GAMES
RANKINGS
IN FOCUS: 'Wolves fall to Montgomery in another close one presented by Academy Sports + Outdoors
The Timberwolves of Beaumont United don't have a win to show yet this season, but they are in every game.
United fell to West Brook by 14, then to PN-G by four and last weekend to Montgomery 23-19.
The 'Wolves get a week off before going into district play with Baytown Sterling.
VYPE U intern Kennedi Cooper was on the scene to capture the images.
For all the ways you love to play, Academy Sports and Outdoors makes it easier than ever to gear up and have fun out there! Get free shipping on your favorite brands at academy.com or get free curbside or in-store pick-up at your Academy store. Gear up this Spring at Academy Sports and Outdoors.
LISTEN UP: Next on the Endangered Species' List? 5-Star Athletes
From the dinosaurs to Blockbuster video, things just become extinct.
Home telephones? Heck, cable television has virtually ran its course.
So, what is next on the endangered species' list?
The 5-Star Athlete will be extinct in a matter of months.
Football's Big-Ticket, Game-Breakers will be a thing of the past in 2022. No, not a meteor shower or the advent of new technology, but the ruling of Name, Imagine and Likeness, where college athletes can cash in on themselves where they see fit.
Great, cool, awesome. Long overdue for college athletes, but the NCAA has made the roll-out messier than an LA Freeway virtually any time of day.
The repercussions of NIL have seeped into high school sports as I've predicted.
This is basically Global Warming for high school athletics. There won't be a slow erosion of superstars leaving the locker rooms and weight rooms across Texas, but an avalanche of Blue Chip athletes falling into the abyss of NIL. SPLASH.
Southlake Carroll's Quin Ewers was first to test the waters, bringing this topic to the UIL, which deferred to the Texas Legislature. Ok, cool. Their hands are tied, I get it.
Ewers couldn't get paid in high school, so off to Ohio State and greener artificial turf pastures await him.
He was the No. 1 player in Texas. Poof… gone.
Hightower super-hooper and senior-to-be Bryce Griggs couldn't make money as a high school student… poof off to Overtime Elite where he will get paid… we think. No more Hurricane state title dreams as H-Town is in his rearview mirror.
FB Bush junior Tyler Smith gets a national-ranking and… bye, off to Overtime Elite. He will forego TWO years of making memories inside the Hopson Field House. He just would have been a junior.
While Klein Cain star Jaydon Blue's circumstance is a little different, highly-coveted athletes will follow his lead. Blue committed to the University of Texas and has chosen to by-pass his senior year to prepare for his future as a Longhorn. He should be an early-enrollee in January.
Those are the outliers right now, however, they are also the pioneers that so many will follow.
For now high school fans, enjoy the likes of Bridgeland's Conner Weigman -- an Elite 11 QB -- still weaving his magic at the high school level before he early enrolls with the Aggies in January.
If North Shore 5-Star Denver Harris (currently the No. 1 player in Texas) comes back from an ACL injury to play ball this year, he certainly be the last of his kind. Big-time stones if he does come back.
The Bishop Davenport's of Spring, Harold Perkins' of Cy Park and Kam Dewberry's of Atascocita – all extinct in the near future.
So, what stops this disappearance of future stars?
Open up the NIL floodgates in Texas. It will be messy at first, but order will follow.
It gives the optics of a level playing field to all athletes… not just football, basketball and baseball stars but also female student-athletes. They usually get left out of this conversation all together.
Do you think Lululemon wouldn't sponsor Ally Batenhorst of Seven Lakes, the National Gatorade Volleyball Player of the Year? What about former Barbers Hill star Charli Collier being an ambassador for who else… Charming Charlies?
This could be a slippery slope, but it can't be any worse than the alternative.