Ohio

With NIL on OHSAA’s doorstep, here’s what high school athletes, athletic directors think

Published

4 months ago

October 24, 2025

With NIL on OHSAA’s doorstep, here’s what high school athletes, athletic directors think

Name, image and likeness opportunities have arrived for Ohio high school athletes – at least temporarily, thanks to a case currently making its way through the courts. And there might be only one thing on which supporters and opponents agree.

“It won’t affect as many students as people think,” Pickerington North football coach Nate Hillerich said.

“It’s going to be (about) .0003% of kids that are affected,” Columbus Academy athletic director and former Ohio State basketball player Jason Singleton said. “I don’t think it’s going to be very significant even when they pass that Ohio high school kids can have NIL. I don’t think it will have a huge effect.”

The biggest question in the wake of a lawsuit filed on behalf of Huber Heights Wayne junior and Ohio State wide receiver commit Jamier Brown might be whether NIL permanently comes to Ohio high schools. That could happen through an Ohio High School Athletic Association emergency referendum or the courts.

The OHSAA has put a referendum on the ballot in November for its 815 member schools. A simple majority decides the vote, and new rules would be implemented immediately.

How would Ohio become the 45th state with NIL?

Three years after OHSAA member schools rejected a proposal to allow NIL by a 68-32% margin, Brown’s mother, Jasmine, filed a lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court on Oct. 15 against the OHSAA seeking a change to the organization’s bylaws.

Five days later, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page issued a 45-day temporary restraining order nullifying the OHSAA’s prohibition of NIL until a preliminary injunction hearing Dec. 15.

The emergency referendum could render the December hearing moot. The OHSAA’s board of directors met Oct. 23 to determine voting dates for the proposal, which it had originally planned to put up for a vote in May.

The vote is now set for Nov. 17-21. Each school gets one vote, submitted virtually by its principal.

Athletes would not be allowed to use their team or school logos in advertisements, represent their deals during contests or make agreements based on particular performances, such as scoring a certain number of points. They must report any deals to the OHSAA within two weeks; not doing so could result in being ineligible for up to 20% of their sport’s season.

Forty-four states – all but Alabama, Hawaii, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wyoming – allow NIL for high school athletes.

“Some people might not make it to the dream of playing professionally in their sport,” said Pickerington North defensive back Amar’e Miller, a senior and three-star recruit. “This may be the best time of their life for their earning potential.”

Westerville Central athletic director Andy Ey was glad to learn it would not fall to coaches or athletic departments to arrange or keep track of NIL deals. The OHSAA referendum also would prohibit NIL collectives, which are popular among college programs, from managing opportunities for athletes.

“If someone out there wants to pay a kid to be in a commercial or wants to have a kid be a spokesperson for their business or (says), ‘We’ll let you drive this car if you appear in our television ad,’ you should be able to capitalize on your name, image and likeness,” Ey said. “I don’t think that it’s wrong and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

Athletes would be prohibited from receiving deals as part of recruitment to another school, and the OHSAA does not plan to change transfer rules, potentially mitigating concerns that NIL could lead to so-called “super teams.”

High school NIL ‘not the same thing’ as college

OHSAA executive director Doug Ute met with athletic directors from across the state Oct. 22 to further clarify what NIL might mean.

“We’re going to adhere (to) the regulations, but at the same time, our school name isn’t going to be out there,” Watterson athletic director Doug Etgen said, adding that the Diocese of Columbus met with its member schools in mid-September to discuss NIL.

“I don’t think it’s as scary as some people think,” Etgen said. “They’re just used to the college NIL. It’s not the same thing. It’s going to be a true NIL situation where a kid can sell his name, image and likeness and get a couple of bucks.”

Big Walnut athletic director Brian Shelton remains opposed to NIL but is open to change.

“I don’t think it’s a good fit for high school athletics, but I do understand that times are changing, and I do understand that it’s probably going to come to Ohio at some point, and I will be supportive of it,” Shelton said. “If the kids deserve it, they deserve it, and they should be able to get what’s coming to them. We’ll follow the rules, and we’ll do what’s right by the kids and OHSAA and everything else.”

Academy basketball standout Jason Singleton Jr., a Harvard commit, said he will think more about NIL opportunities after high school.

