No cashing in yet
Most taking wait-and-see approach regarding PIAA’s NIL policy
Nick Coval smiled when asked if he’d like to get his own NIL deal.
As one of the most prominent boys basketball players and athletes in the area, the Parkland High junior has one of the Lehigh Valley’s most well-known faces and represents all that is good about scholastic sports with a tireless work ethic, dedication and passion for success.
Whether it’s a car dealership, an insurance company or pizza shop, Coval would make the perfect spokesperson.
“I haven’t been approached by anyone yet,” Coval said recently. “But that’s definitely something I would like to do.
“I know some guys from my AAU team who are definitely going to get some NIL deals. It’s helping them a lot. It’s a good thing. A lot of kids will benefit from it.”
NIL stands for name, image and likeness, which offers student-athletes an avenue to earn compensation through marketing and/ or promotional endeavors.
The NCAA opened the door for its student-athletes to earn NIL deals in June 2021, ending a long-standing policy of not allowing athletes who helped to fill the arenas and stadiums across the country, particularly in sports such as football and basketball, to get paid for endorsements, autographs, merchandise sales and other forms of notoriety.
While the impact of the NCAA’s NIL policy is still being evaluated, it was only natural that high schools would follow, and in December the PIAA made Pennsylvania the 22nd state athletic association to adopt NIL guidelines.
In February the PIAA Board of Control voted 25-4 to approve an amendment that student-athletes can participate in NIL deals without losing eligibility.
There are a variety of restrictions,
“We’re getting ahead of the narrative. We didn’t want some legislation being passed down to us.” Bob Hartman, Whitehall High athletic director who serves as District 11 chairman and PIAA Board of Control vice president
however. They include prohibiting student-athletes from getting involved with adult entertainment products and services, alcoholic products, gambling and sports betting, the lottery, tobacco and electronic smoking products and devices, opioids and prescription pharmaceuticals as well as controlled dangerous substances, weapons, firearms and ammunition.
Some of the NIL concerns at the high school level revolved around the movement of athletes. No issue has been more controversial over the years than the transfers of athletes and what many deem to be a vastly unlevel playing field between boundary and non-boundary schools.
It has become an annual December ritual in football and a tradition in March for basketball for public schools to demand the PIAA separate its state championship tournaments.
If an NIL deal is used as an enticement for a promising athlete to leave one school for another, it would only exacerbate an already-volatile issue.
Bob Hartman, the Whitehall High athletic director who serves as District 11 chairman and PIAA Board of Control vice president, said it was good to get out ahead of the NIL issue.
“Everybody’s paranoid about it because they see what’s happening on the college level,” Hartman said of the amount of movement and money made by prominent collegiate athletes. “And, of course, that’s the worst-case scenario for us. But if we can recognize kids and they can benefit from this, that’s a good thing.
“We’re getting ahead of the narrative. We didn’t want some legislation being passed down to us. We crafted our own legislation to protect the kids and our member schools.”
Hartman said that the NIL is not a tool schools should use to bring in kids.
“I’ve already said this to our member schools: Anybody caught using an NIL deal to recruit will be met with an SMU-type death penalty,” he said, talking about the heavy sanctions that school’s football program incurred in the 1980s for paying players.
“We’re not going to tolerate schools using NIL to entice kids.”
To that end, Hartman said the PIAA rules prohibit student-athletes from using their school uniforms in commercials or photo shoots. But the reality, he said, is that the NIL issue is not going away.
“It’s the future,” he said. “That’s why we needed to get ahead of it and develop a policy rather than have something pushed on us.”
As of a few weeks ago Hartman had not heard of any NIL deal involving a District 11 athlete.
On the day the PIAA announced its NIL policy in December, Laurel Highlands receiver Rodney Gallagher announced the first agreement.
The West Virginia recruit partnered with the Pavement Group, and on social media Gallagher said his deal had a noble purpose.
