Sports and entertainment marketing company IMG and the National High School Coaches Association (NHSCA) made headlines in January when they announced a partnership to sponsor national high school championships. Although many athletic administrators are skeptical about the idea, plans continue to move forward.

Beginning this summer, IMG and the NHSCA will hold high school championships in seven-on-seven football and boys' and girls' seven-on-seven lacrosse, tennis, and golf at IMG's Bradenton, Fla., training academy. They plan to eventually expand to 20 sports.

The NHSCA already sponsors a national high school championship in seven-on-seven football, and no changes are expected in this event. Football is the only sport where teams will represent their high schools. Rosters in other sports will be made up of all-star athletes from each state.

The all-star rosters, however, have some people pushing the pause button--including NFHS Executive Director Bob Kanaby. "Calling these events national high school championships is a misnomer," he says. "They're all-star games. The athletes will not be representing their schools--they'll be individuals competing unattached from their schools."

Bobby Ferraro is Executive Director of the NHSCA, a Pennsylvania-based non-profit association founded in 1989 that provides leadership and resources to scholastic coaches nationwide. He says rosters will be primarily chosen by coaches. "The idea is that they assemble the best team they can from their state and the athletes get a chance to compete against the best athletes from other states they would never play otherwise," Ferraro explains.

Each sport's championship event will be held separately, with golf scheduled in June, football in July, and lacrosse and tennis in August. Depending on the sport, regional qualifiers may precede the final tournament in Florida. Football, for instance, which had 300 teams competing last year, will hold regional qualifiers beforehand to whittle the teams down to 32.

IMG and the NHSCA plan to enhance the tournaments by offering more than competition. "We're putting together a college recruiting seminar and getting celebrity athletes to come to the campus," Ferraro says.

IMG hopes to sell television rights for the tournaments, which has renewed debate over putting high school sports on a national stage. Dick Flanary, Senior Director of Leadership, Programs, and Services at the National Association of Secondary School Principals, told USA Today that national competition in high school sports may be natural growth, but he remains wary. "I think there needs to be lots of controls," he said. "The exploitation of kids is something we all need to be concerned about."

A handful of state associations don't allow high school athletes to compete in national all-star competitions without forfeiting their high school eligibility, which may keep some underclassmen at home. But overall, Ferraro stresses that the events are merely another competition opportunity. "When you're a talented athlete, you may want to see how you compare to other athletes from other states," he says.

Despite questions about the idea, more national high school championship events may be coming anyway. The NFHS is in the middle of its own discussions on creating national championships, which would feature high school teams instead of all-star squads.

"There were extensive discussions among a number of state association representatives at our winter meeting on the topic," Kanaby says. "There are those who have expressed great interest and those who have said it's not the direction to go in. The decision rests with our Board of Directors, which will continue to discuss the matter."

In basketball, the ESPN Rise National High School Invitational Tournament was held for the second year in early April, and while it is not called a national championship, it is leaning toward that distinction in the future. This year, the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) became the first state association affiliated with the NFHS to allow its teams to participate.

"I believe it's good for high school athletics altogether when you get ESPN involved and you get that national exposure," FHSAA Executive Director Roger Dearing told the Orlando Sentinel.

For more information about the NHSCA and the upcoming high school championship events it's presenting with IMG, go to: www.nhsca.com.