• High school sports basketball has swept the nation with over 1 million boys and girls participating on their respective high school teams
• High school basketball has had a long and proud history stretching back to the early beginnings of the game

High school basketball leagues have been around a long time, longer in fact than the NBA, with some leagues dating back to the early 1900’s. Today, millions of boy’s and girls’ participate on their high school junior varsity or varsity teams. High school basketball has become extremely popular throughout America and in some places plays a vital role in the local community.

High school basketball started to grow in popularity shortly after the sport was invented in the late 1800’s thanks in part mainly for two reasons: there was little team or personal equipment needed to field a team. Plus, with only five players required to be on the court, you didn’t need a lot of players to place a team in a league. Other sports such as football or baseball required large amounts of equipment for both the team and the player. For small schools on tight budgets, forming a interscholastic basketball team made plenty of sense. In no time at all leagues began to form across the nation, from the big cities to small towns.

High school basketball leagues became the norm around the 1940’s as more and more high schools began to form teams. In many cases in rural America, the high school basketball team became the focal point of the community. This was the inspiration for the movie “Hoosiers” which depicted the season of a rural Indiana boy’s high school team and their rise to the state championship game. The town was extremely passionate about the success of the team. The states of Kentucky and Illinois are also well known for their passion in their high school teams as well.

High school basketball is just as popular in large schools in cities across the nation as evident by the number of college players that the top programs have generated. Many of these schools, like Rice in New York City, St. Anthony’s in New Jersey, and Oak Hill Academy in Virginia have produced players that have gone on to play in college and in some cases the NBA. These elite high school basketball programs continue to rack up the victories and are on every college coaches’ radar. Although no longer allowed in today’s NBA, several top high school players made the jump directly from school to the NBA. Two of the most recent players to do this are Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic and Lebron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

High School basketball has grown to the point that just about every high school in America has a team that competes in a high school basketball league. Today, over 1,250,000 boys and girls participate on their high school team. As the sport reaches new levels of popularity, that number will most certainly rise.

As an electronic scoreboards continue to light up.