MCD's male enrollment is not substantial. Neither is JC's. So them being among the top in many of major sports is impressive. They both seem to get a lot of bang for their buck.
StP used to have a lot of 2-way athletes, but that has fallen off greatly in the past decade or so.
Loyola and CH simply have too many kids to allow a ton of multiple sport athletes. If you go to those schools they ask kids to "focus" on one sport. It saves a roster spot and gives more kids in the school a chance to participate in a sport. I am not a fan of that, but I totally understand why they do it. Good to have more kids involved, I guess.
700 boys on campus = "male enrollment not substantial." Yeah OK.
McD has about 300 or less boys in the upper school - you're looking at numbers for K-12
It's not like some schools have 10,000 kids and others have 7. All of the "major" varsity coaches have jobs on the line and if they have to split a kid's time who is a serious contributor, they will and often do.......up to a point.
Looking at these numbers, I think it's actually impressive that the smaller schools are often dominant, it means that if you have 300 upper school boys, and you're MIAA-A, roughly 1/3 of the student body plays lax for the school (at some level). If you are a fan of the sport, that is just really cool. And I think these numbers point out that if you are CHC, LB, or Spalding, there is absolutely no reason for you to be finishing last in any MIAA sport. Ever.
The big boys:
CHC has 1200.
Loyola has 650-750 in the upper school, as high as 775 in 2021 I believe.
Spalding has 600 (boys)
The Rest:
Gilman has 450
John Carroll has 350 (boys).
BL has 300.
St. Pauls has 310.
St. Mary's has 250, sometimes fewer.
McD had 330 in 2021.
McD is not on some island of "Oh my gosh, how do they do it with so little!" But again, shame on the bigger schools for getting beat by these squads relatively frequently. LB's record this year definitely stands out.
