New York Times: How the Bishop Sycamore Football Team Dashed Dreams

Weird, the ODE report said players at bishop sycamore were 19 and 20, with the NYT further confirming players were in their 20s. The ODE report said “bishop sycamore was, and is, a scam.”

can’t really spin that.
Um and yet he is spinning. That league of justice article was so far out in left field it was ridiculous. They perceived legitimacy from the ODE report??? How???
 
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Also should be mentioned Yappi posters have long pointed out that the registration with the ODE never really meant much and these articles confirm that. It was merely they took time to fill out some forms.

I am not advocating expanding the ODE's power, but this certainly highlights a flaw in what people may be understanding when looking at ODE information.
 

!!!!!!!!
Are you seriously offering this as some sort of vindication of Bishop Sycamore!?! This was written by BS apologists and even they can barely say with a straight face that BS had anything resembling legitimacy. If that is your level of reading comprehension, then you must have gotten your education at BS!
 
Bishop Sycamore is still a registered school per the ODE correspondence letter dated 2/10/21. Several of its students are still taking classes through their online learning platform, and all of them are on schedule to earn their high school diplomas this June. As a matter of fact, one student-athlete just received an offer from Grambling State University to play college football there starting this Fall. #LastChanceHigh
Name names or it's bull just like the rest of it.
 
I'm guessing those kids knew it was a scam and we're just hoping no one was gonna find out and then walk away with a diploma and maybe a couple of them some CFB offers.

I don't feel too sorry for them.
 
I have just browsed the NY Times report and the 79-page ODE Investigation report sent to Gov Dewine. I might have missed it, but neither report mentions the soon to be decided 2018 Civil lawsuit for $100,000 brought by the bank against Johnson, RIchardson, and the AME Church. There also probably should been mention of other court filings for unpaid bills by those running the school. It does not appear to me the NY Times and ODE investigators did a thorough and complete investigation, at least when it comes down checking court cases/unpaid bills of those involved.
 
The more I think about this mess the sadder it appears. First, I don't doubt that Richardson, Johnson, et al. got into this with good intentions. The idea of giving student athletes an alternative pathway to improve their grades or to get another shot at a college scholarship is a commendable goal. And the regulations ODE (and most states) operate under allow for this sort of academy. Whether it is athletes with HS eligibility remaining, or whether it is for athletes who are older, this is permissible. You just have to be up front about it. Spire Academy is a good example of how this can be done. The problem the BS people ran into is that in order for this set up to work, you need to lay the foundation and have the infrastructure in place. And this is where they fell absurdly short! They wanted the success, but they didn't want to do the work needed to make the arrangement work. Their motto must have been "Let's open the doors and everything else will take care of itself!" But things don't just magically fall into place. And the veil of secrecy they operated under was an obvious harbinger that something was terribly wrong! And, of course, with COF the charade obviously and inevitably imploded. Then (and to me the damnable portion of it all), rather than learning from their mistakes of the past, these same people just repeated all of their mistakes with Bishop Sycamore. I don't begrudge the idea behind BS. I don't even doubt that the people behind COF and BS had good intentions. Giving these kids another potential pathway to college is a commendable goal. However, they were comically inept in their initial effort with COF. And simply repeating their mistakes with BS is, in my mind, criminally negligent to say the least! This proposition was doomed from the start because the people in charge had no idea of what they were doing. They wanted to take short cuts to success. And in the end, they ended up with a mountain of debt and possible criminal repercussions. And the worst of it all is that they ended up preying on the desperation and dreams of the players. Arrogance, lack of preparation and lack of accountability is NOT a recipe for success!
 
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The more I think about this mess the sadder it appears. First, I don't doubt that Richardson, Johnson, et al. got into this with good intentions. The idea of giving student athletes an alternative pathway to improve their grades or to get another shot at a college scholarship is a commendable goal. And the regulations ODE (and most states) operate under allow for this sort of academy. Whether it is athletes with HS eligibility remaining, or whether it is for athletes who are older, this is permissible. You just have to be up front about it. Spire Academy is a good example of how this can be done. The problem the BS people ran into is that in order for this set up to work, you need to lay the foundation and have the infrastructure in place. And this is where they fell absurdly short! They wanted the success, but they didn't want to do the work needed to make the arrangement work. Their motto must have been "Let's open the doors and everything else will take care of itself!" But things don't just magically fall into place. And the veil of secrecy they operated under was an obvious precursor that something was terribly wrong! And, of course, with COF the charade obviously and inevitably imploded. Then (and to me the damnable portion of it all), rather than learning from their mistakes of the past, these same people just repeated all of their mistakes with Bishop Sycamore. I don't begrudge the idea behind BS. I don't even doubt that the people behind COF and BS had good intentions. Giving these kids another potential pathway to college is a commendable goal. However, they were comically inept in their initial effort with COF. And simply repeating their mistakes with BS is, in my mind, criminally negligent to say the least! This proposition was doomed from the start because the people in charge had no idea of what they were doing. They wanted to take short cuts to success. And in the end, they ended up with a mountain of debt and possible criminal repercussions. And the worst of it all is that they ended up preying on the desperation and dreams of the players. Arrogance, lack of preparation and lack of accountability is NOT a recipe for success!
The reason I doubt they ever had good intentions is that they lied from the start. They told the teams they would be playing “we only have high school aged and eligible kids,” when that was never true. If they had been honest and said “yes we have some older players we’re trying to give a second chance,” different story.
 
