Student-athletes, coaches weigh in on NIL rules amid groundbreaking lawsuit

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Triangle-area student-athletes and coaches are weighing in following the filing of a high-stakes lawsuit that could carry major implications for high school athletes statewide.

On Friday, Rolanda Brandon -- mother of Faizon Brandon, the quarterback at Grimsley High School in Greensboro widely regarded as the nation's top football recruit -- filed the lawsuit against the State Board of Education and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) about rules restricting name, image and likeness (NIL) in North Carolina.

That lawsuit, which names the State BOE and the DPI as defendants, alleges that those bodies overstepped state law in restricting public high school athletes from benefitting from their NIL. In North Carolina, a separate set of rules governs public and private high school student-athletes -- resulting in a landscape where NCISAA, or private, student-athletes can benefit monetarily from NIL, but NCHSAA, or public school athletes, cannot.

SEE THE FULL COMPLAINT FILED BY ROLANDA BRANDON (.pdf)

"If you're good enough in public schools to get the NIL deals, I think they should be available to you," said Franklin Johnson, a recent graduate and basketball standout at Chapel Hill High School.

Franklin and fellow basketball player Dylan Mann were training Tuesday at IV Greatness Basketball Academy in Raleigh, which works with young athletes from elementary school through college. Both Johnson and Mann said the allure of NIL deals has become very real.

"You have to know how to play with NIL because that's half the game at this point," said Mann, who also graduated in 2024.

Mann is evaluating his college basketball options as he rehabs from injury but said the hybrid rules governing NIL in high school sports in North Carolina are creating an imbalance in the sports landscape.

"I feel like everyone who thinks that their athlete is good enough to make money will be going private at this point, because why would you put your student-athlete where they can't make money if they're able to?" Mann said.

Kevin Gibbs, coach at IV Greatness, said they're working to secure NIL deals for eligible athletes with companies such as LaVar Ball's Big Baller Brand, and Undervalued Athletics. Gibbs said it's been difficult at times to navigate the uneven rules in North Carolina.

"I don't really like that, because I feel like if you're going to open the doors for high school athletes, you need to open them for everyone," he said.

That disparity is the focus of the Brandon lawsuit, which alleges that the State BOE's decision to bar public school student-athletes from benefitting from their NIL has cost the family at least $1 million.

"As long as the North Carolina High School Athletic Association says, 'No, we're not going to do NIL in North Carolina', and independent school athletics actually says, 'yes, we'll do it', you're going to have a class warfare," said high school basketball coach Chad Revelle. "It's inevitably going to create that rift."

Revelle has seen the issue from both sides, as the girls' basketball coach at private national powerhouse Grace Christian in Sanford, and now at Eastern Randolph High School in Randolph County. Revelle said he still has reservations about the big money entering high school sports but thinks the current divide could hurt smaller public schools.

"They're going to leave and go to the private schools if they can get an NIL deal or whatever it is, or they'll move to a completely different state," he said.

ABC11 reached the head of the NCHSAA, Que Tucker, by phone on Tuesday. Tucker has yet to weigh in on the issue, and said, "I have nothing to say about this lawsuit."

Tucker added she has no opinion on the differing policies and deferred to the State BOE, who she said has the sole power to change policy. ABC11 reached out to the State Board and DPI, who declined to comment citing the ongoing litigation.