“The Pavement Group has blessed me with an opportunity to help lead their philanthropic efforts by donating to nonprofit missions in Fayette County, the community that’s uplifted me from the start,” Gallagher wrote.
“He’s the type of kid the NIL would be geared for,” Hartman said. “He’s a top-level recruit. But the reality is that 99 percent of the kids are going to be lucky to get a slice of pizza from a pizza shop for them tweeting out about how good the pizza is.
“That’s the reality. Is there harm in that? I don’t know. I don’t see that it is harmful. Do we have kids in the area who could benefit from NIL? Sure, but I don’t see exorbitant amounts of money being made.”
Hartman doesn’t anticipate anything like what is happening at high-profile Division I schools with high-profile, deep-pocketed backers, where some athletes are making millions of dollars.
“That stuff with the million-dollar people has probably always gone on at a lot of places, and now it’s just being made public,” he said.
Hartman also doesn’t see a lot of high school athletes getting NIL offers. He pointed to California, which has had an NIL policy in place for about a dozen years, and just 200 athletes have gotten deals, he said.
While most see the positives, at least one area coach sees the negative.
“I think the NIL will be a disaster,” Palmerton boys basketball coach Ken Termini said. “Because just like the colleges have found a way to turn it into a recruiting tool, I guarantee you that the non-boundary schools will do the same at the high school level. Some will be more aggressive than others, but human beings are very good at finding loopholes.
“At Palmerton, one of my kids might get $200 to be in some picture with a fitness thing, but that’s not going to compare to some alumni who’s willing to drop $10,000 and put a kid’s picture on a billboard for two months. To me, if the PIAA is going to look to other states for ideas, why don’t they look to New Jersey for an idea on how to run boundary and nonboundary tournaments?”
Hartman said it’s up to the schools to monitor potential problems.
“The athletes need to communicate with their schools within 48 hours of an agreement so they’re aware right away,” he said.
Health networks not going high school route
A bunch of recent Lehigh Valley high school graduates have signed deals with St. Luke’s and were on display at a student-leadership day in the St. Luke’s Rink in Whitehall earlier this year.
The Lehigh Valley Health Network also has signed numerous recent high-profile athletes such as former Nazareth High and Penn State star receiver Jahan Dotson, now with the Washington Commanders of the NFL. However, both LVHN and St. Luke’s aren’t interested in signing current high school athletes, at least not yet.
“The Lehigh Valley Heath Network is presently not pursuing NILs with high school student-athletes for various reasons,” said Bobby McClarin, the former Liberty and and U.S. Naval Academy football player who is the LVHN’s director of sports medicine partnerships, in a statement.
“Our focus and energy is focused on providing a meaningful, invaluable NIL platform of sports and impact for our collegiate student-athletes and the communities we serve.”
John Hauth, the senior director for sports medicine relationships at St. Luke’s, said their focus is also on collegiate athletes and not high school.
“We have a large number of athletes in our NIL group who came back and interact with the current high school kids in our community,” Hauth said. “Student-athletes in high school now can see that there are different pathways and they can learn from the college kids what the stress points are and what the hurdles are, and the things to stay away from and the people to rely on for good information.
“When you turn to the high school NIL rule that PIAA recently adopted, our feeling is we’re not in a position to go down that path. We’re going to be very measured and we’ll watch it closely. We’re not convinced it’s a great idea, but we’ll reserve judgement and see how it plays out.”
Hauth pointed out the stress high school athletes already are under and “to add one more additional stress point is certainly not something we want to do.”
High-profile athletes from the past
There have been certain Lehigh Valley stars over the years who most certainly would have been candidates for NIL deals: Catasauqua basketball legend Larry Miller in the 1960s, Bethlehem Catholic multisport star Mike Guman in the 1970s, Allentown Central Catholic basketball stars like Billy and Eddie McCaffrey and Michelle Marciniak, and more recently football standouts such as Saquon Barkley and Dotson.
Because a lot of the games in the marquee sports are televised by local cable companies and an increasing number of online streamers, many student-athletes are more recognizable than ever before.
