Here we go.
It's Scott's flowing back on seven hundred w all just so much to get through this, Julie Balki a little bit later on our curs Shirp, I will get into the Nancy Guthrie abduction and thoughts on that coming up first. Though, Ohio high school athletes were allowed to accept nil deal since November. That's when the Ohio High School Athletic Association responded to a lawsuit from a jamiir Bron who's an OSU commit, and they saw the writing on the wal one.
I don't think we can win this, and so we'll give in and we'll allow name, image and likeness deals as we do in college for high school students. We had a new bill out that would ban ANIL deals less than a year before they started. One of the people who are co sponsoring this is our buddy representative Adam Byrd, the Birdman out of New Richmond and Claremont County.
How are you, hey, Scott. It's great to be with you and looking forward to seeing what we can do to protect our students in Ohio, Io from from what is happening in college.
Yeah, we saw what's an unravelling in college and some may say, well, you know, let's go back to the way it used to be. I don't think you could put the two space back in the tube, but it comes a little bit different in reality. How many kids in high school high schools is this going to impact? Really, it's not that many, is it. And therefore, if that's true, why don't we need to roll this back?
Yeah, there's no way to know how many this effects because, as you mentioned just a second ago, it's only been in effect for a couple of months. And so I do believe that this is going to unravel, and I don't think that we can allow this to stand for the for the benefit and protection of our young people.
Okay, so what is it you're trying to protect them from? Exactly? Explain?
Well, that's yes, and so you know, I believe that athletics and high school are an extension of the classroom. They're co curricular activity that is responsible for helping to teach students about character and discipline and work ethic and communication skills and all of those things in fitness, and so that's the reason why we provide these opportunities for
young people. It's not about how much money that they can make and that kind of situation will destroy amateur athletics and the good things that we've got going on in high school right now, I'll.
Push back on that ago. Both of those can exist at the same time, can't that. I mean, we can put an emphasis on the classroom and character and discipline, and probably even more so if money is involved, and it's not going to be a lot of money for most of these kids. It's gonna be a little bit of money. Say maybe a couple athletes along the lines that are so good at what they do and are so coveted by colleges and professional sports teams that they're going to get some money thrown them.
No doubt about.
But the bulk of kids just simply are looking for something to do extracurricularly. This wouldn't affect them at all. But for those few that would benefit from the NIL deal, how does this go against what you mentioned in the learning And to me, it doesn't change it at them.
Well, you know, if you're going to have certain kids on the team that are benefiting and others that are not, you're going to degrade the team work like atmosphere that exists in amateur sports that have a team approach, like football, like basketball, and it's it's important that that we we
protect what we've got right now. And then the other thing that I would say, Scott, is this will turn into a recruiting situation, a recruiting war where let's say, a wealthy alumni of a certain school that has a business wants to sign a student to an NIL deal and on the on the presumption that you will transfer to the school of my choosing, and and so that's going to happen. It's it's it's virtually unavoidable at this point. And so when the school is not allowed to know
about this, we don't. They're not going to create collectives like they do college level, and so the coach is not going to supposedly know about it, the athletic director, the school administrator is not going to know about it, and so they're going to have a hands on approach. You're going to have a I believe, a recruiting war based on who has alumni that are wealthy enough to affect who attends what school.
But isn't that going on now?
Hew?
I remember stories when I went to high school, and presumably you as well. There's schools right now. I won't name anybody in particular, but their schools now tend to be more private and Christian. But they do this now, Well, they'll take you, bring the family in, they recruit an athlete, and they'll put them up for free, like in housing.
And so it's going on now.
Well, I agree there is recruiting going on now, and yet it's not supposed to happen, and it's supposed to be investigated by OHSAA. I don't think that they can handle it. It's beyond their stripe. And so this will just make it worse. It will exacerbate it, and there will be a recruiting war to create all star teams based on who has wealthy alumni that are willing to take their school down that path. And I just think we see how this has ruined college athletics and it's
going to have the same impact at high school. Yeah.
I don't know if it ruined it. What happened. We're in flux right now. I think that's the thing.
And what's college and athletics look like in five or ten years to be the question. We don't know, because it's again, it's changing so quickly before eyes it seems like it's broken right now, but it may not be ultimately. If you're a student or the parents of a student, shouldn't you be able to profit off someone's name eage, Like the wh why why is the money?
Why is it a bad thing?
I mean, I get the team unity in things, but you know, let's face it, we have kids who are poor playing sports with kids who are rich, and kids, you know, have fifty thousand dollars cars and the other kids got to walk to practice.
So we already have that disparity. That's nothing new.
Yeah, I'm not opposed to kids making money off of their ability, but if they want to do that, they ought to go to the Olympics, they have to join a professional tour. They ought to go go get enrolled in college early and get college in il money. But we want to protect what has been a pure amateur situation in Ohio high school and and you know that's you see what it's happening. Like, let's use the University of Cincinnati bearcat quarterback who just transferred to I think
it was Texas Tech. He didn't transfer for a better educational opportunity or a better major. He transferred because that other school was willing to offer him five million dollars and he's going to make more next year than the Cleveland Browns starting quarterback over his entire five year contracts. And this is this is going to just continue to take us down the wrong path.
