Will prep athletes sign agent contracts?

COLDWATER - Ohio high school principals next month will vote whether to allow student-athletes to sign endorsement agreements, board members learned at this week's regular school board meeting.

They'll also cast a vote on whether public school students can play a team sport in a neighboring district if their home district does not have that team sport.

Those are among 14 potential changes to the Ohio High School Athletic Association constitution and bylaws that will be decided during the annual referendum voting period, according to a OHSAA news release.

High school principals at 817 OHSAA-member schools May 1-16 will vote electronically on the 14 proposals, each of which requires a simple majority to pass, the release reads.

A name, issue and likeness proposal would mirror changes made at the collegiate level, enabler student-athletes to sign endorsement agreements so long as their team, school and/or OSHAA logo are not used, the release states. Also, endorsements would not be allowed pertaining to casinos, gambling, alcohol, drugs or tobacco.

"That's your name, image and likeness as a high school athlete to make money off of it," said Coldwater district athletic director Eric Goodwin. "It's a big social media thing and high school students are making a lot of money off social media now.'

Godwin doesn't think this particular measure will pass.

"But you never know," he quickly added.

"I think we're leaning toward 'no' at this point," added high school principal Jason Hemmelgarn who will cast a vote on behalf of the district next month.

This area is "kind of unique," Goodwin said.

"Obviously Mercer County is a lot different than Cleveland or Columbus or Cincinnati," he said. "You could imagine when LeBron James was going through (high school). He would have had multimillion dollar deals."

High School principals also will vote on a measure that if passed would permit a student enrolled in an OHSAA member public high school that does not sponsor a particular team sport to petition to participate in that sport at a public school that borders their district.

"Biggest reason this is coming up is private schools already have this in place so they want to give public schools the option of adding it as well," Goodwin said. "There's a lot of gray (area) in this whole situation here."

For instance, Fort Recovery does not have a high school girls soccer team. If the measure were to pass, a Fort Recovery High School girl could petition to play soccer at Coldwater while remaining a Fort Recovery student, he said.

Coldwater would have the ability to adopt a policy prohibiting students from bordering districts - Celina, Parkway, St. Henry, Fort Recovery and Marion Local- from playing on Coldwater team sports. But it could not prevent Coldwater students from petitioning to play a team sport at one of the bordering districts, Goodwin and Hemmelgarn explained.

"We've got more sports than nearly everybody around here so we don't have to worry about our kids just going somewhere," Goodwin said.

Board member Mike Hoying asked how such a policy could negatively impact the district.

"Would our biggest worry be like 50 girls from neighboring towns coming over for soccer and all of a sudden you have to make cuts?" he asked.

"Yeah, you could have that," Goodwin replied. "Or - we don't have boys soccer so they could leave here and the only school that has boys soccer, neighboring school, is Celina. So you could have that."

Thorny issues could arise under such a proposal.

"They wouldn't have to be enrolled in that school but whatever school they go to for that sport is which eligibility they will use and that's where it just gets crazy," Goodwin said.

Goodwin believes it would be more of a hot topic issue in other parts of the state.

"You can imagine how it's going to be like in the Lima or the bigger cities where there's some big schools that have every sport and some small schools that don't," Goodwin said. "There's going to be kids just jumping everywhere just for sports."

"Recruiting would get amped up even more," Hemmelgarn added.