Did NIL help swing Nyckoles Harbor to South Carolina? Not exactly

Nyckoles Harbor sat in the stairwell deep in the underbelly of Archbishop Carroll High School, just a few floors away from the gymnasium where an hour earlier he announced his commitment to South Carolina. After media members and television crews dispersed for the day, he posed for a quick shoot with a video team there to chronicle the event.

This is the norm in this day and age. College football athletes, now able to profit on their name, image and likenesses, are a business whiz’s dream given their huge social media followings and easy marketability. Harbor — the No. 1 athlete in his class, a virtual straight-A student and a runner with the legitimate chops to reach the Olympics — is that on a nuclear level.

But don’t get it twisted. In a recruiting world swirling with rumors of massive paydays for recruits, Harbor and those closest to him assure that wasn’t a deciding factor in his commitment to coach Shane Beamer and the Gamecocks.

“No amount of money was going to sway that relationship with (South Carolina),” Azuka Harbor, Nyckoles’ dad told The State.

Harbor’s recruitment has been shrouded in mystery as much due to his family’s desire to keep things close to their vest than anything seemingly sinister — no easy task in a day and age where recruiting reporters bombard kids for interviews as much as the coaches actually trying to land their commitments.

This has led to persistent message board fodder about massive monetary figures being used to sway the generational talent.

Oregon, a massive player down to the 11th hour in Harbor’s recruitment, reportedly enlisted the help of Nike and founder Phil Knight to help show off his potential marketability as a Duck. Various recruiting sites reported in the days and hours leading up to Harbor’s pledge that NIL had become an increasingly relevant factor in his impending decision.

“No, it was just where I wanted to go,” Harbor said when asked if Nike or Under Armour had an impact on his decision. “They’re just brands at the end of the day. My decision was (for me) and what’s the best fit athletically and academically, and that’s what I found.”

South Carolina is no slouch in the NIL space. The Gamecocks reportedly worked heavily with Under Armour and other constituents to help put together a package that eventually netted the commitment of five-star men’s basketball recruit GG Jackson during last year’s recruiting cycle.

It’s expected that Harbor, too, will have his opportunities to be a marketable and outward-facing member of the Gamecock athletic programs for the foreseeable future, assuming his immense talent and potential play out as expected on the track and gridiron. (Shortly after his commitment, he was shown on social media with what appeared to be a Bojangles sponsorship.)

“We try and put ourselves from an NIL standpoint as best positioned as anybody,” Beamer said. “It’s part of it right now. I can honestly say I didn’t have a single conversation with Nyck Harbor about NIL. What I talked to Nyck Harbor about was the opportunities that coming to South Carolina could present to you.”

“... There are recruits out there that it does turn into a bidding war in a lot of ways,” he continued. “That wasn’t the situation in this one. ... That never came up in my conversations with Nyck at any point.”

More than potential offers or brushes with billionaires, it was relationships that will see Harbor in Columbia this summer. His ties to Beamer date back to Beamer’s time as an assistant coach at Oklahoma. Those relationships continued to be built with defensive line coach Sterling Lucas and tight ends coach Jody Wright, both of whom played key roles in Harbor’s recruitment.

Azuka said he was proud of the way his son handled the incessant nature of the recruiting process and insane NIL numbers that can come with it. Harbor’s high school coach, Robert Harris, echoed similar sentiments.

“It’s very refreshing that he was able to still make his decision without the pressure of feeling like he needed to have to do it because of money, or whatever,” Harris told The State. “Because he’s such a great student, comes from great background as parents. ... Their focus is getting an education, still being a great student, but being a college athlete. And wherever that takes you is where it takes you.”

The signs of big businesses’ influence on college sports are impossible to ignore. The recent unraveling of a reported $13 million deal between five-star quarterback Jaden Rashad and a Florida collective is the latest evidence. Even Harbor’s signing day had its own tinge of this brave new world. The ceremony itself, broadcast on ESPN, was sponsored by Champs Sports.

But, cliché as it might sound, Beamer and his staff have preached relationship-building in their approach to the recruiting trail. Talk to enough incoming prospects and they all say similar things: They love the family atmosphere, that Beamer is himself, that there’s a “realness” about the Gamecocks staff.

Harbor was as big a recruit as they come. Give Beamer and his army of coaches credit: Their relationship-building seemingly netted them one of the biggest recruiting wins in the modern era — NIL deals, or not.