Well should we be celebrating? I mean I look at that and go wow, good for that kid. That's like getting a full ride scholarship to Harvard I suppose in the educational side of this thing, and we don't look at that going oh, grey, well, this kid's doing really well, or you know, they're their kids that win science fairs and the company goes and buys their ideas. We celebrate that. I don't distinct make that much of potential in that and what's going on in sports.
I guess.
Well, I guess we may have to disagree on that, Scott, because I believe that we need to protect our students from agents. We need to protect our students from tax advisors. We need to protect our students just like we do in child labor laws. We protect them, and this is the people are going to come after them. They're not ready psychologically or mentally to handle this kind of pressure.
We've seen how over the last a couple of decades, it's the number of suicide among college athletes has doubled, and so we need to protect them from this kind of pressure, protect them from becoming some kind of influencer. And they should be there to learn and grow and not to earn an income.
Represent of Adam Bird at Clarman Conye in the show proposing to stop nil for high school athletes here in the Buckey States, co sponsored that piece of legislation. You know, I look at this and okay, name age, and like, I don't know how much your typical high school athlete's going to get, if anything, it could be like fifty bucks or something like that, because most schools in Ohio are rural and maybe I don't know, there's a local oil change place. Goes okay, fine, we'll give you. I
don't give you like one hundred bucks a month. It's that that big a concern because I would dig typically. You know, you mentioned the outliers of the kids making millions of dollars, which are it's extremely rare. But if a kid does get one of these things, it's only going to be for a little bit of money.
Anyway. Is this a you know, killing an aunt with a sledgehammer.
Yeah, I don't think. I mean, you made some assumptions there, and I'm I'm going to push back on you a little bit. I don't think that you can just assume that it's going to be fifty dollars. I don't think that you can assume that it's going to happen in rural areas. I think the rich will get richer, so to speak, when it comes to talent at certain schools. And you know, it should not become a bidding war,
a recruiting war based on money. It should be about, you know, where is the best educational choice option for my child so they can grow and be ready to contribute to society. And so we're trying to protect the children. We're trying to protect the school opportunity, and we don't want this to become a recruiting war based on money the way it's happened in college.
Yeah.
I think too, it's already become that. And if you're to go back, I think the problem is mom and Dad have leaned into this themselves in a sense. Is that okay in banning the analoby one thing, but to really address the root costs of the problem. And you said, you know, this is about amateur sports. I don't know how amateur it is. When you have you know, trainers and coaches and agents and you're not you can't ban that.
The competition from you know, youth on to get in a travel league, to get in this, and kids who are pushed or have a calling to play a particular
sport or sports. And of course the more mom and dad invest in their athletic career, the more that they see as at stake, and a lot of parents think wrongly so that their kid's going to get a college scholarship and go play professional sports when odds are you know, very very much against Rocky Boyman could talk about how hard that is here on seven hundred WW this afternoon, but I look at it and go, well, you know, so, if this is about the semantics of education putting that first,
didn't mom and dad throw that out the window a long time ago.
Well, there's no doubt that mom and dad are spending a lot of money on their children's travel team. And you know, if you're going to add in there and a presumption now that mom and dad are investing all of this money in your travel team and your travel opportunity that now you're going to help reimburse mom and dad based on what you might be able to earn. I think that's tremendous pressure on a young person that we don't want.
And again, this is what it's happening. It's happening right now.
Well, it's no, and IL is not happening right now. Kids are not getting paid right now. And OSSAA would like to take us down this path. And MAYIL remind you Scott that they are only doing this because one judge in Hamilton County issued a ruling and so they made a change. And I don't think that we should take the entire state of Ohio down this path because one judge and Franklin County made this decision. And I believe that this is an important enough issue that the
state legislation should weigh in on this. And if my colleagues decides that I'm wrong, then at least considered it.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
No, I mentioned it's happening now in the sense that you know, there's schools even before this NIL deal was struck that we're you know, essentially paying the parents to come move here and stay getting their district and go to school academies and things like that. I mean, it is happening now. It's also happening that you know, there's tremendous pressure for kids, not just in the athletics, but
especially academics. As you mentioned, we're kids a suicide rate and the mental health issues among college students out of all time high, simply because of that pressure that's put on them by people in their inner circle, namely their own families. I don't know if nals it probably will contribute to that somewhat, but that's already the reality for a lot of college students, whether there's student athletes or not.
Well, there's scientific data out there that show that college athletes are committing suicide at double the rate that they work twenty five years. Again, that is a scientific fact, and we are putting tremendous pressure on these people at age nineteen twenty twenty one, and I don't think that we should do that through fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year olds.
And we're trying to protect our children from people who want to come down and take advantage of them based on their athletic skills, and we need to protect our kids from these kinds of people that want to come in and take advantage of them.
