players.
At Friday's game, when the sun was still setting and the game had kicked off, less than 75 fans were seated in crimson-tinted bleachers to watch the first series. It did improve as the night moved on, thankfully, but only about 200 were in attendance. This too has become the norm, said Burley.
Athletics director Jonathan Bass, a 2010 Union graduate, is one of few in his class who moved back home.
The biggest challenge for participation that he's seen is transportation. Almost every night during basketball season, coaches turn into a de facto Uber service for much of the team, giving kids a ride home — some of whom are spread far apart from one another.
And that's just the ones who haven't given up playing because of transportation obstacles.
Bass talked of "breathing new life" into his alma mater, to give those who are making the effort to participate their superlative moment despite all the hardships.
Part of the process for football was for it to play a JV-only schedule last season. Sure, it turned off some upperclassmen, but its record in the spring of 2021 was 0-6, scoring just 12 points and a reset button was needed.
Its record entering last Friday was 0-3, scoring 0 points and giving up 172.
But things were looking better. Much better.
"Someone take a picture of that," said a Union player when the Spartans took an early 14-0 lead. He was pointing to the scoreboard.
It was a breakout game for Union despite a 52-50 triple-overtime loss to Spring Creek. It gave credence to its decision to play JV-only last year.
It gave hope that, despite its dwindling numbers in the sprawling agricultural acreage, things could be turned around one day.
It will be hard work, but Bass loves where he's from and is willing to put in the time.
Hog smell and all.
