Sadly, NIL is about to ruin high school football in Florida | Commentary

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the embrace of shared sorrow and profound loss. As we stand together on this solemn occasion, our hearts heavy with the weight of grief, we find solace in each other’s presence and the memories we hold dear. Today, we come to celebrate the life of high school football, whose presence graced many of us in countless ways.

Sadly, high school football — the sports we once knew and loved; the sport that taught so many of us about hard work and team work and chemistry and camaraderie and resilience in the face of adversity and the discipline that endured far beyond the blare of the coach’s whistle — passed away earlier this week.

The death knell came at a Florida High School Athletic Association meeting where a proposal was introduced that would allow high school student-athletes to get paid for their name, image, and likeness (NIL). This proposal is nothing more than just a formality because it is fully expected that Florida will join more than 30 other states that will allow high school students to receive NIL deals (cash for playing football, basketball, etc.).

“It’s coming; it’s inevitable,” John Brantley, the longtime head football coach at Ocala Trinity Catholic High School, told me earlier this week. “None of the coaches I talk to like it, but we better get used to it and adjust to it.”

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Is nothing immune from the corruption of money?

Can we not have one safe haven from the greedy, cut-throat, win-at-all-cost mentality that has already polluted college and professional sports?

At least you can make sense of pay-for-play in college football — a thriving billion-dollar business in which coaches make $10 million a year and everybody else has historically made a handsome salary — except, of course, the players. Can anybody really sensibly argue against college football players getting their share of the multi-billion-dollar pie?

But high school football?

Really?

Seriously?

Why?

It’s not like anybody is getting rich off high school football — especially in Florida.

Hell, high school coaches in Florida make a paltry stipend of about $5,000 and are flocking to other states (see state championship-winning Daytona Beach Mainland coach Travis Roland, who just announced he has accepted the head coaching job at Camden County High School in Georgia) just so they can make a decent living.

And don’t even ask assistant high school coaches what they make.

It’s a question too embarrassing for them to answer.

Once NIL passes and the top prep players start getting paid in Florida, they will actually be making more than the state pays high school coaches. In fact, it’s entirely possible that a 5-star high school wide receiver will make more money than his high school teachers and principal.

Can you imagine the rumpled old high school coach showing up for practice in his beat-up old Ford Fiesta while the high school quarterback pulls up beside him in his brand-new 2024 Tesla SUV?

It would be one thing if the majority of high school players were to negotiate true NIL deals from, say, the local pizza joint that agreed to pay all of the offensive linemen $100 a week to endorse their pizza. But you know what’s going to happen, right? Just like college football, it will quickly turn into unfettered, unregulated free agency where players are simply getting paid to play for this school or that school.

Big-money college boosters will get their financial hooks into the best players while they’re in 9th or 10th grade and steer those players to Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Florida State, etc. Or, worse yet, zealous high school boosters will pay the 4-star running back $5,000 or $10,000 just so he will transfer across town.

A coach at a rural high school in the state told me recently that one of his boosters is a rancher and is already planning to sell off cattle to raise enough “NIL” money to fight off the bigger schools that try to raid his roster. Can you imagine selling Ol’ Bessie, your favorite milk cow, just so you can keep your quarterback Billy “Sweet Tea” Simmons from transferring to Winfrinity Academy?

What will make it even worse in Florida than in some other states is that Florida now has “open enrollment” and kids are no longer legally bound to attend the nearby school for which they are zoned. When you combine open enrollment with pay-for-play, you will get a revolving-door non-stop transfer portal in high school that puts the college version to shame.

“Transferring in high school is already a huge problem,” Brantley explained. “High school players can pick up and go wherever they want. I could show up at work today and find out half my team is transferring.

“It’s frustrating. … You’re going to have schools raise a big pot of money and then go buy themselves a state championship. That isn’t what high school football is supposed to be about.”

For many of us, high school sports was a time in our lives when we forged lifelong bonds and created timeless memories by being on a team with other kids with whom we grew up. We built treehouse forts together, we skinned knees together, we all had a crush on Becky Rivers at the same time in the eighth grade together. We played Pop Warner and jayvee and varsity together and we took the same classes with the same teachers together.

We were a family.

Now what?

The best players are going to go to one attend on school this year, another high school next year and another high school the year after that. All in the name of NIL — Nefarious Influences Lurking.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered in the bleachers today to mourn the death of this timeless institution that has molded the character of millions of boys throughout American history.

Let us all bow our heads while we dim the Friday Night lights and say goodbye to high school football as we once knew it.

Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen