LA GRANDE — High school athletes in Oregon now have the opportunity to be compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness.

But how much of an impact, if any, that will have in Northeastern Oregon remains to be seen.

The Oregon School Activities Association’s delegate assembly Monday, Oct. 10, voted to approve a rule change to the OSAA’s awards rule.

The rule makes Oregon the latest state to allow high school athletes to profit off of their NIL, a movement that has swept across the country and has been prevalent in the NCAA ranks in the last year. Oregon is now among roughly 20 states that allow athletes to profit from use of their NIL, according to an article from The Oregonian.

It’s been common for professional athletes to do so for decades, but only recently have college athletes had the opportunity. High school athletics now seem to be following suit.

Odin Miller, Union boys basketball coach, said he was shocked by the OSAA ruling.

“It surprised me for a couple reasons. The whole NIL movement is pretty young. It’s just now making its way into full swing (at the college level),” he said. “There are some unknowns of how it’s going to shake out. I agree with the college level for sure. It’s been tough to watch those big universities make so much money,” off college athletics.

It’s that newness and the unknowns that concern Miller, especially when considering if there could be fallout from the ruling.

“Ninety-some percent (of athletes) that this particular OSAA ruling deals with is minors. You could have minors profiting off their name, image and likeness, which complicates it a little bit,” he said. “It might further complicate how this all works out. Do you worry about kids getting exploited?”

Miller also doesn’t see many kids — if any — benefitting from the rule change locally.

“I can’t think about how a kid would profit off NIL in our valley,” he said. “It seems like a very complicated thing that is very young. It’s perplexing.”

Elsewhere in Northeastern Oregon, the opinion is the rule change may not be as far-reaching as it could be in the metro areas of Portland, Salem, Eugene and the like.

“I’m not against it. It’s kind of going with the times,” Joseph boys basketball coach Olan Fulfer said. “It’s interesting. I don’t think it’s going to have much effect with us on this side. It’s going to have more effect for Portland schools.

“I (don’t) see anything wrong with that. NCAA is doing the exact same things. … If there are companies who want to pay kids for their likeness, I think that is kind of about the freedom that we have.”

Imbler boys basketball coach Tony Haddock also said he doesn’t see the rule change impacting much.

“I don’t think it’s going to have the far-reaching effect on high school kids as it would on college kids,” he said, acknowledging, though, “I haven’t done a deep dive (on the topic).”

La Grande wrestling coach Klel Carson is also one who doesn’t see it being used much in Northeastern Oregon, and offered a strong opinion against the idea.

“For a high school kid to make money off of playing sports, I think that’s absurd,” he said.

Here’s a quick rundown of what the NIL change means, according to the updated version of the OSAA’s handbook:

Students can be paid for their NIL usage so long as the compensation is not performanced based, is not used to entice students to stay at or transfer to a particular school, is not provided by a school or school agent, such as a booster, and that the student discloses any compensation earned to their school.

Students also cannot use apparel, facilities, film or equipment from a member school in any NIL activities, nor can they wear clothing with markings from a member school or the OSAA. They also cannot promote products or services during team activities.

Students also cannot promote activities, products or services linked to adult entertainment, alcohol, tobacco, nicotine, vaping, cannabis, controlled substances, prescription medication, political parties or candidates, anything illegal for people under 18, gambling, and anything connected to weapons or firearms.

Fulfer admitted some uncertainty as to OSAA’s reason for allowing the NIL compensation, wondering if any of it is due to concern by the state’s sports governing board of losing athletes to other states that have OK’d NIL payments.

He said one concern of his was if athletes who are standouts at smaller schools but who are unable to get noticed, and possibly, compensated, would attempt to transfer to a bigger school for that opportunity, but then miss getting on the field.

“I could see that would be a thing that would happen, (that they may transfer) and then (once) there they don’t play,” he said, noting both the athlete and the school they transferred from would be negatively impacted.

Haddock added that athletes could look to transfer for better NIL opportunities. He doesn’t see that happening much in the region — “I don’t think you’re going to see kids transferring from Pilot Rock to Echo (or) Echo to Stanfield because of better NIL opportunities,” he said — but said the OSAA may want to be sure to avoid the move creating an NCAA-like transfer portal.

“I don’t think that is something we have to worry about, but I think it’s something that OSAA needs to keep in the back of their mind,” he said.

Haddock also quipped that he “can’t wait” until an athlete asks him how much money could be made at the high school level. He added that athletes here play more for the love of the game and, at least in his sport, there needs to be more concern about another recent OSAA rule passage.

“Let’s worry about the shot clock first,” he said.