Much more than just a convenient, organized outlet for burgeoning early adolescent energy, AFS’s Middle School athletic program serves a critical role in the health and wellness of its participants’ present and future lives as well as in the health and wellness of the School’s overall athletic program.

Because AFS emphasizes engagement, skill development and team membership at the middle school level, a wider percentage of students are able to reap the many benefits associated with athletic participation as compared to more selective high school programs. Robust student involvement does not preclude the pursuit of competitive success, as AFS middle school teams take pride in playing their games the right way and playing to win.

Each AFS Middle School student has an athletic requirement of participation in one season of interscholastic or instructional after-school athletics every year. This participation takes the form of joining one or more of the 19 middle school interscholastic teams competing in 12 sports or through engagement in one of 3 middle school instructional programs. Passionate and qualified coaches mentor AFS Middle School student-athletes in these pursuits with 82% of the 2010-11 middle school coaching staff possessing prior coaching experience in their sport, and 85% possessing Quaker education experience as a teacher, alum, or parent in the AFS community.

In 2009-10, for the third consecutive school year, nearly three out of every four AFS Middle School students chose to participate in two or more seasons of after-school athletics, voluntarily exceeding the School’s one-season athletic requirement. Last year, 104 of 147 middle schoolers were members of two or three of AFS’s interscholastic or instructional teams, with 51 of them (35%) receiving “Three Sport Athlete” shirts in June for an entire year’s worth of athletic involvement.

Not only are the building blocks for healthy lives put in place by athletic participation during middle school years, as detailed in this National Middle School Association study but so too are the foundations for AFS Varsity and even collegiate interscholastic teams. In the fall and winter of 2009-10, 60% of the 137 roster spots on AFS Varsity teams were filled by products of AFS’s Middle School Athletics program. Additionally, 15 student-athletes recognized as All-League or Honorable Mention by the Friends Schools League during the spring of 2010 began their careers as AFS Middle School participants as did 15 members of the last five graduating classes who played intercollegiate athletics after AFS.

We look forward to having you join our team.

AFS offers the following athletics options for its middle school student-athletes

Boys’ Soccer (A & B teams)
Girls’ Soccer (A & B)
Girls’ Tennis
Interscholastic & instructional
Cross-Country (coed)
Boys’ Basketball (A,B,&C)
Girls’ Basketball (A & B)
Wrestling (coed)
Personal Fitness
Boys’ Baseball (A & B)
Boys’ Tennis
Interscholastic & instructional
Girls’ Softball (A & B)
Girls’ Lacrosse
Track & Field (coed)