It's amazing to me that people still cannot see this for what it was and can only view it through the lens of high school football fandom. This was never about giving kids a chance to improve their grades or get college scholarships. There were no good intentions whatsoever. This was a life insurance scheme, period.
 
This is a last gasp attempt by the ODE to cover their asses. From 2018-2021, COY/BS unabatedly scheduled and played the following high-profile, nationally-relevant HSFB teams from around America:

IMG FL- played twice
Brother Rice MI
Catholic Central MI
Christian Brothers Catholic MO
St Ed OH- 5x State Champ
St Ignatius- 11x State Champ
Archbishop Hoban- 5x State Champ
Massillon- 3rd winningiest team in all of HSFB
Wayne
Harding
North Allegheny PA

If the second IMG game was never aired on national TV, the 2021 season would have went off without a hitch. Sue Castro of ODE approved BS as a "registered" school per her letter dated 2/10/21. As of today, students are still matriculating at BS through its online learning platform, and are scheduled to graduate high school this June and enter college next Fall. The upcoming documentaries will neutralize everything that the fake news is reporting at this time. In the end, this will be deemed the Duke Men's Lacrosse Case Part 2. The tapestry of lies and rush to judgement originated by the media, governing bodies and keyboard vigilante fans alike will al be exposed like never before. Buckle up!! @BishopSycamoreFan
 
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This is a last gasp attempt by the ODE to cover their asses. From 2018-2021, COY/BS unabatedly scheduled and played the following high-profile, nationally-relevant HSFB teams from around America:

IMG FL- played twice
Brother Rice MI
Catholic Central MI
Christian Brothers Catholic MO
St Ed OH- 5x State Champ
St Ignatius- 11x State Champ
Archbishop Hoban- 5x State Champ
Massillon- 3rd winningiest team in all of HSFB
Wayne
Harding
North Allegheny PA

If the second IMG game was never aired on national TV, the 2021 season would have went off without a hitch. Sue Castro of ODE approved BS as a "registered" school per her letter dated 2/10/21. As of today, students are still matriculating at BS through its online learning platform, and are scheduled to graduate high school this June and enter college next Fall. The upcoming documentaries will neutralize everything that the fake news is reporting at this time. In the end, this will be deemed the Duke Men's Lacrosse Case Part 2. The tapestry of lies and rush to judgement originated by the media, governing bodies and keyboard vigilante fans alike will al be exposed like never before. Buckle up!! @BishopSycamoreFan
They didn’t even register as a school in 2019-20.
 
According to Andre Peterson, there are only two students taking online classes, including his son.


Even Jay Richardson's colleagues at WSYX are calling his school a scam.
 
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There is nothing going on here. Just keep moving, nothing to see. Ignore that man behind the curtain he’s not really there.
 
The Bishop Sycamore Twitter account being active again after months of dormancy. Naturally, they retweet a player tweet that accidentally incriminates themselves. Love to see it.
 
“According to Peterson, the reason so many players were 19 is because the team consisted of players who were still in high school as well as players who had already graduated high school.”

but Jersey, you promised me no one on the team had already graduated high school!
 
Why hasn’t Flyer been banned? He clearly is a troll that has espoused lie after lie after lie. And at this point Sycamore has been outed as the fraud that it is and buried 6 feet deep (of course im sure the grifters will be back with a new “school”)
 

So this guy has no experience in education, no coaching experience, no financial resources to house or feed players, no adequate facilities or equipment, has very little time to spare for this endeavor and has demonstrated total incompetence, yet he is compelled to interfere with these young men's lives just to satisfy his Messiah complex?

Consider this, in 2018 Roy Johnson brought dozens of young men to Columbus knowing his get-rich-quick scheme had already fallen apart, knowing he had no money to pay for housing or food. But he went through with it anyway and the players ended up sleeping on floors, fighting and stealing food. Then for the next three years, Johnson and Andre Peterson brought more young men to Columbus, knowing full well they couldn't provide for them and knowing what kind of predicament was in store for them.

Their claims that they are trying to help these young men is sickening. They lured these young men to Columbus with promises they knew they couldn't keep. They have absolutely no concern for the players' welfare. They throw them into games with no preparation, without having full contact practices. Two games in three days, even back-to-back games. They don't even bother to film the games, and they usually don't provide rosters and if they do they're inaccurate, incomplete and names are misspelled.

And what about their opponents? Did Johnson and Peterson care about all those high school kids that were unknowingly going up against men that should be freshmen or sophomores in college? Never mind that they show zero remorse for all the unpaid debts they've left behind and all the people that has negatively impacted. This is some truly sociopathic behavior.
 
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They back at it?

You wouldn't believe the lengths a realtor or mortgage broker will go to to convince a bank that a property is an owner-occupied single-family residence.

As a taxpayer, I'm more interested in their role in Youthbuild getting $10K per student from the State of Ohio for Michigan and New York residents.
 
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