Bishop Sycamore under scrutiny for lying about school to play game on ESPN

Wait, what happened???

Source: MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images / Getty

Listen, football scandals are nothing new. We’ve seen it all from teams like the Atlanta Falcons pumping in electronic crowd noise into their stadium to the New England Patriots illegally recording the opposing teams signs for play calls. As the old adage goes, if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’. That said, we’ve never heard of anything like what is currently unraveling at Bishop Sycamore High School.

This is wild so just stay with us for a moment. Bishop Sycamore (which henceforth will be ironically referred to as “BS” because funny) played the #2 ranked high school in the nation in Florida’s IMG Academy on ESPN proper this past Sunday and from the moment they stepped on the field their tower of…mistruths began to collapse. According to a USAToday report, BS was down 30-0 mid-second quarter and the jig was clearly up. Even the announcer, Anish Shroff, had to publicly acknowledge that something shady was afoot.

“Bishop Sycamore told us they had a number of Division I prospects on their roster, and to be frank, a lot of that, we could not verify,” Shroff said. “They did not show up in our database, they did not show up in the databases of other recruiting services. So, OK, that’s what you’re telling us, fine, that’s how we take it in. From what we’ve seen so far, this is not a fair fight, and there’s got to be a point where you’re worried about health and safety.”

ESPN was looking real funny in the light for being duped in such an embarrassing way and there was some subsequent buck-passing as the company revealed that another company, Paragon Marketing Group was responsible for booking the games during the GEICO ESPN High School Football Kickoff. Regardless of who booked the game, there is no excuse for a company with as many resources as ESPN to just allow any-ol-body to get on their airwaves without being verified and vetted.

Following the game, the questions about what the hell had just happened began pouring in and a full-blown journalistic investigation had begun. USAToday found that Bishop Sycamore might not even be a school!  The Ohio Department of Education does not have the school listed on its 2021-2022 of charter institutions. Last year, the school was designated a, “non-chartered, non-tax supported school”. In addition, parents were to be notified that BS met all required standard of operation, ODE couldn’t confirm that this occurred either.

To make matters more sus, the “about us” and “staff” pages on the “school’s” website are completely blank, the mailing address is a P.O. box, and the “physical address” houses a business called Resolute Athletic Complex. A rep for Resolute told USAToday that some players from the “school” do train there about once a month but there is no education or classrooms on their property.

A writer from Complex spoke to one of BS’s former players and the scam appears to be deeper than anyone could have imagined…

BS has had a football program since 2020 and they haven’t won a single game and have been out scored 342-49.