<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1NHFrR_1FcgylKm00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1NHFrR_1FcgylKm00" width="1200" height="904" ></figure>As modern society navigates concerns about youth’s increasing screen time and decreasing physical activity, middle schools continue to offer opportunities for kids to positively engage with their peers through after-school athletics.As the 2026–27 school year kicked off in September, middle schools across the St. Paul Public School (SPPS) district were registering students for four different interscholastic sports: boys’ soccer, girls’ soccer, girls’ volleyball and co-ed flag football.SPPS offers a total of 11 interscholastic sports for middle schoolers to choose from. Winter options are girls’ basketball, boys’ basketball or co-ed wrestling. Spring offerings include baseball, softball, track and field and girls’ badminton.Any student in grades six through eight is encouraged to play, regardless of experience or skill. Middle school can be a time of discovery, relationship building and life lessons that come through new experiences in athletic settings.Murray Middle School athletic director Marshall Little knows the benefits better than anyone. Little has been proudly guiding the Murray Pilots athletic teams for the past eight years.“Middle school sports are an opportunity for the young people to get engaged with other peers,” Little said. “It trains them to be disciplined, gives them leadership skills and creates something positive that can carry over beyond school and into the community.”Little has been at Murray for 18 years, serving as the school’s full-time cultural specialist. He spent many years coaching the Pilot volleyball and baseball teams. Now his after-school duty as athletic director is to administer all the sports at Murray. The job has become harder during his tenure for a variety of reasons.Things changed dramatically during COVID–19. Schools switched to distance learning in the spring of 2020, but middle school sports did not restart in SPPS until a year and a half later, beginning with the 2021–22 school year. Momentum was lost.Many families found new routines that did not involve after-school sports. Some middle school students were expected to help with responsibilities at home, some students spent more time in isolation or on screens, and former student athletes missed out on several seasons of structured school athletic activity.“It’s been tough to get the participation numbers back up to where they were,” Little said. “Another reason is because some students had the chance to go play up at the high school.”High school athletics were still happening during the 2020–21 school year when middle school sports were not. For motivated middle school athletes with access, the opportunity to play at their neighborhood high school was a blessing during that difficult time.Since then, middle schooler participation at the high school level has remained higher than pre-COVID–19 days. Readers of the Bugle may have noticed that it’s common for a Como Park High School team to be bolstered by a few Murray seventh or eighth graders.Murray students who play for Como are in compliance with Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) rules, which state that the high school must be in the family home’s attendance area or be the pathway school defined by the district.Another element in the equation that impacts middle school participation is that high schools offer more sports. For example, middle schools don’t host tennis or cross country running. So, if five eighth-grade girls choose one of those fall sports at Como, that’s five fewer volleyball or soccer players at Murray.As for situations when the sport is offered at both the middle and high school levels, it’s a family decision about which level is appropriate.For Coach Little at Murray, it’s all about what’s best for the kids. He’d love to see more youth across St. Paul participating in middle school sports, because he knows how valuable the experience is for those that do.“This is where you start to develop interpersonal skills and become part of a unit,” Little explained. “You get the chance to have fun with your friends and the opportunity to try sports and be active.”Little noted that Murray’s principal, Jamin McKenzie, is of the same mind. Thus, the support for athletics as part of a holistic educational experience is strong. “We want our kids to do well in school, in the community and in life,” Little said. “We want the great days at Murray to be impactful for the rest of their lives.”Eric Erickson teaches social studies at Como Park High School and regularly writes for the Bugle.</div></body>

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As modern society navigates concerns about youth’s increasing screen time and decreasing physical activity, middle schools continue to offer opportunities for kids to positively engage with their peers through after-school athletics. As the 2026–27 school year kicked off in September, middle schools across the St. Paul Public School (SPPS)...

Middle school athletics: creating connection, promoting play

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As modern society navigates concerns about youth’s increasing screen time and decreasing physical activity, middle schools continue to offer opportunities 

Middle school athletics: creating connection, promoting play

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