WIAA- creating rules and guidelines to fit student athletes’ needs

This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk.

Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci,

educated educators talking education.

Ah, yes it is, Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk,

educated educators talking education, first downs,

Friday nights, hey, Busting Balls, you name it Jess, right?

This is a...

Oh, yes.

We love this, a special segment.

Coach Kay Jimmy Koska helped us put this together,

bringing in guests, we're going to be featuring every Friday.

You know, right now, Friday night lights,

particularly Friday night football and all that going on with athletics.

But athletics across the public school system,

all of the, quote, extracurriculars,

and as we like to say here on Busted Pencils,

the essential curriculars that are there,

the requirements, because, man, if you don't have football,

if you don't have baseball, if you don't have cram,

if you don't have football festival,

that's just not a public school system devoted to the community

and democracy.

We've got a great guest tonight,

our guest, Mel Dow.

He is the Associate Director of the Wisconsin

Inner School Lastic Athletic Association.

Mel, welcome to Busted Pencils.

Thank you, Tim, all right.

It's a pleasure to be here with you.

All right, so get into this for anybody listening out there.

You are the Associate Director of the Wisconsin

Inner School Lastic Athletic Association.

All right.

What do you do, Mel?

Well, the WIA is commonly known is an association

of member schools across the state of Wisconsin.

We currently have 518 member schools in the state of Wisconsin.

That's both public and private,

and they voluntarily are members of our association.

And what we do is we help facilitate the rules

that the member schools create,

and then we also provide a tournament series for them

for championship events in each of the respective sports.

And right now, we're in the fall sports.

So what are obviously Friday night football,

but what other school sports are going on in the fall?

Yeah, well, the fall sport that I have the pleasure

of what we're seeing is cross country for both boys and girls.

We also have both boys and girls volleyball.

We have swimming for girls.

We have, let's see, soccer for the boys in the fall,

or the sports that we are currently offering in the fall.

So with all of that, though,

and you're really with the cross country pointing that out,

but yeah, we kind of get lost or thinking

that fall sports Friday night football, so Mel,

thanks for reminding us of all of those comprehensive sports

that are going on out there.

And so if you happen to be out there and going,

yeah, you know, I play volleyball, I do cross country.

This is exactly what we're talking about here.

This is what first downs in Friday night lights,

busting balls is all about, you know,

we want to talk about those extra curriculars.

Hey, in fact, we got a mailbag and, you know,

give us a call, 608-557-8577,

drop us a note, let us know.

Questions, you know, what's going on around your area

on Friday nights as you're happening out there?

The numbers, 608-557-8577.

That's the busted pencils mailbag.

Put it out there.

All right, Mel, though.

I got to say, though, we're going to talk about,

so the rules that are going on out there with the Wisconsin

Interest Galactic Athletic Association,

Coach K. Jimmy Costco,

sent me some of the things that you guys are working on.

And I'm going to admit, I had no idea

that there was anything even remotely close to this.

It might date myself, but graduating high school in 1985,

being a football player, a wrestler.

I was never once approached by any sports teams

that wanted to use my name, my image, and my likeness.

I thought, for sure, that was only something

that ever happened when you got into,

like, a sports team,

like, a sports team,

man, it wasn't even college then, but in the pros

that you might see something like that.

Really, we have to have policy for name,

image, and likeness issues in high school sports.

Help me understand more about this.

Yeah, Tim, it's an ever-changing landscape

as it is in all parts of education.

And same thing,

and educationally-based athletics

is what the business that we're in.

Actually, it dates even before athletics.

People were involved in advertisements,

kids in movies, and TV stars, and things like that.

That's their name, image, and their likeness.

But in the marketing world,

people are looking for the next ad,

the next thing that will help them sell.

And yes, it started in the professional ranks, obviously.

You think back to the old Michael Jordan commercials

and so forth and so on.

And once that market gets saturated,

they look for what was next.

And not too long ago,

the NCAA passed name, image, and likeness opportunities

where their student athletes were able to start monetizing

on their likeness.

And just like everything else in this world,

it starts at the highest level,

and it filters its way down.

And now it's sweeping the nation

at the high school level.

We obviously, we want to help our student athletes

from being exploited.

And that's one of the biggest things

with this.

