Participants in a summer high school cross- country program train at Goddard Park in Warwick last week. They’ll be ready to go in official RIIL meets this week.

The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

They traded excursions to the beach for trips to gyms and sweaty weight rooms.

They ran the roads rather than sitting behind the wheel of a car.

They came back to school weeks earlier than most of their classmates.

All because they want their high school sports experience to be something special.

Approximately 10,000 students will participate in high school sports this fall, and throughout the summer many of them spent countless hours training to make this season a special time in their life.

They will come in all shapes and sizes; some will be tested seniors, others will be wide-eyed freshmen. But over the next three months, virtually all of them will share the goal of trying to help their team win a championship.

The fall is the busiest time of the Rhode Island high school sports year.

With football, boys and girls soccer, field hockey, girls tennis, girls volleyball and girls and boys cross country all played in the fall, more Rhode Island teenagers participate in high school sports in the autumn than either the winter or spring.

For the next three months, they will take up most of the state’s tennis courts virtually every weekday afternoon and a few weekends.

Drive from Woonsocket to Westerly any afternoon over the next few months and you will see most fields longer than 100 yards will be filled with teenage student/athletes.

And, of course, on Friday nights the lights will be shinning brightly on high school football fields throughout the state.

Even an afternoon stroll through the woods might produce a sighting of some cross country runners.

It’s tough to miss 10,000 teenagers.

They have been practicing with their teammates for a couple of weeks now. Some have even played a few exhibition contests, but the real thing starts this week.

The R.I. Interscholastic League opens its first week of regular-season play today with a total of 52 games in the sports of boys and girls soccer, field hockey, girls volleyball and girls tennis.

And that’s just the start.

By the end of the week, the soccer, field hockey, volleyball and tennis players will have already played 140 league games. The League’s Injury Fund Round-Robin football games also are slated for later this week, and the state’s cross-country runners begin League action next week.

It will be that way every week for the next few months and what better way for 10,000 Rhode Island teenagers to spend their autumn afternoons and evenings?

Those afternoons and evenings will be important for all 10,000 teenagers, but especially for the 2,500 or so seniors on the rosters of the approximately 340 Interscholastic League fall sports teams.

Some of those seniors started kicking a soccer ball or hitting tennis balls about they time they entered kindergarten. Others began playing field hockey or running cross country a few years later.

For many of them playing a sport and being on a team just seemed like the natural thing to do every autumn. They went from went from Pee Wee instruction leagues to pre-teen teams and then three years ago they stepped up to high school competition.

It was all a natural progression that probably seemed like it would never end.

But for a majority of those seniors who begin RIIL play this week this will be the final chapter of their sports odyssey.

Sure some of them will go on to play on a varsity team in college, but only about 10 percent of the millions of American teenagers who play high school sports go on to compete in varsity collegiate competition.

That means for most of the approximately 2,500 seniors playing this fall, this will be their final autumn of “real” athletic competition. Yes, there may be some college intramural competition in the future or some adult soccer league, but that’s not the same as playing for your school team.

So for most of the seniors this week marks the beginning of the final chapter of a nearly lifelong journey. It’s a journey many shared with their parents. It was their parents who drove them to soccer games, tennis tournaments, cross country meets, youth football games and field hockey games in those pre-teen days.

Three years ago, when they started playing high school sports, these teenagers traded the family car for a school bus ride to the games, but the parents where still there. Often they were the only people in the stands.

Now the final chapter has begun to unfold. I’m sure some parents are wondering how it has all gone by so quickly.

All of which is why the next few months are so special for thousands of Rhode Island teenagers, and it all starts today. Enjoy the experience.

jgillool@projo.com