https://www.barstoolsports.com/blog/3381039/surprise-wild-story-of-a-potentially-fake-high-school-lying-about-its-football-team-in-order-to-play-a-showcase-game-on-espn

Crazy story. I can’t believe they played Friday and Sunday. 

Lol ESPN

Love seeing ESPN get embarrassed.

I enjoyed the on-air ESPN commentary about the Ohio team where they basically said that they were told the team had a lot of elite players. But they couldn't verify that claim and noted they didn't have any players listed on their (or other) recruiting boards. And kind of trailed off with something along the lines of "but they said so" before going into their worries about the safety of Bishop Sycamore players.

This story is getting even better!

Allegedly, this school doesn't exist. They played on both Friday and Sunday. Their head coach has an active arrest warrant. The players are JUCO dropouts and not even high school players.

It's basically the most hilariously stupid over-the-top scam attempt and ESPN swallowed it whole. I remember a Sports Illustrated story from 20-25 years ago about a mid-30s dude who scammed a 1-AA or D2 college into thinking he was a high school recruit and made it work for a few months or a year or two. Dude has NOTHING on this!

Give the man that put this together a medal.

That guy should have been in charge over in afghanistan

https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/we-learned-more-about-how-bishop-sycamore-ended-up-playing-on-espn-and-its-only-getting-shadier.html?fbclid=IwAR2i5v3mPrWHZtRhpC52dDh5u1MGU1lwU6axNhjtCB-mZhq0wYP2vf2RaQU

Former Ohio State player Jay Richardson inv

Or you can take the ESPN stance on this "program".

https://www.espn.com/high-school/story/_/id/32119688/ohio-based-high-school-football-team-bishop-sycamore-faces-questions-legitimacy

The team FACES QUESTIONS about its legitimacy!!!! Part patting themselves on the back for their announcers questioning the claims Bishop Sycamore (aka: BS) made about it and its players and part treating the coach of the team like a legit source.

posted by Heretic

Or you can take the ESPN stance on this "program".

https://www.espn.com/high-school/story/_/id/32119688/ohio-based-high-school-football-team-bishop-sycamore-faces-questions-legitimacy

The team FACES QUESTIONS about its legitimacy!!!! Part patting themselves on the back for their announcers questioning the claims Bishop Sycamore (aka: BS) made about it and its players and part treating the coach of the team like a legit source.

Pretty pathetic watching ESPN passing the buck.  They are so hopped up on getting friggin high school athletics on air to feed the college recruiting fire they themselves fuel that they will take anyone who comes their way.  The keep throwing the marketing firm under the bus.  But they are the ones who made the decision to show the game.  The blame rests with them.  

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

Pretty pathetic watching ESPN passing the buck.  They are so hopped up on getting friggin high school athletics on air to feed the college recruiting fire they themselves fuel that they will take anyone who comes their way.  The keep throwing the marketing firm under the bus.  But they are the ones who made the decision to show the game.  The blame rests with them.  

Yeah, the firm fucked up, but they did, as well. Maybe some of the allegations going on about them would take some real investigating, but you'd just need a quick Google search to discover that the team is in no ways competitive and not even on the level of a good high school program, let alone an elite prep academy.

posted by Heretic

Yeah, the firm fucked up, but they did, as well. Maybe some of the allegations going on about them would take some real investigating, but you'd just need a quick Google search to discover that the team is in no ways competitive and not even on the level of a good high school program, let alone an elite prep academy.

While we're in the blame business, IMG beat this team by 50 last year, so they had a pretty good idea.

Yeah, the more I read about this whole thing, basically everyone fucked up.

posted by queencitybuckeye

While we're in the blame business, IMG beat this team by 50 last year, so they had a pretty good idea.

With their excuse being "well, most teams don't want to schedule us, but they were willing". Uh, what benefit do a bunch of elite athletes get from utterly pasting some group of no-name nobodies?

This thread brings the lulz

Director of Admissions - Bishop Sycamore pic.twitter.com/mnhLpOePHd

— Bishop Sycamore c/o '95 (@Brian904Realtor) August 31, 2021

We made the team with the worst rated draft change their name to bishop sycamo

posted by sportchampps

We made the team with the worst rated draft change their name to bishop sycamo

Should’ve made them change it to ESPN

I'm still in disbelief that they were able to schedule teams like Massillon, St. Ignatius, St. V's (albeit canceled), and St. Ed's last year.  How stupid does ESPN have to be to even believe this team was remotely close to being elite?  All they had to do was look at 2020's season.  0-6 and outscored 42-227.

posted by GoChiefs

I'm still in disbelief that they were able to schedule teams like Massillon, St. Ignatius, St. V's (albeit canceled), and St. Ed's last year.  How stupid does ESPN have to be to even believe this team was remotely close to being elite?  All they had to do was look at 2020's season.  0-6 and outscored 42-227.

I think espn was more concerned with showing IMG no matter who they played

posted by geeblock

I think espn was more concerned with showing IMG no matter who they played

This

The Bishop memes on twitter are funny

In a shocking twist, it now appears they wrote a bad check to the hotel that they stayed at in Canton.  After cleaning fees for 3 rooms and 25 rooms total, it was about $4,600.

posted by GoChiefs

In a shocking twist, it now appears they wrote a bad check to the hotel that they stayed at in Canton.  After cleaning fees for 3 rooms and 25 rooms total, it was about $4,600.

Lol, this is the story that keeps on giving!!

I love the name - Bishop Sycamore. Was that someone’s favorite tree?  There is also a school crest. It looks like more time was spent resigning that then the football program and academic curriculum combined. 

One big positive: This story caused me to remember reading about another great football hoax from 25+ years ago. When a former low-level college guy named Ron Weaver supposedly made a deal with a friend/acquaintance to use his name and SS number to enroll at a JUCO to start his career over and somehow improved enough during that time that he moved onto Texas University's team when he was 30 years old. Until his story came crashing down right before the 1995 Sugar Bowl.

Much like ESPN and the group who makes those HS match-ups for their programming, neither the JUCO nor Texas put any work into vetting the guy's identity, so despite not really doing much in the way of planning, he basically had two different college football careers, totaling seven years of playing.

https://vault.si.com/vault/1996/01/15/the-great-impostor-ron-weaver-tricked-texas-into-prolonging-his-life-in-football

posted by Dr Winston O'Boogie

I love the name - Bishop Sycamore. Was that someone’s favorite tree?  

That’s what I was thinking, too, about the name. 

“Today’s homily will be given by Bishop Sycamore”…….😎

posted by BRF

That’s what I was thinking, too, about the name. 

“Today’s homily will be given by Bishop Sycamore”…….😎

Deacon Walnut and Pastor Oak will speak next.