HOUSTON – Jay Mickens and Derek Lagway Sr. have lived parallel lives.

Both were high-level Division I athletes. Both were longtime youth sports coaches in the Houston area. And both rode a shared roller coaster of emotions watching their sons – Willis wide receiver Jalen Mickens and quarterback DJ Lagway – become one of the best passing duos in Texas high school football, then navigate everything that came with it.

With each touchdown pass, their boys gained more notoriety, and more attention from college recruiters. Somewhere along the wild ride of scholarship offers and official visits, the fathers realized their sons’ recruitment process was unrecognizable from their own a few decades ago.

They had taught their sons everything they’d known about the game. But that game, at least off the field, had changed.

In 2021, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the NCAA v. Alston case that the NCAA’s prevention of athletes profiting off their name, image, and likeness violated antitrust laws. The intention was for athletes to make money off brand deals. What it turned into was program NIL collectives paying players to suit up like a mini-NFL, except no teams had a salary cap. Quarterback Nico Iamaleava signed at Tennessee for a reported $8 million. A couple years later, Bryce Underwood pledged to Michigan for between $10 million and 12 million.  Kids weren’t signing a National Letter of Intent for an athletic scholarship anymore. They were signing contracts.

Naturally, just as in the NFL, college athletes hired agents to negotiate their contracts. But a lesser told story is that high school players started hiring agents, too. Or, agents started trying to hire high school players.

In potentially shark-infested waters, Jay Mickens and Derek Lagway Sr. founded Protection United to represent high school athletes. Mickens had a background in the financial industry and knew how to negotiate contracts. Their sons were their first clients, as well as family friend and Conroe Oak Ridge five-star linebacker Justin Williams. Since that inaugural class, Protection United has expanded into other sports, even representing LSU volleyball star Samara Coleman.

But for every new client Protection United signs, Mickens always has the same opening question.

“The first thing out of my mouth is, ‘Would you like for me to send you my athlete agent license for your records?’” Mickens said.

Becoming a licensed agent is a gargantuan undertaking.

“You’ve got to be full-time in order to go through the process,” Mickens said. “And then, you’ve got to put aside anywhere from $30,000 to 40,000 to get licensed in all of these states. And then, last but not least, filling out the paperwork is not just some 2-page document and you’re good to go. It is a process. You’re filling out 10 pages. You’ve got to have references. Those references have got to vouch for you. The FBI background check I had to take for certain states took me 3 and a half hours per state. You could do the math on how much time it would take when you multiply that by 23 states.”

Only once you’ve done all that work can you begin to represent an athlete. And, even then, the percentage of a contract the agent receives for negotiating it is small. The NFL caps agents at 3 percent, the MLB and NBA are at 4 percent. Now, with exorbitant contracts and multiple clients, that’s a luxurious living.

But college contracts are much smaller. And there’s no federal regulation on what agents can charge for their services. In this environment, some people do the math and realize they can make a lot more money – and save a lot of time – by not getting a license and charging an athlete a whole lot more.

“We’ve seen issues where this agent is taking 25-30 percent of the contractual agreement,” former Wyoming head coach and AFCA Executive Director Craig Bohl said. “Basically, they’re just taking money away from the young man.”

Since Bohl became the executive director in 2024, he and THSCA Executive Director Joe Martin have been in lockstep with a two-pronged push – Bohl at the federal level, and Martin at the state level – to pass legislation regulating agents in high school athletics.

The pair has three main goals. One, establish an agent registry where families of student-athletes can double-check that a potential agent is up to date on their licenses, and that they’re actually representing the athletes they name-drop.

“You’ll have some supposed agents say they’re representing certain players, and they’re just throwing out names,” Bohl said. “They’re trying to garner as much interest as they can. There’s a tremendous amount of misrepresentation.”

Two, establish a 5 percent cap on what the agent can earn for negotiating a contract.

“The NFL agent takes 3 percent (of a contract),” Martin said. “We have examples of kids who are signing contracts where the agent takes up to 25-30 percent. Some of them are for the rest of their life as long as they are earning money. These kids don’t have the guidance, unfortunately, and they don’t have the knowledge. When our kids are being taken advantage of, I get pretty passionate about it.”

And, three, establish a certification baseline that all agents must meet to represent any athlete.

“Right now, you have all kinds of different contracts, and some of them aren’t worth the napkins they’re being written on,” Bohl said.

Both Bohl and Martin assure they’re making significant progress at the federal and state levels. Both say they’ve received overwhelming support when they tell politicians at both levels about the current problems within the agent space in high school athletics.

