USA TODAY High School Sports‘ Friday Night Notes is a weekly high school recruiting recap that looks at the latest news from around the country—from the Class of 2023 to ’24 and beyond.
The advent of NIL money becoming available to college and high school players have brought on a surge of ugly commentary and negative generalizations about young athletes. Some are painted as selfish, greedy, poorly-behaved, and only interested in where they can make the most money – as if there’s something wrong with an athlete wanting to maximize their earnings – especially in a sport as dangerous and violent as football.
Sadly, some of the most famous people in the industry reinforce aspects of these negative stereotypes. Deion Sanders’ unfortunate recent comments about only wanting recruits coming from two-parent households are only one of the countless bad examples.
Often these stereotypes fly in the face of the evidence. Many of these young players are exceptionally unselfish and do a lot to give back to their communities. One superb example is that of Lincoln East (Neb.) four-star Athlete Malachi Coleman, who signed with Nebraska just before Christmas after briefly re-opening his recruitment.
Before his current family adopted him, Coleman suffered abuse as a foster child when he was growing up. Now he’s doing what he can to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. Coleman will be donating his NIL money to the foster system.
Here’s the full story from CBS Evening News that Coleman shared on Twitter:
Be a leader 💯 pic.twitter.com/SbwWE0dPHP
— Malachi Coleman (@ChiColeman23) February 18, 2023