High school football has evolved in many ways during the past 25 years, and most of those evolutions have been, more or less, good.
But two athletic directors and one head football coach have their eyes on the proposed Prep Super League, and each agrees that it seems detrimental to high school sports in Georgia.
Former USFL president Brian Woods has defended the league as a “beneficial path” to improve recruiting status and enhance possible NIL deals, although the GHSA has not approved that financial pathway for its athletes … yet.
“It’s not meant to be antagonistic to traditional high school football,” Woods told Todd Holcomb for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We should be viewed quite the contrary, as a supplemental platform or a complementary entity. And I’m going to take the position that our league is going to be safer than traditional high school football. That I can guarantee.”
The proposed league, consisting of all-star high school football teams from 12 states, is scheduled to compete April 19-May 24 and have a team located in Atlanta. The desire is to attract the most highly recruited football players in the state to play for the Georgia team.
Jasper Jewell, athletic director for Atlanta public schools, Gary Townsend, athletic director for Clayton County public schools and Darren Myles, Carver-Atlanta head football coach, echoed similar thoughts on the proposed league.
Jewell: “I think it is a God-awful idea. First and foremost, we must give a student-athlete an option to play alternative sports if they choose, and those could be in the spring. Also, you need to give those kids time for their bodies to heal. Football is a barbaric sport. You cannot play football in the fall, train hard in the winter, have spring football, and now we are talking about having an alternative league? I don’t agree with that. I do not think it is fair for a 14-to-18 year-old student’s body to endure that. Particularly when we are getting them ready for the next level, whether the next level may be college, armed forces, work force, what have you. That’s just not fair to the student-athlete because I don’t think it gives them an opportunity to maximize the fact that they are student-athletes.”
Myles: “I wouldn’t be in the grace of it. There’s a risk of injury, first. Like, what if a kid comes in who might not necessarily be a blue-chip recruit yet, but he had the opportunity to (be) and then he deals with chances of injury in this spring league? The offseason is generally another opportunity for teammates to gain camaraderie, for leaders to evolve and also play other sports for their school – basketball, baseball, soccer and track and field. The spring league could impact participation at that level. And what kind of influence would these coaches have over the players? There’s always a risk of recruitment, as well. A coach’s various influences during that spring league could be bad. Where would the coaches come from? What affiliation would these super-league coaches have on players. Maybe that head coach doesn’t work for a GHSA school, but maybe they have connections and would influence players poorly.
Townsend: “This takes away the opportunity for our kids to be multiple-sport athletes. I know that a lot of the AAU sports – basketball and baseball – that our kids focus on one sport 365 days out of the year. When I grew up playing ball in Chicago, when football season was over, it was over. It was football, then basketball or wrestling, then once that was over, you went to track and field. We are specializing these kids in sports, and it takes away opportunities, especially young kids. It puts wear and tear on their bodies. I don’t have a lot of knowledge of it, but when you’re bringing in a million-dollar entity to be a part of high school football, my question is what is their intent? What is the end game? What is the purpose? The unfortunate part is that nine times out of 10, what is their financial gain from this? This league might not be for the high-profile seniors. This league seems that it could be for 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds, and so what are they doing? What message are they sending kids? And what is their payoff?
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