And it's why the membership needs to have these kind of conversations

of how can they find that balance between what

are some of the rights of student athletes

to be able to monetize on what it is that they do

that's not associated with their schools

and their school programming.

And those from being exploited from those

that are trying to capitalize on the kids' own success.

So with this policy,

just thinking about this for anybody who's listening,

going,

like, so the weedies box, right,

getting my, my image on the weedies,

I don't know, again, if that that dates me,

but maybe a little,

sorry, just a little bit,

okay, but you know,

whatever are Jordans, as we point this out,

the ability though to monetize is what we're talking about

on my name, my image, my likeness.

And so, yeah, most people's association

with that is usually some form of pro athletes

that are out there doing this,

that they get a contract.

You know, they're,

yeah, Michael Jordan must be honest, okay.

Michael Jordan, Nike,

you know, great name,

image likeness there.

The branding became almost exclusively there in the 90s

that if you were talking about Nike,

you were talking about Michael Jordan.

And that was a monetary situation.

The reality, though, too,

as you point out,

it dropped on into college because,

yeah, those brands really started to look at

college athletes and saying,

hey, we think, you know,

that we can use,

let's use that word,

use you to help us market our brand.

But at the same time,

they could get money.

And I remember some of the earlier kind of discussions on this

was, no,

we're not going to let college athletes get into this relationship

because of potentially,

yeah, exploitation,

but all kinds of foul things that could go awry here.

And I remember, though,

some of the pro and con debates at that point was saying,

but wait,

why can't we allow college students to make money

because, you know what,

in the athletics,

and this was just one argument that I remember hearing,

is that, you know,

you are one injury away from a career ending,

you know, career ending injury, right?

And so the ability to be able to monetize

and make some money was to say that it kind of got put as,

this is only fair to allow people to make money

on their name,

likeness and image,

but yeah, help me out, Mel,

though,

so where we are.

Yeah, I mean,

also taking a look a little bit about how the college landscape

changed is that,

you know,

many of the college athletes,

you know,

the discussion was they were an amateur student athlete,

and the value that they got was the value of an education.

And then the argument came back and said,

but these institutions of higher learning are making millions upon millions

of dollars,

these TV contracts and so forth.

And that was the real catalyst of NIL changing at the college level.

And again,

as we said before,

things trickle down.

And,

a key thing to note is,

is that this is not a,

a sweeping change for high school athletes.

The national average right now,

there's over 35 states that allow name,

image and likeness for their high school student athletes.

I think actually last count was 37 or 38 states.

And the national average is less than 1% of high school athletes

are in a name,

image and likeness deal.

It's not like what we are hearing that's some of the horror stories

that are taking place at the collegiate ranks,

where kids are getting multi-million dollar contracts.

Okay, so yeah,

let's be real then right as we're talking about this at the high school level.

But so just,

what are some of the potential reasons why we want to protect high school athletes

from some of these marketing situations here that,

that you know,

just in case somebody's out there going,

I want my kid to be represented by Nike.

Okay, yeah.

What could go wrong?

Well, well, currently the WIA,

like many other states at one time,

had amateur status rules.

And our currently is still in effect.

And again,

it's there to protect the student athletes.

They must remain in amateurs in all aspects of it.

But we currently have violations.

And we have quite a few violations each year of this amateur status.

And I'll use the example of say a local restaurant

will say, hey, come, come down to,

to Joe's pizza shack after the game,

because Johnny,

the starting quarterback eats,

you know, our pizza before the game.

Well, they're using the kid's name and performance

to draw people into their business,

or their establishment,

or,

or a fitness club will say,

hey, the,

the Kingstown Cobras come in here

and they get their off season workouts with us.

You should come in and be a part of our organization.

And the problem with that is that they're drawing business

on the successes of those student athletes.

And that's the,

that's the,

the exploitation that we talk about.

And what we want to do is we want to protect those kids of it.

Now, we work very hard to,

to

restore the eligibility of those student athletes

in those situations.

The athletic directors,

along with our office work with those places that,

that violate the rules.

And most of these are situations where the family is not even aware of it.

Social media has just magnified this 10,

10 fold.

Just a quick picture and a post on social media

can go a long way,

you know, with all these views and clicks and such.

But we work hard to restore that eligibility.

And once it's peeled back and restored,

then the student athletes are able to maintain their eligibility.

