Former player Aaron Boyd stated in an interview with Complex that athletes were recruited under the premise of the school being the "IMG of the Midwest".
They revealed that then head coach, Leroy Johnson, recruited the students with the prospect of "practicing at Ohio State's facilities".
[4] Leroy Johnson, the former head coach, claims that they had ties to the Third District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and had plans to build a "massive campus".
[8] Johnson was business-development director for the Richard Allen Group, the financial arm of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
[3] On August 27, 2019, they were removed from playing against Mainland High School in the Freedom Bowl, a private football tournament in Milton, Georgia, for "breach of contract" following failure to submit a roster and book hotel rooms in time.
On August 29, 2021, the team played IMG Academy on ESPN but lost 58–0 and put Johnson on the hot seat of getting fired.
Johnson also faced a civil lawsuit filed by ARN Hospitality, which claimed he owed them $110,685 for not paying any portion of the bill from the hotel where the players were housed.
[citation needed] Bishop Sycamore gained national attention when they played high school football powerhouse IMG Academy on August 29, 2021.
The games were booked by the company Paragon Marketing, which has historically served as a partner for ESPN's high school events.
[23][25] Paragon was unable to find a team willing to play IMG, so they outsourced their efforts to a man named Joe Maimon, who runs a company called Prep Gridiron Logistics.
[28] As the lopsided contest ensued, play-by-play announcer Anish Shroff and color commentator Tom Luginbill began to question the legitimacy of the Centurions on-air.
They revealed that ESPN had been unable to verify claims that its roster contained NCAA Division I college prospects, and they could not find any mention of Bishop Sycamore or its players in any recruiting databases.
[27] Shroff wondered how Bishop Sycamore was booked for a nationally televised game against IMG—the "most talented prep team in the country".
[27] Luginbill agreed, saying that the game could potentially get "dangerous" due to Bishop Sycamore's apparent lack of depth.
After IMG scored 23 points in the first quarter, organizers for the event spoke to Johnson about calling the game via mercy rule, but he refused.
[26][23] After the game, a Fairfield Inn & Suites, where Bishop Sycamore stayed while in Canton, accused the team of attempting to use two invalid checks for $3,596 in order to pay for 25 rooms.
[30] Coach Leroy Johnson was fired on August 31 in the aftermath of the IMG Academy game,[31] with founder Andre Peterson taking over the operation.
Following the game, fans and media outlets began to question whether Bishop Sycamore was a real high school.
[27] The school was not part of the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA);[27] it instead played in the Texas Christian Athletic League, which included the team in its Division 6A, a "national division" open to teams outside Texas (by late October, the TCAL had dropped Bishop Sycamore from the league).
The report went on to say Bishop Sycamore was likely a scam, and recommend that the Ohio Attorney General consider legal action against the school's administrators.
[1] Player safety concerns were also raised, after it was discovered that Bishop Sycamore had played a Friday night game just two days earlier against Sto-Rox High School in Pennsylvania (which they lost 19–7).
[41] Ben Ferree, the former assistant director of Officiating and Sport Management at the OHSAA, told Awful Announcing that he spent "the better part of three years" investigating Bishop Sycamore and its previous incarnation, COF Academy.
[42] Former NFL player Michael Strahan's production company, SMAC Entertainment, announced in September 2021 that they had secured the rights to interview Leroy Johnson for a documentary about Bishop Sycamore.
[43] SMAC later joined forces with Two Distant Strangers directors Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe, Adam McKay's Hyperobject Industries, Spencer Paysinger's Moore Street Productions, Boat Rocker Media, and The Athletic to produce an HBO Sports documentary titled BS High, which was announced as being in production in August 2022, and premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2023.
[44] The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Bishop Sycamore would return as a team and would play a game against Life Christian Academy on November 9, 2023 at Virginia State University.
Life Christian Academy has faced challenges in scheduling football games because of concerns with the school's academic and eligibility standards.