Growing up, the only way Clayton Fritsch’s dream of being a paid professional athlete could become real had to wait until after his collegiate career. However, recent legislation has opened the door for college student-athletes to benefit monetarily from their name, image and likeness through marketing opportunities.

The first local NIL deal was struck recently between Fritsch, a member of Sealy High School’s Class of 2017, and Frio Ice Chests, a product of Visual Promotions owned by Jeff Brandes.

“When you’re younger, you want to go professional and stuff like that; you want to get the cool stuff, you want people to come and approach you,” Fritsch said in an April 8 interview. “This is kind of part of that now and it’s cool to see your dreams starting to become reality.”

Brandes’ connection with Fritsch dates back to the athlete’s high school days when Brandes coached Fritsch in pole vault. From there, Fritsch embarked upon an illustrious collegiate career for the Sam Houston State Bearkats that included multiple All-American nominations and will conclude this spring.

“With this new NIL opportunity, we felt like it’d be cool to do some stuff with some athletes and, of course, Clayton came to mind mainly because of our relationship and his character and what he stands for, and then what we stand for as a brand so we tried to put the two together,” Brandes said.

For the self-proclaimed local boy, the partnership was a no-brainer.

“The biggest thing is that it’s a Sealy company. I’m a big hometown boy so anytime a Sealy company comes to me, I’m all excited about it,” Fritsch said. “It’s funny because up here (in Huntsville), a lot of people know me as the Sealy kid; I always represent the 77474 and just to have Frio come to me and want to partner with that, it’s awesome to show the world another thing Sealy has to offer.”

Although Brandes said many of the exciting marketing opportunities will stay under wraps for now, he hopes this NIL deal will be the first of many – not only for Frio and Visual Promotions but for other area businesses.

“Some of us were lucky enough to have that experience of being an athlete and you can compare an athlete to a student that goes to a job but as an athlete, it’s a business,” Brandes said. “You have a lot of responsibility, you’re on the road a lot and you really work hard. So, it’s super nice to have the opportunity to reward these kids additionally. They’re getting rewarded to have their school supported but to be able to add to that, it’s a good feeling for sure.”

Fritsch has already begun fulfilling his contract terms by wearing merch around campus and tagging the company in social media posts so on top of being known as the kid from Sealy, he’s already getting recognized as the Frio guy too.

“I’m excited to get Frio out there, it’s fun to see everybody here at Sam Houston acknowledge that too,” Fritsch said. “I feel like up here in Huntsville at Sam Houston I’m starting to get noticed as the Frio guy so that’s always fun and exciting to experience. Not everybody gets to experience this so right now I’m just soaking it all in and having fun with it.”