Can This 14-Year-Old Football Star Become a High School Millionaire?

Sports|Can This 14-Year-Old Football Star Become a High School Millionaire?

Brittany Coleman’s son Kaden had just turned 10 when youth football coaches started pressing envelopes with thousands of dollars into her hand. They wanted Kaden to play for their club teams in Maryland, in New Jersey and across the Mid-Atlantic.

Ms. Coleman always refused. Payments for top players, an open secret in youth sports, weren’t allowed, and she didn’t want to tarnish her son.

But as Kaden has grown to become one of the best eighth-grade football players in the country, there is now a legal, and potentially far more lucrative, way for him to profit from his talent.

Just as college athletes can now be paid for their athletic talent through so-called name, image and likeness, or N.I.L., deals — which compensate players for the use of their image in commercials and other promotional material — so can students as young as middle school.

Last summer, Ms. Coleman allowed Kaden to sign sponsorship deals with a local fashion brand, Second N Six, and an athletic gear company. Kaden also has an agent to help him with future deals.

Ms. Coleman declined to say how much money her son had received so far, but she’s clear about her aspirations for him. “I’ll tell you what the goal is,” said Ms. Coleman, a counselor in the District of Columbia’s public school system. “The goal is for him to reach a million dollars his freshman year of high school.”