It really, really, helps to have played varsity sports. I will give you a pro-tip that helped me: sign up for indoor and outdoor track & field (winter and spring). I never did track until the winter of my junior year, and threw shot put in the spring and winter of my jr/sr years. I also made captain just in time to put on my Marine NROTC application. Doing track is easy, just sign up, you do not have to be good. You can choose to do either sprinting events, long-distance events, jumping events, or throwing events. No one will judge you for not being good and you won’t mess up the team like in ball team-sports like football, the meet scores are based on the top-3 scorers. Not only will this put two sports on your transcript (both indoor track & outdoor), you can also get into shape if you do a running event. If you don’t want to put out a lot of cardiovascular work, throw javelin, discus, or shot put. You get to choose the events you practice and compete in. It’s also just a lot of fun, you’ll have a great time improving your craft and will come to love your teammates, track was the best decision I made in high school. This would probably be the best decision you could make for your USCGA application and high school experience, let me know what you think.