Yeah, and okay, it's double where it was, but the suicide rates for college students who aren't student athletes are paced up there. It went up like something like sixty percent over the last twenty years. That's increasing at the same ratio. And so it's not just student athletes. It's all college students. And that is because of the tremendous pressure we put on college students, not let alone those
who are student athletes. It's all college models. The problem is that we think the way to you know, having a perfect life is to go to college. We know that's that true. We're starting to rethink those whole things. It's about, you know, the person themselves as opposed to the degree that you're having on the wall. We've overvalued college education and we're starting to see that come back down. And I think I think the athletic part certainly fits into that.
I agree with you.
Yeah, so you know, this bill is about returning the the OHSAA Amateur Status law to what it used to be. I don't want to micromanage OHSAA. I don't want to oversee their every move, But I do think that we need to say no, we're going to move backwards. And I might remind you to Scott that we have done this twice in the past when it comes to transcender eligibility and the state legislature said no, we're going to
protect our girls. We also said no to OAHSAA a couple of years ago on the issue of cash when you attend the game and we require them to accept cash when you want to enter.
Isn't this going to create a black market? Again?
I mean it existed before. There are schools out there that we're doing this, long before nil Adam Bird that we're recruiting kids from different districts or held different states of that matter, finding jobs for mom and or dad, putting up at places, and essentially they're getting de facto payment, maybe not cash, and maybe some walking around money from the boosters life for very powerful schools, not necessarily public schools, private schools. How would that apply to the how'd that
fix it? Wouldn't this just create a black market? They just go back to the way they've voiced done it, and then you still have.
Yeah. I don't know that there's there's been that kind of situation. Maybe there has and I'm not been aware of its Laby mom or dad. Yeah, So you know, I don't think that we should. I don't think that we should add to that. Again, this is about protecting our kids from a situation that they're not prepared for. We're talking about teenagers here. They're talking about teenagers that's
going to need a tax advisor. They're going to need an agent, they're going to be entering into contracts, and we've got to be careful about protecting our young people from the people that want to take advantage of them.
Now, well, I think they also get some if they're getting big money, they're getting some of those too.
It's not like they're complete victims. Well, I mean the composition's pretty good.
Do you want to do that? If you want? If you're so uber talented that you're capable of taking advantage of or athletic giftedness, then you need to go to the Olympics, you need to go to a tour, a professional tour. You need to go to college early and go air in college. And I owe money.
You mentioned the protection thing, so doesn't that I mentioned the model that existed for a long time where at private schools that they do this.
I don't know how how often it does, but it does.
It still Hal's happening right now as a matter of fact, where you have you know, kids recruited from other areas to move back to the district in order to play for their team, and then of course the family winklink is taken care of. How would this protect them?
Yeah, well, I mean you you point out that recruiting is happening today and at OHSAA teams that are legal, and so recruiting happens anyway. And I don't think that they're going to be able to police the situation that they're putting in place here, and they're not going to be able to investigate all of that. You're going to put You're going to put now a burden upon the school administrative, the athletic director of the coach to help police to make it uh to inform OHSAA on these
kinds of things. And and I just we're we're opening a can of worms that I don't think is the reason why the public tax payer pays for weight rooms, stadiums, gymnasiums so that they can have an extension of the classroom and now we're going to allow people to take advantage of these young children that well they're not young children, but they you know, they're not of age, and and take advantage of them based on facilities that have been sent by the tax payer.
Adam's final point is it is this a nanny state issue? Does this feels like nanny state to me?
Well, I think we have a duty. Okay, we have a duty and responsibility as a government to protect our children. And we've got people that want to use the situation to take advantage.
But if my point is if the parents are okay and they lean into this going wow, I've got the next year borrow here, we can get some money, Well, how is it. Why is it the state's obligation to protect that child from their own family.
Yeah, we do this all the time, and you know, we can talk about multiple examples of how we try to protect children, and so you know it's again, they're not emotionally stable, they're not ready for the kinds of pressure that we're going to place upon them, and we want to protect the reason that we created these athletics in a first place, which is an extension of the classroom. It's not it should not be I believe, and I hope to convince my colleagues that it should not be
about allowing these young people to be preyed upon. We want to protect them and preserve what we've had in the past.
Are you hearing a lot from constituents supporting it or is it just simply too early?
You know? Mostly I think people constituents are listening and learning. But who I'm hearing mostly from our school administrators and coaches who are very much opposed to this. And remember that there were a couple of hundred schools who have stained from this vote. They did not want to go down this vote. Others have told me that they didn't want to vote yes, but they voted yes because they
felt strong armed by OHSAA. So most of the people that I'm hearing from are those that are actually in the school community.
Yeah, they're worried about this Jimmy Brown lawsuits, going, hey, we you know, win violation of that. It's going to cost us a lot more money. We just acquiesced even though we think it's wrong. But no, I'm interested to see, Adam how this thing plays out. I appreciate coming on this morning answering tough questions and we'll continue the discussion probably the other date. Adam Richmond, I'm sorry, Adam Bird out of New Richmond claim out Conney, thanks again, but I.
Appreciate coming on absolutely Scott's thanks.
Thank be well, be Well. I've got to get a news update in and I'm sure this story has legs. Yeah, I'm not convinced this is this is the remedy, but anyway, quick time out. We got a news update, very latest with weather moving in yet again. Winter will not give up. Seven hundred w welw