Now, I, I just coming forward with,

with this, my, my, my naivete,

I just didn't realize how much of this was,

was there, you know,

when I was looking at some of the rules by the WIA,

I mean, they start to make sense to me because now,

I'm going to throw this back to,

you know, my, my high school.

So still Valley high school.

So I'm a great wrestler.

And I've been approached now by a brand that wants

to use my name, image and likeness.

I can say yes,

but tell me about the conditions that say,

what I can and can't do if I get into a contract.

And it said,

this isn't the very simple things as you said,

just getting kind of screwed up with the social media block

with the, with the restaurant.

But I, you know, I'm a great high school wrestler.

I wrestle for still Valley high school.

And Nike has come forward and wants to use my name,

image and likeness.

There are rules, though,

that very specifically say what I can and can't do.

Help me understand that for anybody out there right now,

who happens to maybe potentially be in this position.

Sure.

Well, a key thing to note is that currently in Wisconsin,

there is no name, image and likeness for high school athletes.

The membership is currently considering it.

Last, last April they had a discussion.

And the membership voted and turned it down.

And about a 55 to 45% ratio,

where they, they declined it.

And that proposed language simply stated.

That a student athlete could engage in name, image and likeness

opportunities for anything that was not associated to their school,

their school teams, their conference, or the association.

As well as some other parameters,

nothing regarding drugs, alcohol, tobacco.

And then there was no affiliation to their school programming.

So that simply meant that anybody that was some sort of a contributor

to the school system could not be a part of their name,

image and likeness.

And that was to prevent any undue influence.

Some of the, some of the challenges that are facing college sports right now

with all these collectives and things.

The membership had considered that type of language.

So at this point, there isn't my ability.

If I'm a high school athlete in Wisconsin,

but, but what you had pointed out though.

So when I said, you know, if this would happen,

though, the rules that they were negotiating would have said,

then varies.

And I think this is the way most parents and,

and student athletes could really understand this is,

is that, okay, you've got this deal.

But guess what?

You're, you're not going to take any pictures,

wearing your high schools colors, the logos,

the name, those types of things,

because you're going to be an individual,

your name, image and likeness as an individual.

And it's not going to be associated with your high school.

Correct.

And that was,

that was just to protect the,

the safety of,

of high school sports,

you know,

everything that about the,

the teamwork,

the cohesion,

so forth and so on,

affiliated with high school sports,

keep high school sports as pure as possible.

But if an athlete is successful outside of,

of their high school sporting role,

albeit if it's a club or something like that,

they could go ahead and engage in those type of things.

That was the concept.

That was the concept.

But, but right now though,

the, the concept is no,

this isn't going to happen.

Do you,

I just wonder,

you,

that seemed like a pretty decently close vote.

Do you see this at some point,

continuing to come up in the following year,

in the coming years?

Yeah,

we're currently having area meetings where we go out

across the state of Wisconsin and visit with all the administrators

from the respective member schools.

And we,

we talk about the topics that are coming up over the,

upcoming year.

And name image and likeness was one of them that the

membership asked to continue to have in those conversations.

The key thing to understand is all the rules of eligibility

within the WIA are written by the member schools.

Our administrative office does not write rules.

The,

the schools themselves write their rules.

And other states have been forced into a situation where either

through legislation or through the result of a lost lawsuit,

where their rules have been written for them.

And again,

the key thing about what our rules are written by the schools.

And the membership feels that they do a better job writing rules,

applying to what they're,

therefore,

than having an outside group organization or entity for that matter,

write their rules.

So yes,

we continue to have these conversations to make sure that

the rules fit the needs of their respective students at this

time.

I just thinking about that.

So you're listening to this,

this podcast first,

Downs and Friday night lights with,

with Mel Dow,

the number 608557,

8577,

wondering,

you know,

if you're out there and you have a question about name,

image and likeness,

or any other questions dealing with,

with Wisconsin Inner Scholastic Athletic Association,

how we're dealing with this.

But I, you know,

if you're out there,

I would love to hear,

what do you think should Wisconsin be putting forward a policy

that would allow this?

And then if so,

what would the rules be?

The Wisconsin Inner Scholastic Athletic Association,

they've been dealing with this.

Mel Dow,

really appreciate you coming on the show.

And as we always like to say,

Mel, thank you for busting pencils.

You