By Kendall Spencer
Student athletics are a huge part of the stereotypical high school experience. However, not every school necessarily has a dominant football team and a lot of other sports can end up taking the backburner. So, what are the most popular sports at the schools of the Missouri scholars? And can we draw any trends from the results?
Here’s a map that shows the location of the school and their most popular sport.
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Red - football
Green - baseball/softball
Blue - hockey
Pink - wrestling
Yellow - basketball
White - soccer
Dark Yellow - track/cross country
Orange - dance
Dark Pink - tennis
From the 36 schools that are included in the map, we can notice a few patterns.
Wrestling is more popular on the St. Louis side, track/cross country is pretty spread out across the state, and baseball/softball are more popular north of Columbia. However, there are two specific sports to focus on a little more in depth.
The schools which are better at football, indicated by the red pins, are more on the Kansas City side of the state. This could potentially be due to the fact that KC currently is the home of an NFL team, so there is more motivation for kids to get into football than there might be in other parts of the state.
Soccer, indicated by the white pins, is currently an incredibly popular sport in the St. Louis area. St. Louis is most likely going to be the home of a new Major League Soccer team after its announced expansion to 30 teams. Many kids in St. Louis grow up playing soccer, which would explain the talent at the high school level.
While not everyone will play a high school sport, it’s hard to argue that they aren’t one of the first things people think of when they think of the high school experience. Though this is not a complete overview, it shows that there are some patterns in where someone lives and what sport is popular.
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