“What you don’t want to see is a young person being taken advantage of,” Bohl said. “Quite frankly, the empathy level is a whole lot different for a 17-year-old high school player as opposed to a 22-year-old quarterback who’s going to make $4 million. When people see a high school student being taken advantage of, that’s a major, major problem.”

Bohl says the AFCA hired a high-powered Washington D.C. lobbying group, and that Texas senator Ted Cruz has championed the cause. Cruz chairs the Senate Commerce Committee and paired with Senator Maria Cantwell to pass a bipartisan bill that won overwhelming support out of the sub-committee. Within that bill there is significant language about agent registration. Now, the bill must go to the Senate floor. Since it needs 60 votes to pass, both Republicans and Democrats must come together on it. Bohl said he believes the vote will come before the Senate goes on recess on August 10. At the same time, the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee must pass a majority vote. Only then can it go to President Donald Trump’s desk. Trump has already endorsed much of the bill through his Executive Order in April 2026.

“There will be some national standards, but then it’ll be up to the states to govern what’s going on,” Bohl said. “For instance, in the state of Texas, if there are some bad actors, the Attorney General’s office has the responsibility and initiative to go after some of these bad actors.”

That’s where Martin comes in. The THSCA backed Senator Royce West’s proposal two years ago, and Martin has campaigned to raise awareness within the capital.

“I had a conversation with a state senator that I can’t name yet last week that was totally out of the loop because it’s not the world they live in,” Martin said. “They couldn’t believe it. It’s been that way with multiple legislators. But it’s that way with a lot of adults, period. A lot of leaders in our state, whether they’re legislators or not, don’t live in that world, and they don’t know it.

But no action will occur until the 90th legislative session starts in January, and the THSCA is still looking for the right people to carry the bill.

“The earliest we’re going to see anything would be at the end of the legislative session in May 2027, in order for it to go into effect August 1, 2027,” Martin said. “That’s our goal. That’s our next opportunity.”

Until that time, every stakeholder in Texas high school football – coaches, players, and parents – must be aware of the problem of unlicensed agents attempting to take advantage of high school recruits. Martin says a THSCA-member survey revealed 70 percent of high school coaches paneled said they felt they had an athlete who had been abused or misled by an agent.

“Our mission statement is, ‘Helping coaches help kids,’” Martin said. “And our coaches are crying for help.”

Martin and Bohl both say there needs to be agents representing high school athletes because of the money that changes hands at the college level. Jeff Rayburn, the head coach at Frisco Lone Star, even said he made a couple of calls last year to help his four-star safety, Jordan Deck, get an agent before signing with Michigan. Rayburn also vets potential agents for his high-level prospects to ensure they’re in it for the right reasons.

“There’s some really good people out there,” Rayburn said. “We’re in a different situation at our place, because we’ve had so many high-level kids, where we’ve had an opportunity to meet a lot of people – agents that our kids are using in college and the NFL. We have a good idea of who the good ones are, who are taking care of the kids and taking care of the families.”

The introduction of revenue sharing in college athletics is only accelerating the blending together of professional and college contracts until they become nearly indistinguishable. Therefore, the college and professional player should have the same type of representation.

“The college GMs, if they don’t have representation in their face, they know the parents aren’t going to know the going rate for every position,” Mickens said. “The parents aren’t going to know the supply and demand, that the university needs that athlete.” 

But agents like Mickens don’t just help their athletes get the most amount of money out of high school. They educate their clients on how to make that money last. Mickens and his team offer CPA services for tax returns and teach their athletes how to read a Profit and Loss Statement and Balance Sheet.

“With our higher-level clients like DJ Lagway and Justin Williams, they’re already investing,” Mickens said. “And I mean safe investing, like in the money market and CDs, where they’re making 4-5 percent interest in their sleep. Because the big money is in the NFL, but let’s be real: 1 percent make it to the league. We want all our guys to be smart with their money and have it set aside so that when they graduate college, they can start their own business if they don’t want to go into corporate America.”

With that in mind, the white-collar bound athletes need representation just as much as NFL-bound athletes.

“Imagine a young man that made enough money playing college football to where he can buy a house and have a good life and they can start their career without the pressure and stress that normally comes with a young adult starting their career in corporate America,” Mickens said.

That’s the world the AFCA, THSCA, Texas high school football coaches, and agents like Mickens are working toward. They just need regulation to get all those not working toward that world out.