DAYTON, Ohio — With Name, Image and Likeness in its third academic year for student athletes, universities have gotten creative in helping their athletes find deals.
At the University of Dayton, they’re making sure they’re using NIL for good.
What You Need To Know
- DaRon Holmes and Destiny Bohanon, both stars on the men's and women's UD basketball teams, are featured in a recent campaign for kids to go to school every day
- The campaign is an NIL for the athletes in partnership with Dayton 6th and Learn to Earn
- Chronic absenteeism has continued to rise since the pandemic, with 30% of students across the state chronically absent last year
- Holmes and Bohanon hope that their involvement will make a difference
Usually, you’ll find DaRon Holmes on the basketball court. But today, he’s at a local elementary school, spreading the message of the importance of coming to school every day.
“It reminded me of when I was their age," Holmes said. "So it’s cool to give them advice as they get older.”
Holmes along with women’s basketball star Destiny Bohanon were brought along with Dayton 6th, a local NIL collaborative, and Learn to Earn, a nonprofit, on the campaign to encourage kids to go to school each day.
“Influencing them to come to school every day so they can be whatever they want to be and at the greatest they want to be because if you’re not at school, you can’t learn, you can’t grow," Bohanon said.
The idea for the campaign started when attendance numbers across the state and in Montgomery County continued to dip even after the pandemic.
“The number of kids missing 10 school days, 15 school days, 20 school days a year go up astronomically," Dave Taylor, the superintendent of the Dayton Early College Academy, said. "And there’s a ton of data that tells us that when kids don’t come to school, they don’t perform well academically and those issues compound on each other year after year after year.”
That data shows that just last year 30% of students across the state were chronically absent, meaning they missed about a month of school. Compared to nearly half that at 16.7% in 2019, according to the Ohio Department of Education. Learn to Earn wanted to change that with this campaign.
“It is NIL the Dayton way," Stacy Schweikhart, the CEO of Learn to Earn Dayton, said. "And so through some of the partnerships and relationships that we have with Learn to Earn a conversation struck up about could Learn to Earn be the nonprofit partner to engage some of UD’s student athletes in a campaign that would really make a difference.”
The campaign pictures will be across billboards and buses in Montgomery County, which makes it extra special for Bohanon who was born and raised in Dayton.
“It’s a great opportunity," Bohanon said. "Good to give back to the youth and I think it’s good to have a positive role model, inspiration, someone they can look up to, somebody that’s a local kid that they can be like, ‘Oh, she was like me one day. I can be like her.’”
The athletes hope their time with the students and the campaign will make a positive impact on students across Ohio.
“It helps kids understand that in order to get to certain points where they want to get to you have to do certain things," Holmes said. "And that’s going to school, so attendance has to be something that’s required.”
“For NIL it’s bigger than the materialistic things, the money, or any of that," Bohanon said. "It’s really about getting to influence the kids, getting to influence your community, your support system.”