Gainesville High School won the Region AAA championship in soccer a few weeks. Yes, soccer. And, that, coupled with the World Cup and my every-four-years fling with what most of the world calls football, made me think how much high school sports have changed in the last, well, half-century.<br />
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So, I dug out one of my yearbooks. The 1961 edition of The Packer to be exact, as in Moultrie (Ga.) Packers now the Colquitt County Packers. <br />
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The athletics section consumes 24 pages, covering seven sports: golf (boys only); track (boys only); tennis (boys and girls); baseball (boys only); basketball (boys and girls); football (American, thank you, and, of course, boys only); and cheerleading (girls only, I guess. Maybe a guy could have been a member had he tried out and was good enough). And, just one cheerleading corps, not separate squads for basketball and football like they do at Gainesville High.<br />
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We did have a girls' football team one year. Well, actually two teams that played one game... against each other. Powder Puff Football it was called. I think they almost stopPED the game after, as I recall, one of the cheerleaders moonlighting as a football play broke her arm. And, there I was right in the middle of it. NoT on the field. But on the sidelines. I was the one holding the downs marker.<br />
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But, I digress.<br />
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At any rate, seven sports at Moultrie High in 1961. No cross country, no soccer, no softball (not even slow pitch), no volleyball, and no NJROTC (Navy Junior ROTC), which is, right along with football and everything else, listed under athletics on the GHS Web site. <br />
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Did I mention there are 23 sports listed on the GHS Web site (including cheerleading and NJROTC)? One more sport than there were pages devoted to sports in that 1961 yearbook of mine.<br />
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And, did I mention lacrosse? Yes, GHS has a lacrosse team... two of them as a matter of fact, a boys team and a girls team.<br />
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Which leads me to wonder: what's next? Cricket? Archery? Fencing?<br />
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No, it ain't your daddy's high school sports anymore.<br />
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<I>Ken Stanford is NewsRoom Manager for WDUN NEWS TALK 550, KOOL 102.9, 1240 ESPN RADIO and AccessNorthGa.com.<I>
