An American football team named the Bishop Sycamore Centurions, based in Columbus, Ohio, purported to be the high school football team of Bishop Sycamore High School. The high school was advertised as an athletic sports training academy, but after a blowout loss to IMG Academy that was televised on ESPN on August 29, 2021, there was increased scrutiny and an investigation into the school's existence. This investigation uncovered the identities and credentials of the team's administration. A former executive for the Ohio High School Athletic Association came forward to say that after three years of investigating the school, he was convinced that it was a "scam".^[3] A report published in December 2021 by the Ohio Department of Education concluded likewise.^[1]

The Centurions suffered lopsided losses in all six of their 2020 games, but their lack of success did not hinder their ability to schedule marquee games against elite preparatory and high schools. The televised game against IMG Academy was the second time they had played the school, following a similar 56–6 loss in 2020. Their 2021 schedule was ranked the fourth most difficult of any high school team in the United States. In the wake of the scandal surrounding the game, Bishop Sycamore's remaining opponents canceled their games against the team.

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".^[4] However, many of their student-athletes were older than high-school age, and there was no real campus. Instead, athletes were housed in a hotel for five months, with the only schooling being one visit to a public library. The school also struggled to maintain coaches as 80% of the coaching staff quit during the season and the team was left with just two coaches and one player's mother. The players were also not provided with food and some players resorted to stealing from supermarkets to eat.^[4]

Complex also conducted an anonymous interview with two former Bishop Sycamore students. They revealed that then head coach, Leroy Johnson, recruited the students with the prospect of "practicing at Ohio State's facilities".^[5] In reality, they held practice outside of an apartment complex that housed students at Ohio State. The team also did not have athletic trainers, which resulted in the athletes playing injured. The apartments housing the students frequently evicted them after Johnson failed to pay rent. Many players had already graduated from high school and there "were four or five kids that were 20, 21, [and] had children of their own".^[5] A number of players had legal issues; at one point so many players had active arrest warrants that the team could not fly to away games. One player joined the team immediately after being released from jail. The team also struggled with camaraderie; a former player claimed there were at least five fights at every practice.^[5]

Bishop Sycamore gained national attention when they played high school football powerhouse IMG Academy on August 29, 2021. The game was aired on ESPN as the finale of the 2021 ESPN High School Kickoff series, a weekend of high school football showcases televised by ESPN's networks featuring prominent teams, nationally ranked prospects, and players that have committed to playing Division I FBS college football. 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.^[26] Maimon contacted 200 schools to play IMG, and Bishop Sycamore was the only school willing to play against them.^[26] The game was expected by many to be a game between two elite programs but was far from competitive.^[16][27] IMG Academy was dominant throughout the entire game, winning 58–0 in their first shutout since 2019.^[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".^[29] To Shroff's mind, the game appeared to be such a mismatch that "there's got to be a point now where you're worried about health and safety".^[27] Luginbill agreed, saying that the game could potentially get "dangerous" due to Bishop Sycamore's apparent lack of depth.^[29]

One member of the ESPN production team likened the game to "four and five star recruits against a JV team". 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. Johnson also refused to allow a running clock even when it was apparent the game was out of hand.^[26] It subsequently emerged that ESPN officials had greenlit the broadcast despite Bishop Sycamore being slow to provide rudimentary information about the school and the team, contrary to longstanding practice for high schools appearing on the network. For instance, Johnson did not show up for a scheduled virtual production meeting two days before the game. ESPN only got a fact sheet about the school hours before the game. Several members of ESPN's production staff thought something was amiss when several names on Bishop Sycamore's roster did not check out, but the game went ahead as scheduled.^[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. The team was also charged $750 for room damages. The Canton Police Department announced they were investigating the school for forgery.^[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. Peterson maintained the operation was legitimate, noting that he had enrolled his own son in the school.^[32] However, former players for Johnson have said, "He's never gonna leave that program. He might say he's not taking the coaching job. He might lie to make the public get off his back. But Roy is not gonna get out of that. He's gonna be in their ears at all times." Johnson was replaced by Tyren Jackson as the school's head football coach. In an interview with Columbus TV station WCMH-TV following his hiring, Jackson acknowledged that the organization was not a school and should not have identified as one:

We are not a school. That's not what Bishop Sycamore is, and I think that's what the biggest misconception about us was, and that was our fault. Because that was a mistake on paperwork.^[33]

In the same interview, Jackson stated the team was still hoping to schedule more games in 2021, noting that the team's newfound notoriety would ensure that the first opponent who agreed to play Bishop Sycamore would make "national news" by doing so.

Following the game, fans and media outlets began to question whether Bishop Sycamore was a real high school. During the 2020–21 school year, the Ohio Department of Education listed Bishop Sycamore as a "non-chartered, non-tax supported school"; the school was not listed at all for the 2021–22 year.^[27] The state listed a P.O. box as its mailing address, and its physical address as being a sports training facility in Columbus.^[27] The Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus had no record of any bishop named Sycamore, nor any parochial schools by that name in their diocese, throughout their history.^[27][34] The school's website contained blank "About Us" and "Staff" pages.^[27] The school is not part of the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA);^[27] it instead plays in the Texas Christian Athletic League, which includes 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).^[35] In 2020, the school claimed an enrollment of only three students.^[9] Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced that the Ohio Department of Education would be opening an investigation into the school's educational operations. In the wake of that investigation, the three remaining schools still slated to play Bishop Sycamore called off the games.^[17][36] The OHSAA later stated that, even if Bishop Sycamore were not a bona fide high school, teams in their jurisdiction would still be allowed to schedule and play them, as no rule in the OHSAA bylaws requires OHSAA teams' opponents to be affiliated with any high school. Such games would be considered exhibition games for the purposes of record keeping.^[37] The investigation conducted by the Ohio Department of Education into Bishop Sycamore was released on December 17, 2021, and found that the school failed to meet educational standards, failed to provide a physical location for classes to meet, and did not employ any teachers. The report went on to say Bishop Sycamore was likely a scam and that they recommend the Ohio Attorney General look into possible 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). The game featured many of the same players as their game against IMG Academy.^[14] Rashid Ghazi, president of Paragon Marketing, said that the game would have been canceled had anyone known Bishop Sycamore was already playing a game the preceding Friday.^[27] After the game, ESPN released a statement placing responsibility for the incident on Paragon, saying that Paragon had given assurances "that they will take steps to prevent this kind of situation from happening moving forward".^[38] Duncanville High School in Duncanville, Texas, originally stated that it intended on following through with its scheduled game against Bishop Sycamore on September 10 despite the allegations of impropriety,^[39] but they later decided to cancel the game and seek a new opponent.^[40]

• List of hoaxes
• Plainfield Teachers College
• Maguire University
• H. Rochester Sneath
• Carlos Kaiser (footballer)