By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

About one third of the students in Florida high schools participated in athletics last school year according to a survey released by the Florida High School Athletic Association.

According to the survey, nearly 260,000 student-athletes, an FHSAA record, competed in at least one of 18 recognized sports. That is an increase of about 15,000 athletes over the 2010-11 school year.

Of that number, about 150,000 were males.

The most popular sport for males was football, with 41,127 athletes. Track and field (16,106), baseball (15,827), basketball (15,761) and soccer (15,169) were next in popularity.

The most popular sport for females was soccer (14,842) followed closely by volleyball (14,435), track and field (13,488) and basketball (11,090).

By comparison, during the 1973-74 school year, the first time the FHSAA recorded a participation survey, a total of 61,563 athletes participated in high school athletics. Only 10,496 of those were female.