High school football will never be the same in era of transfers, NIL money
When Charles Dickens began his 1859 novel 'A Tale of Two Cities' with the legendary line, 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,' who knew that it would aptly describe the state of amateur football in 2025?
From college athletics to high school athletics, if you're a parent, coach, athlete or fan, you have plenty of stories to tell. Take notes, because there's so much material you'll be able to write a book, launch a podcast or participate in court cases still to be decided.
'It's all crazy,' said future Hall of Fame football coach Matt Logan of Corona Centennial.
Football isn't in a crisis but it is in a black hole with stakeholders seeking an escape path.
With final rules still not adopted in how name, image and likeness is supposed to work and college programs not only paying their own athletes but high school recruits, too, everyone is adjusting on the fly. Parents trying to navigate the changes are hiring agents, who are showing up to high school camps trying to find clients. There's the college transfer portal and something similar in high school that saw more than 17,000 students switch schools in California last year.
Until NIL rules are figured out, it's roll your eyes and don't be surprised at anything.
Some elite high school players have been reclassifying their graduation years to take advantage of money opportunities. And that's after parents held them back entering high school to be bigger, stronger and faster as a 16-year-old freshman.
It's all legal and even logical but the changing landscape is riddled with pros and cons and bad actors.
One big concern in high school sports is that parents might be too focused on scholarships for their kids and earning NIL money while forgetting the real reason people play sports — for the love of the game.
'For me, the whole value in sports has been degenerated,' Logan said. 'You don't play sports to get a scholarship. You play to learn how to lead, how to take orders, how to be a good teammate, how to work together. This could be the only chance to have fun, play with their friends, have a great experience.'
There have been football scandals in recent years — twice at Narbonne High, which had City Section championships taken away in 2019 and 2024 for using ineligible players. Now the football community is focused on what the Southern Section intends to do this fall about Bishop Montgomery, which supposedly has numerous transfer students (some from Narbonne) and is so confident it'll 'll be declared eligible that a trip to Hawaii and a nonleague game against powerful Mater Dei have been scheduled.
Every week, coaches have to decide how to deal with players and parents who have little patience and many options. It's a balancing act, and for the elite of the elite, coaches can't even count on juniors returning as seniors because of opportunities to skip ahead to college.
'I understand why they are doing it. They have my full support,' said Sierra Canyon coach Jon Ellinghouse, who's losing star defensive lineman Richard Wesley to Oregon a year early after he reclassified to the class of 2026.
Ellinghouse is embracing the idea his job is to 'put them into positions to have life-changing opportunities.'
There are many different paths to success and failure. Remember how LaVar Ball didn't care that his youngest son, LaMelo, was 13 years old playing summer basketball as a freshman for Chino Hills. He threw him in against older players and the rest is history. He averaged 25.2 points this season for the Charlotte Hornets as a 23-year-old in his fifth NBA season.
There are others who were 19-year-old seniors in high school, stopped developing, kept switching schools and will probably blame their coaches for not making the pros when the truth is it's difficult to become a professional athlete.
It is the best of times with all kinds of money to be given out for being a good athlete. It is the worst of times because many of the treasured lessons from playing amateur sports no longer receive priority treatment. What happened to the importance of getting a college degree?
It will take someone with magical ideas to return a balance to the amateur sports world.
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