Alleged Fake High School Dupes ESPN to Play on National TV

The story just keeps getting weirder.

If you haven't heard of Bishop Sycamore High School, you're not alone. The unknown Ohio high school football team only recently came to national attention when they played Florida's top-ranked IMG Academy in an ESPN-broadcast, nationally televised game on Sunday. Their supposedly high-caliber team lost horrifically, 58-0.

Pundits were shocked at the results, suggesting that the team should never have been put in that situation in the first place; they simply weren't good enough.

"Bishop Sycamore told us they had a number of Division I prospects on their roster,” broadcaster Anif Shroff said live. “To be frank, a lot of that we could not verify.”

Sorry. They had no business being in that game today. None. I feel bad for the kids. Player health and safety was at risk today. It was uncomfortable for anyone who watched. https://t.co/Eq39vdywLm
— Anish Shroff (@AnishESPN) August 29, 2021

The situation looked bad enough for Bishop Sycamore, ESPN, and Paragon Marketing Group, who ESPN said scheduled the game.

Then details started flooding in.

The high school had also played a game the Friday before—what kind of a grueling schedule, the internet asked, is that for high schoolers?

Then, FootballScoop hazarded that "What appears to be the school's website, BishopSycamore.org, is basically a blog; its most recent post, on May 21, explains how to catch a college recruiter's attention on social media. The website's About Us section is blank. And Bishop Sycamore, claiming to be from Columbus, Ohio, went 0-6 last season, the program's second in existence." (The website is now down for "maintenance.")

ESPN then verified that "the Ohio High School Athletic Association doesn’t recognize Bishop Sycamore as a legitimate high school, and their “physical location, practice facilities, and roster eligibility could not be verified.” Complex Sports recently clarified that "Last year, the Ohio Department of Education listed Bishop Sycamore as a "non-chartered, non-tax supported school," and there is, in fact, no address.

Then, a former Bishop Sycamore player, Aaron Boyd, told Complex Sports that when he was recruited for the team, "I was 15 and everybody else was 19 and 20 ... Most people were already out of high school." Some players, it turns out, even have "a history with junior college football," according to Complex Sports.

Then it surfaced that their now-fired head coach, Roy Johnson, allegedly has an active warrant out for his arrest, for—what else? Fraud charges.

Boyd told Complex Sports, "Before they were Bishop Sycamore, they were COF Academy. They had these coaches come from COF. I was at an Adidas All-American camp and they came and recruited me. At first, they had, like, brochures and a plan. N***a, they sent me books with, like, shit on how the school was supposed to look—blueprints and everything. They told us we was gonna be on Netflix; they recruited us telling us we were gonna be on a show. They told us we’re gonna be the IMG of the Midwest. They lied to me and my mama. I first moved out there, we were staying in a hotel in Delaware [Ohio]. We were staying there for, like, five months ... Didn’t have no housing. All the players came to find out we never paid the hotel. [The school was] writing them bounced checks. The head coach of Bishop Sycamore wasn’t the head coach. He was, like, an athletic director. He was the n***a that was behind all of it. He was writing bounced checks for everything. For everything. We never paid for anything...We didn’t go to school. We never went to school. I can’t lie—they tried once. They took us to a community library. One day."

We know that at least part of Boyd's claims are verified by a "2019 case brought against (Johnson) by ARN Hospitality over claims he owes a Delaware, Ohio Baymont hotel $110,685," as reported by Complex Sports.

Amid all this chaos, Ohio governor Mike DeWine tweeted:

I have asked @OHEducation to conduct an investigation into Bishop Sycamore to ensure compliance with Ohio law and to ensure the school is providing the educational opportunities Ohio students deserve.
— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) August 31, 2021

We hope that if the school really is a scam, it gets shut down and that the high schoolers and young adults involved can get actual legitimate opportunities.

We're stunned by this story. Drop your thoughts in the comments!