OSSAA board approves NIL guidelines for Oklahoma high school students
As NIL trickles down to high school athletics, the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association is taking steps to advise students and their families.
The OSSAA Board of Directors approved a set of name, image and likeness (NIL) guidelines during its regularly scheduled meeting Wednesday morning.
The guidelines state the OSSAA has no specific regulations to stop students from “engaging in certain commercial activities as an individual,” also known as NIL activities. Pursuing NIL opportunities will not endanger a high school athlete’s amateur status, as long as the student follows the OSSAA’s amateurism rule and complies with the rule that forbids recruiting students to member schools for athletic purposes, according to the guidelines.
Executive director David Jackson clarified that the amateur rule and NIL are two distinct topics, and students will not be playing for the purpose of financial gain.
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“This is a new space for us,” Jackson said. “We all have the amateur rule … preventing pay for play, but this is so new.”
The OSSAA has partnered with Eccker Sports Group for information and advice regarding the NIL process. Locally, Eccker is working with the Bedford Agency, a sports agency based in Oklahoma City.
The guidelines state a student can receive NIL compensation as long as it is not dependent upon athletic success, does not act as an incentive for attending a certain school and does not come from the school itself or someone operating as an agent for the school.
Additionally, school logos, names and mascots cannot appear on items intended to provide NIL compensation. Students cannot endorse products such as tobacco and alcohol, which would violate a school’s policy.
After seeing the open landscape of NIL in college athletics, Jackson said the OSSAA has decided to take a more proactive approach.
“We’ve all seen some of the, I’ll just call it, mess that has resulted from the NCAA’s action or nonaction from this,” Jackson said. “We certainly did not want to have that same nonaction and have to go back and maybe clean up some things, so we wanted to try to get ahead of this thing.”
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Class 6A-A state football championship schedules set
The OSSAA has released schedules for the Class 6A-A state championship football games.
All matchups will take place at the University of Central Oklahoma. Games will occur in the following order:
Class 3A – 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1
Class 6A-II – 1 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2
Class 6A-I – 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2
Class 5A – 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3
Class 4A – 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 3
Class 2A – 1 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10
Class A – 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10
State track meet dates, locations determined
State track meets will take place in May, and the locations have already been set.
Classes 2A-A will compete May 5-6 at Western Heights High School. Classes 4A-3A will meet on the same days at Ardmore, and 5A-6A will compete on May 12-13 at Yukon.
Extra points
➤ Tulsa Union Public Schools is receiving a National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (NIAAA) Quality Program Award, an honor that recognizes outstanding high school sports programs across the country.
➤ The OSSAA’s student advisory board attended its first in-person meeting Wednesday after previously joining on Zoom. Accompanied by administrators, students from various schools sat in the meeting room to learn about the OSSAA process.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OSSAA board approves NIL guidelines for Oklahoma high school students
