Nearly 70 percent of all high school students participate in some form of extracurricular activity. That is an amazing figure considering the choices that are out there for the typical high school student, whether it be a job or just sitting around the house and playing video games.

I want to single out the summer athlete. The athlete that sacrifices, in my mind, the most to be a part of the team.

Yes, I know, all athletes make sacrifices. Fall athletes practice in tremendous heat to start their years, and swimmers and wrestlers rise early in the morning to get to school to take part in workouts. Basketball is the longest season. Wrestlers cut weight. Swimmers practice twice a day for their compact season. Spring athletes perform in the best - and worst - of outdoor conditions.

But there is something special about the summer athlete.

They don't get the attention that other athletes receive. Their season is held during the summer when students have jobs and are having fun on vacation or spending time with their friends. Very small groups of students follow the summer athletes. Usually friends or girlfriends/boyfriends of the athletes are the only ones cheering under the age of 30.

The summer athlete sacrifices their summer to be a part of the team, and Iowa is the only state that makes that demand of its high school athletes. Every other state association conduct spring baseball and softball seasons.

Thus, while their friends are having fun at the beach or mall, the Iowa summer athlete is at practice grinding away to make their team better.

For this reason alone the summer athlete should be commended and the facts bear this out.

This summer, between the baseball and softball teams of the seven metro schools (excluding the first-year program at Cedar Valley Christian), there are a total of 63 seniors playing baseball or softball. Of this 63, only 13 are playing softball. In fact, two Metro schools have no seniors on their squad at all.

Fifty seniors play high school baseball, which averages out to around seven per school for a large "team sport."

Why such a low number?

Well many reasons are out there, but one stands out more than any other and that is the fact that the seasons are being held in the summer. Most kids would rather work and earn money for a college, hang out with their friends or just do something else than spend their summer months away from the school classroom playing a school-sponsored sport.

Look at it this way, most schools in the Metro have at least two teams at every age group for youth baseball or softball, which translates to roughly 25 kids per grade. By the time these kids are seniors, we are down to 63 participating in BOTH baseball and softball. That's a loss of approximately 85 percent from the age of nine to their senior year of high school. No other sport has that problem with declining numbers in their programs.

So join me in saluting those few who have stuck it out to the end and stayed the course to represent their school one last time on the athletic fields of the Metro area. The senior baseball and softball players of the Metro area are among the few who have stuck it out and peresevered more than most athletes through the athletic calendar.

Do yourself and them a favor and go out and cheer them on and their final weeks of glory.

(Scott Unash is the sports and program director at KGYM-AM 1600 (FM 106.3). He is a six-time winner of the Iowa Broadcast News Association play-by-play Announcer of the Year Award. Scott and Mark Dukes co-host the Gym Class weekdays from 3-4 p.m. on KGYM-AM 1600 and FM-106.3)