100 Yards with Emran Qasemi of Lodi football
NorthJersey.com columnist Darren Cooper chats with Lodi’s Emran Qasemi in this week’s ‘100 Yards’ segment.
New Jersey’s three-year winning streak of increasing high school sports participation has come to an end.
The National Federation of State High School Associations released its annual sports participation survey for 2025-26, and New Jersey’s participation declined by 8,260 student-athletes.
That’s an almost 3 percent decrease from the previous school year, from 281,971 to 273,711. It’s largely driven by the loss of 6,048 boys.
“I think you just kind of get sports fatigue at some point,” said Tom Mullahey, Clifton’s athletic director and executive director of the Super Football Conference. “You’ve got kids running from a high school practice to a club practice, to playing three or four games of soccer, softball or lacrosse on weekends.”
The New Jersey participation hot streak began to slow during 2024-25, showing a modest one-year increase of 1,173, from 280,798 to 281,971.
“NJSIAA participation over the past four years has remained relatively flat,” said Colleen Maguire, executive director of the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association. “However, we have experienced declining trends in participation across several sports – sports such as football, softball, boys and girls lacrosse, girls soccer and girls basketball continue to see decreases that are in excess of the national trend.”
“I think the NJIC has been basically capped at the same figures of participation for the last few years,” said Stan Fryczynski, executive director of the small-school North Jersey Interscholastic Conference.
Nationally, the Indiana-based NFHS trumpeted a record-setting participation total of 8,415,684. That marked a one-year increase of 149,440, led by 114,993 more girls.
“We are pleased to see the number of students involved in high school sports continuing to rise every year,” Davis Whitfield, NFHS executive director, said in a statement after a fifth consecutive increase. “Education-based sports within our nation’s schools is a privilege not available in most other countries, and we are thankful these opportunities continue to expand.”
Girls flag football and wrestling
Girls flag football and girls wrestling, in New Jersey and nationwide, have seen a dramatic increase in participation over the past several years.
Girls flag is nation’s fastest-growing sport, expanding from 15,716 in 2021-22 to 102,360 in 2025-26.
New Jersey girls’ flag in 2025-26 enjoyed a one-year increase of 15 percent, from 4,184 to 4,928. After several years as a club sport and sponsorship by the NFL’s Jets, the NJSIAA has sanctioned it as its 34th official sport for this school year.
“We are very excited to watch the phenomenal explosion of girls flag football – both nationally and among NJSIAA member schools,” Maguire said. “We look forward to hosting our first girls flag football state championships in the spring.”
“It’s a great sport, it’s catching on, and girls are really liking it,” said Mullahey, whose league also oversees the SFC girls flag. “And more and more schools are being open-minded towards starting it.”
Passaic Tech was among the original eight schools to introduce flag as a club sport in North Jersey in 2021. The Bulldogs had 90 girls try out in 2021, coach Antony Muir said, and in 2026 the number catapulted to 210, with many of the girls growing up in football-loving families.
“It’s exploding already, and it’s going to keep growing and growing because it affords so many opportunities to play the awesome game of football,” Muir said.
Girls flag giveth and girls flag taketh away, however. When it was considered a club sport, girls were allowed to play flag and another NJSIAA official sport in the spring. With flag becoming official, it likely impact participation in other spring sports.
“While we did see girls flag football take off in popularity, it has drained athletes from softball and track and field,” Fryczynski said.
Girls wrestling continued to explode in the Garden State in 2025-26, enjoying a one-year increase of more than 20 percent, from 2,229 to 2,822.
“As noted by the NFHS, it is tremendous to see growth coming from two sports that continue to be adopted by states nationwide – girls flag football and girls wrestling,” Maguire said. “In New Jersey, growth in these two sports is keeping up with the growth seen on the national level.”
New Jersey football dips
Football remains America’s most popular high school sport, climbing in 2025-26 by 14,128 players for a total of 1,043,716.
But New Jersey’s numbers in 2025-26 showed a small decline, from 22,642 to 21,689. That decrease of 953 averages out to about three players per school.
To attract student-athletes, the SFC and NJIC continue to create divisions and schedules that offer more competitive balance. In a conference of more than 100 teams, the SFC has expanded its developmental Ivy Division to a record 18 teams. And the NJIC continues to match teams of equal success in its late-season divisional crossovers.
Still, football is the most challenging sport, both in time and physicality, and student-athletes may prefer to take their talents elsewhere. Or off the field entirely.
“I think it’s such a commitment. It’s a 10-, 11-month commitment,” Mullahey said. “Whether it’s weight room starting in the winter and going throughout the spring, and then once mid-June comes, they’re out there going full speed ahead. That’s not for everybody.”