“If one came to me, I would be happy, but I really don’t think about that too much,” he said. “Once I get to college, I’ll start thinking about that a lot more.”

Miller suggested some top-tier athletes could leave Ohio if NIL does not become a reality.

“Eventually it will have to pass because it will eventually set Ohio behind in athletics,” Miller said. “Players and families will transfer to other states to take advantage of those life-changing opportunities.”

High school sports reporters Frank DiRenna and Dave Purpura can be reached at sports@dispatch.com and at @DispatchPreps on X.

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Ohio

Ohio woman sentenced in $775,000 Medicaid scheme

Published

5 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

COLUMBUS — A Lake County woman was sentenced this morning to jail time and ordered to pay $775,000 in restitution for fraudulently billing Medicaid, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced. “She inflated her earnings through brazen fraud, but her scheme burst wide open when our investigators got the case,” Yost said. “Cheating taxpayers comes with […]

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Ohio

‘Catastrophic’ Ohio farm fire kills 6,000 hogs and pigs, officials say

Published

17 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

‘Catastrophic’ Ohio farm fire kills 6,000 hogs and pigs, officials say

A wind-swept blaze at an Ohio hog farm complex caused “catastrophic” damage and left thousands of pigs dead, fire officials said, marking another devastating barn inferno contributing to the deaths of millions of animals in recent years.

The massive fire occurred on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at Fine Oak Farms in Union Township, Madison County, located west of Ohio’s capital of Columbus, according to the Central Townships Joint Fire District. Fire crews received a report of a barn fire shortly before 12 p.m. local time.

The incident was later upgraded to a commercial structure fire after Chief Brian Bennington observed a “large column of smoke visible from a distance” and requested additional resources. Multiple local fire departments, along with several other emergency agencies, were called to the scene.

“What our crews encountered upon arrival was a very difficult and heartbreaking incident,” Bennington said in a statement on Feb. 26.

The fire chief described the facility as a large farm complex used for hog production consisting of five large agricultural buildings, including four that housed about 7,500 hogs. When crews arrived at the scene, they found two of the barns engulfed in flames, Bennington said.

Crews were challenged by windy conditions that significantly impacted fire suppression efforts, according to Bennington. Three barns were destroyed in the fire, and about 6,000 hogs and pigs were killed.

Firefighters saved one barn and about 1,500 hogs, the fire chief added. No injuries were reported in the incident.

Bennington highlighted the assistance of the farming community throughout Madison and Clark counties, as multiple farmers responded with water trucks to help with water supply efforts. “Rural Ohio’s agricultural community is tight-knit, and they truly step up when one of their own is in need,” he said.

The incident remains under investigation, and the Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office will determine the fire’s cause and origin. Bennington said there is no suspicion of arson and no ongoing threat to the public at this time.

‘Rapidly changing fire behavior conditions’

Heavy smoke from the fire could be seen for miles, and Bennington said first-arriving units were met with fire conditions coming from the opposite side of the hog farm complex.

The fire chief noted that the incident required extensive water-shuttle operations due to rural water-supply limitations in the area. Crews attempted to cut the fire off by deploying multiple handlines and using an aerial device, but “faced extremely challenging conditions throughout the incident,” according to Bennington.

Sustained winds of about 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph accelerated the fire’s spread, Bennington said. The high winds made it “extremely difficult” to contain forward fire progression and created “rapidly changing fire behavior conditions” across the agricultural complex, he added.

After about four to five hours, the fire was contained by fire personnel from four different counties, according to the fire chief.

“Unfortunately, the fire resulted in catastrophic damage to the business,” Bennington said in an earlier statement on Feb. 25. “A significant portion of the agricultural structures were destroyed.”

Latest major fire to impact an Ohio hog farm

The incident at Fine Oak Farms is the latest major fire to cause significant damage to an Ohio hog farm in recent years.

In August 2024, about 1,100 pigs were killed in Versailles, a village about 50 miles northwest of Dayton, Ohio, according to data from the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute. In March 2022, about 2,000 hogs died in a barn fire at Kenneth Scholl Hog Farm in Brown Township, just west of Columbus.

Before the fire at Fine Oak Farms, the Animal Welfare Institute reported that other barn fires in Ohio this year killed 162 sheep, horses, cows, chickens, and other animals.