Gabe Lewullis was a key member of four District 11 boys basketball championship teams from 1992-95 at Central Catholic and scored 1,693 points in his career.
Then at Princeton, he hit the game-winning shot in the first round of the 1996 NCAA Tournament when Princeton and Lehigh Valley native Pete Carril stunned defending national champ UCLA.
Lewullis would have been a prime candidate for an NIL deal as a high school athlete and would have loved it.
“I definitely would have done it,” said Lewullis, now an orthopedic surgeon and associate chief in sports medicine for LVHN.
“I think I could have helped to sell some good products and made a little extra money. You know what I did when I was in high school? I was a newspaper carrier for The Morning Call. I did that from fourth grade right up until 12th.
“Would I rather not have to get up at 6 a.m. to deliver papers or have an NIL deal to make some money? I think you know the answer.”
Lewullis said that if you get a big-time player come through the area, which he said happens from time to time, you’re looking at potentially $100,000 in a NIL deal.
“There’s got to be some balancing act,” Lewullis said. “It’s like the Wild West out there right now. There’s no control.
“I don’t know what the answer is. I think the college kids deserve to get paid a little bit, but do the high school kids need to get paid to play sports? I realize their time is limited. Everybody is working at their sport 12 months a year. That’s why I did the newspaper job early in the morning because I didn’t have any time after school to get a job.”
College athletes such as Lehigh football player Trevor Harris from Liberty, former Easton and current Lafayette running back Nahjee Adams, former Northampton High softball standout Devyn Demchak, who is now at Drexel, and ex-Parkland volleyball star Brynn Dreisbach all serve as St. Luke’s ambassadors through NIL deals.
“I honestly think it’s a great opportunity for kids,” Demchak said. “I am an athlete, so maybe I am a little biased, but I think it really opens the door for more opportunities. You’re always taught that you’re playing sports to have fun, and it is fun.
“Sports is the most fun thing I’ve done in my entire life. But to be rewarded for it and be able to get some extra credibility for your hard work is awesome.”
Demchak played basketball and softball at Northampton, and there were not many opportunities to earn money at a part-time job.
“Softball has always been very rigorous, especially my club team,” she said. “You’re playing every weekend, and then when we got to school we started softball right away in the fall. Then me and Taylor [Kranzley] would go to basketball and then back to softball as soon as basketball was over.
“It was a nonstop thing and I was always busy at high school involved with 10 different clubs and I was at the top of my class. So there was no time for a job. My parents wanted me to focus on academics, sports and the clubs and they said they would take care of the finances.”
Potential issues
There are potential issues that can blow up. High school coaches are generally all about building teamwork and treating everyone the same. One player getting an NIL deal could create friction, if not with his or her teammates, then maybe with the parents in the stands.
Allentown Central Catholic football coach Tim McGorry and former ACCHS and Penn State football standout Mike Cerimele both work for St. Luke’s Sports Performance and were involved in recruiting prominent area athletes to represent St. Luke’s.
“We have a rich area with a lot of high athletic talent here,” said Cerimele, who is also a Vikings football assistant. “If we’re going to an NIL with a student-athlete, there are things that need to come with that and we look at character, academic performance. Is he a good person you want to represent you? It’s tough to select them because there’s a ton of amazing young people.
“We have unbelievable kids. You try to be as diverse to get as many sports and schools involved because the product we produce here is amazing.”
While the student-athlete can’t represent their high school, they can represent their sport, and that’s also a potential win-win.
“Our sport is growing and we’re getting more and more people out to our games,” Parkland volleyball coach Mike Krause said. “We have players who are recognizable and they’re great representatives.
“The only issue is when someone gets something and another kid gets nothing. It could be upsetting to some people. That’s where the management comes into play.
“Also what is the expectation of someone sponsoring an athlete? What’s my player’s commitment to them? If they come into the gym, they may expect their player to come right to them after the game because they’re paying them . ...
“As a coach, you don’t want that. You want the team to be the first priority.”