Fake High School Featured on ESPN

ESPN aired a nationally televised high school football game between IMG Academy and Bishop Sycamore, a school that doesn’t exist according to the directory of the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

Sycamore advertised itself as an online-only charter school on its “website” before it was taken down. Bey0nd this, very little is known about the alleged school.

What is Bishop Sycamore?

Bits and pieces of the team and how it found itself on ESPN have been slowly coming to light. It was discovered the team played their game on only two days’ rest, using the same players in both games. The head coach, Roy Johnson, also has an active arrest warrant on fraud charges. Many of the players are reported to be well over the age of average high schoolers.

The general criteria for playing in a televised ESPN game is talent. Participating schools must have a roster of potential Division 1 players as a way to promote the game and future talent. IMG Academy is an established boarding school responsible for churning out college athletes and future NFL players. They defeated Sycamore 58-0.

Recruitment

Aaron Boyd, the first player to be recruited by Sycamore in 2018, was interviewed about the details surrounding the mysterious program by Complex’s Zion Olojede. The interview details the scarce living conditions provided to the players. Many like Boyd had moved away from their hometown to partake in what they thought was a legit football program. The team stayed in a hotel for five months with no access to education. Johnson, who was known as the program’s athletic director then, wrote several bounced checks to the hotel to pay for the team’s stay. The stay has never been paid for.

The program, known as COF Academy in 2018, recruited athletes by sending them brochures and blueprints of a campus that never existed. They also promised the team would be on Netflix as a docuseries, and they would be “the IMG of the Midwest.”

Photo via Aaron Boyd. Bishop Sycamore was known as COF Academy in 2018.

Photo via Aaron Boyd

ESPN has shifted the blame to Paragon Marketing Group, a third-party marketing group responsible for pulling the teams together for the ESPN Sunday Showcase.

“We regret that this happened and have discussed it with Paragon, which secured the matchup and handles the majority of our high school event scheduling. They have ensured us that they will take steps to prevent this kind of situation from happening moving forward,” said the network in a statement.

The story is still developing.

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