The One Which Is More "Stick To Sprots": "Bishop Sycamore" And Three Men Who Need To ROT IN PRISON -- NOW!!!

This is probably going to be the most "pleasant" of the three.  And even THIS is...  Eugh...

I'm going to post what I see as, frankly, probably the best measured summary of a lot of this, even if it is the Shitposting Yinzer Of All Time And Space, Urinatingtree:

To say that this story must end in criminal charges for all realistically involved in power at the "Bishop Sycamore" level is an understatement.

Tree, as usual, with his sardonic wit (although a lot of this bridges into the "pissed off" motif rather than his usual dark wit), chronicles what we have learned from this sham operation over the last six days since an ill-fated "football game" was "played" in front of a national ESPN audience on Sunday afternoon.

• The reason this game was played on Sunday afternoon was probably due to the fact that this sham operation was in Pittsburgh FRIDAY NIGHT (less than FORTY-EIGHT HOURS before the IMG game) to play Sto-Rox.  Sto-Rox was a rated Class 2A team in the area (top five, according to the Pittsburgh Gazette) last season.  And, contrary to claims by "BS", there were players claimed to be in both games.
• The team, on camera, was seen in shoddy uniforms, sharing equipment (and some believe uniforms), and probably in every conceivable violation of COVID protocols in history.
• The team was completely unqualified to even face a small-town Wisconsin team, even though many of the players on the team were on the team as JUCO and high-school dropouts.  This wasn't even a high-school football game.  At least four or five of them were JUCO dropouts and several were fathers of at LEAST 20-21 years old!
• The team is probably the consistency of a small Wisconsin outfit, as Tree estimates the team size at about 35!  An alleged "roster" for another game given had the number at about 26, with no static uniform numbers, weights, locations, or anything else.

So why was this allowed to take place?

As several outlets have noted, ESPN does not cover high-school football in it's own merit.  The regional and conference networks don't even touch it for the Worldwide Leader in Snorts.  The only times they cover this sport is to basically highlight those players who are going to be playing on Saturday in the various major schools ESPN and it's sister networks will cover to salivate the dying vestiges of what is left of college football.

So, enter Roy Johnson, the head coach of this garbage.  With him, enter Andre Peterson, the director of whatever this place is, and Jay Richardson, who not only is STILL ON ABC 6 in Columbus (but denies the reports he is partners with Peterson and Richardson), but was on four different NFL teams in a six-year span, playing three years with the Raiders before basically falling out of the league.

Basically, all ESPN does with high-school football is a couple of high-level recruits in opening games of the season and the likes of the Under Armour All-American Game, where many entering freshmen show off and the last of the recruiting class announce their destinations.

To give you an idea, IMG Academy is owned by the William Morris Agency.  THAT William Morris Agency.

So Johnson and Peterson go to failed students at the high-school and JUCO level and entice them with one last shot at making something out of their football lives.  

• They defraud $1,500 a head from these people, not only promising them FBS exposure, but also Christian structure.
• Then the men get subjected to where they are hardly fed (many had to shoplift just to EAT).
• As noted above, no real facilities or uniforms.  There is no home stadium for "BS".
• Their "conference" is a purported religious private-school conference in TEXAS!  And they're not the only operation outside the state of Texas in that conference -- there's one two states over in Mississippi!
• Hell, their actual address has orbited from a PO Box to a condominium where most of the players were left to sleep on the floor...
• After they were evicted from a hotel they were staying out when their checks bounced.
• And if you want to see the levels people sometimes try to go to get noticed when they have no right to be:  At least one player from "BS" got mentioned in Sports Illustrated for his talent in high-school games.  Too bad that the best estimate they could find was that QB/LB Josh Bogan was a 20 year-old JUCO dropout!
• This year's starting quarterback WAS a U17 select, but ended up in SEVEN different California schools in his four-year career, playing in FIVE different varsity football programs in four years.  That, in and of itself, should be investigated, on any number of fronts.   
• Probably the most egregious case was one found by a Florida sports analyst, Andrew Ivins.  He found a "BS" player who graduated, apparently, from Florida in 2020, conned his way onto a 7v7 camp with a fake ID, and put together a completely-fake HUDL (football/soccer exposure) profile.

But here's three really "fun" facts about this sham operation which really need to have you shaking your head:

• This was NOT their first contest with IMG Academy!  They played October 16, 2020, in IMG's first game of the year -- IMG won 56-6.  As people I talk to on certain situations tell me, often the only existence of lesser teams is to pad the statistics and stature of the "greaters".  IMG would be well-served in this regard, frankly.   
• This isn't even the first real attempt at such defrauding by at least Peterson and Johnson.  Three years ago, they created Christians of Faith school, a similar sham outfit, disaccredited from Ohio Schools and thrown out of the OHSAA, the state sanctioning body.  They went 1-11 in 2018, with a cancelled game against IMG Academy!  That outfit had a home field and actually beat a Michigan school.
• And not even the second, apparently the 2019 attempt was called "YouthBuild"...
• Here's a list of criminal and civil charges on Peterson and Johnson in just the last two years:

1. Two bank-fraud cases with local banks in 2018.
2. Which came from loans, probably leading to the check-bouncing scheme with Baymont Inn...  The combination of just these three alone was almost $300,000!!!
3. Eviction proceedings for them and 22 players for stealing a roof over their head (to the tune of another $35,000/month for the season -- so add another $200Kish to the number) from Tailwind Griff LLC and The Griff Apartments.
4. Johnson has a March, 2020 domestic-violence case, including assault and disorderly conduct.
5. They created a new shell corporation for the 2020 season (ISE Foundation), and defrauded another outfit out of 16 apartments worth and $25,000 a month for that season (another $100-125K).
6. A charter bus company civil situation.
7. And on July 2, 2021, the head coach of this outfit, Roy Johnson, gets a Failure to Appear bench warrant on the DV case.

• They ran a GoFundMe to get funds.  Wanted $20,000.  Got a hundred and forty bucks.

So let's summarize this:

• This outfit was able to defraud one of the largest sports corporations in the country, with a massive high-school recruiting network, to put it on the air.  (Yes, they can say it was through the marketing firm that ESPN contracts it to, but still...  NO ONE actually did an ounce of research with their recruiting database on any of this jokery?)
• They probably entered this season a good million in arrears civil cases, and probably more coming.
• The head coach is going to jail for domestic violence.
• The team literally played in a game in the next state over less than 48 hours before the contest in Canton with IMG.
• This is at least the THIRD attempt at such defrauding by these two.

I have been rightfully accused of wanting too much scorched-Earth on some of this stuff.

But I can't think anyone with sign-off power on this contest should remain with ESPN or the marketing company ESPN contracts this out to.

I'm not going to say this is a fire-able offense, but the fact they even did 2 1/2 quarters of the game with everyone basically KNOWING this was a sham contest by mid-second-quarter is irresponsible on the Worldwide Leader's part.  Do ESPNNews for a couple hours and get this shitfest off the goddamn field!

How Jay Richardson is not on at least paid leave, if not suspension, from his post at ABC 6 Columbus, is beyond any sense of my comprehension.

And as for the two main men??  LONG prison sentences.  They make some of the guys I found out were coaching professional drug/gang-fueled Pop Warner football in Florida (when I could find their arrest records) cuddly in comparison.

And, the worst part?  I agree with Tree.  There's MORE TO THIS.  Stay tuned.