South Carolina Football Star Uses NIL Funds to Support Former High School

College athletes have used Name, Image and Likeness funds in a variety of ways since they’ve been allowed to make money playing sports.

South Carolina Gamecocks quarterback LaNorris Sellers is the latest to use at least some of those funds to give back to his community.

According to a report in The State, Sellers — who was last year’s starting quarterback for the Gamecocks — recently went back to Florence, S.C, and donated $16,000 to the South Florence football program. The donation was part of a meet-and-greet with fans.

While Sellers was quarterback at South Florence he led the program to its first state championship.

“I’m just really giving back to the school,” Sellers he said to The State. “Just for everything they’ve done for me, my brothers, all the other players, who went to colleges, the development, the relationships.”

Before he joined the Gamecocks, he had an incredible senior season at South Florence, where he gained close to 4,300 total yards and was responsible for 62 touchdowns. In the state title game, he threw for 260 yards, rushed for 192 and was responsible for six touchdowns.

Now that he’s a starting quarterback for an SEC program, the opportunities in the NIL space keep coming. Most recently, he partnered with Collegiate Legends on a custom action figure.

The action figure features Sellers wearing a white Gamecocks helmet, a garnet jersey with Carolina across the front along with his No. 16, and white pants with garnet and black trim. The deal also allows him to donate some action figures to local children in Columbia, S.C.

Norris had an impressive redshirt freshman season for the Gamecocks, as he was named the national freshman offensive player of the year and freshman all-America by the Football Writers Association of America. He was also named SEC freshman of the year and the Gamecocks’ MVP, as he received the Steve Wadiak award.

Last season he played in 12 of South Carolina’s 13 games, as he threw for 2,534 yards, 18 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He also completed 65.6% of his passes, which was seventh in a single season in school history. He also rushed for 674 yards, which was second on the team, with seven touchdowns.

By season’s end he was in the Top 10 in the SEC in total offense (seventh), total touchdowns (seventh), passing yards per game (ninth), pass efficiency (third), passing yards per completion (eighth), pass attempts (10th), pass completions (10th), pass completion percentage (third), and passing touchdowns (eighth).

His breakthrough game was against Texas A&M, where he threw for 244 yards and two touchdowns and added 106 rushing yards in the Gamecocks’ 44-20 win over then-No. 10 Texas A&M. For that performance, he was named the Manning Award “Star of Stars,” SEC freshman of the week and Davey O’Brien co-national quarterback of the week honors.