Hodge: What have high school and college athletics come to?

In December 2022, I wrote a column titled, “NCAA is spiraling out of control.” I discussed the carelessness and neglect of the NCAA to enforce their rules on name, image, and likeness (NIL) and how conference realignment and the transfer portal will hurt more than help athletes.

Closing in on a year later, as I sit here and write, those issues have only become worse. But instead of writing about just the NCAA, I want to also talk about the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) and how they were backhanded by state legislators with Senate Bill 452 — going into effect in July 2024. The bill was supposed to be about issues dealing with insurance in NC but was amended to add language about high school sports, according to HighSchoolOT’s Managing Editor, Nick Stevens.

While the NCHSAA isn’t perfect, they’ve done plenty to better the state’s high school sports. To have this snuck into a bill in the middle of the night should serve as a notice that it was something many outside of those lawmakers would disagree with.

To take away control of the NCHSAA and continue allowing as much power as the NCAA is a complete insult to the athletes who work as hard as they do. For example, Scotland running back Zay Jones is one of the best in the nation statistically but is barely garnering any interest from schools — even on the Division II and III levels. One could say he may not have the size, but when a player has produced 1,479 rushing yards and 24 total touchdowns (one receiving) in seven games against solid competition, that should outweigh that concern. It may not be the only reason, but the transfer portal has caused colleges to under-recruit high school players now, even if they have the talent to play at an NCAA school.

With the passing of SB 452, Stevens said the NCHSAA will have less control and, instead, the superintendent of public instruction and representatives with the North Carolina Board of Education will have more. It will severely impact what the NCHSAA can do without getting approval from them, and grants and scholarships will no longer be allowed to be given out by the NCHSAA.

It’s already hard enough for high school athletes to be recruited. But to have the NCHSAA limited by an individual and institution that has to deal with a variety of other issues doesn’t seem to help with that. The athletes should be the ones being benefited, but they aren’t. NIL deals are “supposedly” doing so, but they’re affecting college athletes who aren’t high-caliber and ones in high school, too.

High school sports are becoming a business model, and college sports are just becoming more of one. And unfortunately, I’ll probably be sitting here next year writing another column about how far backward both are going.