UIL, THSCA waiting on state legislature regarding NIL changes

SAN ANTONIO — Name, image and likeness rules have resulted in rapid changes to the NCAA landscape in the short time since they have been enacted.

Though there is a likelihood it may be discussed during next year's session of the Texas Legislature, neither the UIL nor the Texas High School Coaches Association anticipates NIL rules to be adopted for high school athletes in the near future, based on comments made Sunday at THSCA Coaching School at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio.

"Texas does not allow high school athletes to engage in NIL contracts," UIL deputy director Jamey Harrison said during a media availability. "That is not at the UIL authority level. That is at the state legislative level. Until there is movement there, there will be no change from UIL. Even if there were movement, we'd have to see what way it moves."

Joe Martin, the president of the THSCA said there are between 17 and 19 states that currently allow their high school athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, and the association is not promoting a change to allow the same in Texas.

What the THSCA is providing is education for coaches and administrators on what NIL is and what laws are in various states, in order to help athletes that may be high-profile Division I recruits. The association has partnered with the Eccker Group, which had a booth at the convention this week.

"Those schools that have high-profile athletes that are being recruited, those coaches and those kids need to know what the laws are and the rules are, whether you are just being recruited in the state of Texas or you have someone recruited in California, Alabama, Florida and Georgia because all those laws are different," Martin said. "Our coaches have to be educated enough to get information to those kids so they can make a proper decision.

"We are engaged in the Eccker Group in promoting them to help educate our coaches."

Harrison said until the state legislature were to make any movement on allowing NIL at the high school level, the UIL would not make any moves regarding any rules or regulation. Although there is a small amount of concern that athletes at Texas public schools in border communities may consider moving to a neighboring state to make money through NIL deals, the other side of the coin is that if it were allowed in Texas, that athletes may transfer within the state for the same purpose.

"If a player were going to leave a Texas high school to go play in another state, to go make NIL money, if we allowed it in Texas, why would it be any different than that kid leaving that high school to go to another Texas high school to make NIL money," Harrison said. "You get into the haves and have nots about who has the community that can throw the most money out there to attract the best players from across the state to come be on that team. I don't know that our schools want that, or quite frankly, Texas wants that."

Harrison said the UIL is interested in seeing how NIL rules mature both at the college level and in those states that allow it for high schoolers before rushing to decisions.

NEWSWORTHY

• Harrison said the UIL said adding Class 7A is always discussed, but is currently a "math problem."

The league would need roughly 600 schools to break up the top three classifications into equitable pieces and that would dip the bottom end of Class 5A into a range between 1,100-1,300 students, making a move currently unreasonable.

Class 5A and 6A currently house roughly 500 schools.

• Harrison said the state football championships will return to AT&T Stadium in Arlington this season and there is no push to move the state basketball tournament back to Austin from its current venue at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

• There is no groundswell of support for the split division concept in football to be adopted in Class 6A and it is firm in Class 4A and below.

But due to opt-ups in Class 5A, there is talk of finding "guard rails" for the opt-up process to ensure the purpose of having split divisions is not lost due to large numbers of schools choosing to move to Division I and artificially moving the line.

"We are trying to fine tune those knobs where we keep them as equal in terms of total number of schools in Division I and Division II as we can, but we can't keep it equal and still have the whole point of having a split conference, which is to help to reduce the enrollment disparity from top to bottom," Harrison said.

"We still have a lot to work out in 5A Division I and Division II. There is a lot of conversations around putting some guard rails around who can opt in and how many can opt up. Because it is really the opt ups that impact the overall final product."

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: UIL, TSCHA waiting on state legislature regarding NIL future