Hundreds of thousands of animals killed in barn fires each year

Data from the Animal Welfare Institute shows that hundreds of thousands of animals are killed in barn fires across the country each year. Since 2013, over 9 million farm animals have been killed in barn fires, according to the organization.

As of Feb. 26, the Animal Welfare Institute reported that 118,738 farm animals have died in U.S. barn fires this year, including the incident at Fine Oak Farms. The majority of farm animals killed were chickens in separate incidents in North Carolina and Georgia in January, and another incident in Missouri earlier this month.

“Most fatal barn fires occurred in colder states, particularly the Upper Midwest and the Northeast. New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois had the highest number of barn fires, respectively,” according to the organization. “The amount of cold weather a state experienced appeared to be a greater factor in the prevalence of barn fires than the intensity of a state’s animal agriculture production.”

In an updated report on farm animal deaths due to barn fires in 2025, the Animal Welfare Institute said more than 2.53 million farm animals were killed in barn fires from 2022 to 2024. The organization noted that the high death toll was “driven primarily” by fires at large operations that housed several thousand to over 1 million farm animals.

The majority of deaths in these incidents during that period, over 98%, were farmed birds, such as chickens and turkeys, according to the Animal Welfare Institute. But in 2023, a massive fire at a west Texas dairy farm became the single deadliest event involving livestock in the state’s history and the deadliest cattle fire in America in at least a decade.

18,000 head of cattle perished in the fire at the South Fork Dairy farm near Dimmitt, Texas. At the time, Roger Malone, who is the former mayor of Dimmitt, called the incident “mind-boggling.”

“I don’t think it’s ever happened before around here. It’s a real tragedy,” Malone said.

Contributing: Rick Jervis, USA TODAY; Shahid Meighan, Columbus Dispatch

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Ohio

Ohio’s LaRose pushes back on voter fraud critics, Democrats

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Ohio’s LaRose pushes back on voter fraud critics, Democrats

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose discussed voter fraud and Ohio’s efforts to prevent it during a recent radio appearance.

LaRose appeared on “The Bill Cunningham” radio show, where he defended the state’s efforts to minimize voter fraud. A clip posted on X shows audio of LaRose arguing that policies aimed at preventing voter fraud are necessary even though cases are rare.

Here’s what to know.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose says voter fraud in Ohio is rare, compares prevention efforts to TSA security

In the clip, LaRose says that Democrats claim voter fraud is rare, and should be ignored.

“The left claims that voter fraud is rare, so we should just ignore it,” he said. “Well, airplane hijackings are also rare — we don’t abolish the TSA. The reason why we keep voter fraud rare in states like Ohio because we do these very things that they’re trying to take away from me.”

LaRose announced the inaugural meeting of the new Ohio Election Integrity Commission, which replaces what he called the flawed Ohio Elections Commission, in January 2026. The new committee, he says, will be used in “enforcing Ohio’s election laws, reviewing alleged violations, and ensuring accountability in matters relating to voting.”

In October 2025, LaRose said that he forwarded more than 1,000 cases of voter fraud to the U.S. Department of Justice. The cases involved 1,084 noncitizen individuals who appear to have registered to vote unlawfully in Ohio, and 167 noncitizens who appear to have also cast a ballot in a federal election since 2018.

In February 2026, President Donald Trump said Republicans should “nationalize” elections. He also accused Democrats of bringing migrants into the United States to illegally vote, a claim that is not backed by evidence, USA TODAY reports.

Voter fraud in the U.S. is considered rare nationwide, according to NPR, but there are still debates from both political sides on how frequently it occurs.

What is voter fraud?

Electoral fraud is defined as illegally interfering with the process of an election, according to Ballotpedia. This includes in-person voter fraud, absentee or mail ballots and illegal voter suppression.

Criminal penalties can include fines or imprisonment for up to five years, according to U.S. code. In Ohio, election interference can carry a felony of the fourth degree, according to Ohio Code.

Voter fraud is often a topic of debate among Democrats and Republicans, where organizations such as the conservative Heritage Foundation maintains a database claiming to show nearly 1,500 cases of election fraud since the year 2000.

Meanwhile, research by law professor Justin Leavitt published in 2014 found 31 cases of in-person voter fraud among billions of ballots cast from 2000–2014, according to Ballotpedia.

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