That’s a two-part question, actually. What is it about ESPN that allowed the network to televise a fraudulent team? How was it possible for (what some are calling) “a fake school” to open, remain open, and field a football team?
Bishop Sycamore of Columbus, OH, played powerhouse IMG Academy on national TV recently, and the game itself quickly turned into a rout. Sycamore lost 58-0, but that wasn’t the prevailing storyline in the hours and days that followed. It was how the school scammed its way into playing a nationally televised game.
In 2018, Roy Johnson started an online charter school called “Christians of Faith Academy.” The school had a goal of helping at-risk youth, including getting kids off the streets. But. after investigating, the Ohio Department of Education revoked the school’s license, and Johnson was investigated for fraud. There’s more. A West Virginia-based high school canceled a scheduled game with Bishop Sycamore when it learned that a number of players were over 18 and some were as old as 22 years of age.
Over time the school was rebranded as “Youth Build Centurions,” an online charter school, which soon thereafter became Bishop Sycamore. It had a football team, too. The Ohio State High School Athletic Association began investigating when it noted that only one opponent came from Ohio’s home state.
So, how did this “school” remain open? How did its football team keep playing? How did it get a gig playing a national powerhouse on ESPN?
When Sycamore played IMG on August 29th, it didn’t take long for the announcers to figure out that something didn’t add up. To make a bad situation even worse, it was learned soon thereafter that Sycamore had already played a game that week–two days before the game with IMG.
What do we have here? It’s a scam. Former players have come forward saying the athletic department would not feed them, and that they had to go to grocery stores to steal food to eat. They had to borrow football equipment, too.
Without question, Sycamore is an extreme case. Still, there are bigger questions here–questions that state high school education associations across the country and sports media companies, like ESPN, have to answer.
If proper screening protocols had been in place, Bishop Sycamore wouldn’t be a school, let alone play football, and ESPN (and IMG) would have caught the scam before committing to the game.
The joke is on us, but nobody is laughing.
