A few weeks ago, in our very first blog posting, we told you that more than 7.3 million kids across the country participated in high school athletics in the last academic year, the highest total ever. Well, the totals are in for public schools in Maryland, courtesy of the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association, and they show similar growth.

Overall, 109,984 boys and girls played varsity sports in Maryland during the 2006-07 academic year, an increase of 5.1 percent from the previous year. By gender, 63,587 boys played at least one of the 18 sports offered in Maryland, while 46,397 girls participated.

By far, the sport with the largest number of participants was football, which was played by 15,280 students, with soccer next with 11,746 participants and track and field third at 11,388.

We'll further break down participation levels and point out a few oddities in subsequent posts.