Editor’s note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

The social media post looked like it could be an April Fools’ joke.

An eighth-grade football player had announced his commitment to a Las Vegas area high school, complete with the customary thank-yous to family and youth coaches. A few months earlier, another local athlete had done the same — but this post included a slick video.

The posts read like they were accepting a scholarship to play in the SEC or Big Ten, not committing to a neighborhood school. The post last week was shared more than 700 times.

First instinct? Overbearing parents have taken over their kid’s social media and gone too far. Parents living vicariously through their children’s athletic careers is nothing new, and a 14-year-old having free rein on social media raises its own questions.

But on second thought, these middle-school athletes are simply mirroring what they see at the college level, where players routinely transfer for bigger name, image and likeness (NIL) paydays and better opportunities to see the field. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with college athletes maximizing their earning potential within a five-year window — especially when many won’t turn professional and those Saturday games generate millions in revenue.

High school, though, is a different story. It’s comical — and it needs to stop.

The era of growing up in a neighborhood and simply attending the local high school is fading. Private and charter schools have a great deal to offer, and the mass departure of Clark County School District students — for athletic and nonathletic reasons alike — is hard to ignore.

CCSD enrollment is declining partly due to falling birth rates, but a significant segment of Las Vegas families has simply found better alternatives. Most of the elementary-age children in my former east Las Vegas neighborhood now attend Mater East.

The trend isn’t limited to Las Vegas.

Scroll through X and you’ll find countless high school athletes announcing transfers — and, unfortunately, few of them are due to a parent relocating for work.

More often, a new school is simply an escape hatch from whatever went wrong at the last one: playing time, a lack of college scholarship interest or dissatisfaction with a coaching change. Last winter, for example, a starter on the defending Nevada state championship basketball team transferred to a school in California.

Eric Sondheimer, the longtime Los Angeles Times high school sports columnist, reported last week that some athletes in Southern California are being represented by agents. He issued a warning that California Interscholastic Federation rules prohibit agents from negotiating school changes — their role must be limited to NIL deals at the college level. “Parents, don’t be fooled,” he posted on X.

In the CIF Southern Section alone, there were 6,366 transfers recorded in 2024–25, according to Sports Illustrated. At least 10 states, including Nevada, allow a high school athlete one transfer with immediate eligibility. In Nevada, a student moving from a public school to a charter or private school can play right away; the reverse is also permitted — charter or private to public — but the student must live within the public school’s zoning boundary.

One reason CCSD football programs opted for independent status within the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association earlier this year was an inability to compete with charter schools poaching their players. In a single week, coaches from two eastside programs reached out to express frustration over athletes being actively recruited away. One coach said he had screenshots of social media recruiting pitches — a clear rules violation.

This isn’t meant to be a knock on the two athletes who will soon compete on the Las Vegas gridiron. They are surely talented, and they have bright futures — we’ll be covering them.

Rather, their posts reflect a high school athletics landscape that no longer feels traditional. Go ahead and call me the old guy in the room.

Social media is a valuable tool for athletes building their brand, and in the current era of college NIL, that brand can translate into real opportunity and real money.

But at 14 or 15, these kids should be more focused on developing their skills than their image. If you can play, game film is your best promotion. If you can’t, the chances of making another announcement in four years — a college commitment — will diminish.

The wave of transfers in football has also made it harder for emerging players — those two- and three-star recruits — to secure a college roster spot, let alone one that comes with an NIL payment.