Anger is a blanket
emotion, right?
If anger is an umbrella,
then under that
umbrella is hurt.
(OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING)
Confusion.
Disappointment.
And a whole lot of scared.
Because your mind goes
towards the worst, right?
You're reading some
of these things
and you're starting
to think like...
"What could I have done better?"
Like, "What could have I
done to change the, you know,
change the outcome of this?"
(THEME MUSIC PLAYING)
Our first story is fascinating.
It could be a book.
It could be a movie.
How this happens got a lot of
people scratching their head.
It was a nationally
televised game on ESPN
featuring a national
powerhouse, IMG Academy,
playing a team called
Bishop Sycamore.
- Bishop Sycamore.
- Bishop Sycamore.
Bishop Sycamore.
It sounds like an old
pimp. Bishop Sycamore.
They got on ESPN and got
their asses wiped out.
End zone, hauled in
by Tate with one hand.
Low throw. It's caught.
And reaching across the
goal line, touchdown!
Bishop Sycamore, they're a
bit of a mystery in this game.
When did ESPN start
producing comedy?
Get right back out!
Get that sh*t out!
Bishop Sycamore told us
they had a number of
Division I prospects.
Look at this sh*t!
A lot of that we
could not verify.
Reports are now claiming
Bishop Sycamore is not
even a real high school.
No facilities, no building,
kids staying in hotels.
And they're not actually
high school players?
How does this get on ESPN?
How does that happen?
There's got to be
a point now, Lugs,
where you do worry
about health and safety.
I already am worried about it.
I do honestly feel bad for them.
For you to be able to
go through all this,
things must be going
bad in your life.
Governor DeWine is calling
for an investigation
into Bishop Sycamore.
It starts with a coach
named Roy Johnson.
Roy Johnson is facing
a civil lawsuit
for alleged fraud.
Turns out the whole
thing is a scam.
ESPN just wants the money.
Look at them eyes, shifty.
He looks like he up
to something shady.
"Get that g*dd*mn camera
off my face, man."
The initials are BS High.
Shut up!
(MUSIC CONCLUDES)
Let's show you where
the magic happens.
This is where we're holding up
for the next couple days.
Terrified.
Yeah, that's what Neo said.
And look what problems
it caused him.
- Just machines, right?
So, I took a crash
course in body language.
Do you want my hands
like this? Like this?
- Like that? Like,
yeah, it's... No, man.
No, man, 'cause, listen, body
language is so important.
Do you realize if I
sit in a certain way,
people are gonna think
that I don't care?
Just be natural. You
don't have to try.
Are you sure?
Are you sure I look cool?
Do I look like a con artist?
(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING)
That's what I'm asking. Do
I look like a con artist?
Or do I look like a
regular, normal person?
Okay. Yeah. There was a
specific question in there.
I think that Roy is
probably thrilled
to be in a documentary.
Sitting in front of
a camera and talking
is probably his ideal scenario.
Do I really want to be famous?
Do I really want
people to see me?
Did me wanting to
be so loved and seen
and people like me and all that,
that good feeling and all
that, Tr*mp everything else?
I used to be a local news
reporter in Columbus, Ohio,
and I was one of the first
people to cover the story.
Roy could absolutely be the
next in a long line of people
to fall on their own
sword on a national scale
because he talks too
much in a documentary.
A lot of Roy Johnson
is anecdotal, right?
A lot of it becomes...
legend.
I'm a son, a brother, a nephew,
a coach, a motivator, a father.
Those are, like,
the serious answers.
But for a little
bit easier answer
that people can digest,
I always refer to...
The A-Team.
("THE A TEAM" THEME
MUSIC PLAYING)
Amy Allen. I'm Hannibal Smith.
I understand you want
to hire the A-Team.
I took the embodiment
of that show.
Like I thought I was Hannibal.
Like, literally, to the point
where I would have a cigar.
I literally thought
I was Hannibal.
Are you still tinkering with
miniaturized electronics?
- Yeah.
- Then I have a plan.
Hannibal would come up
with plans all the time.
And then the plans
were crazy, right?
Even though the plans
didn't necessarily work out
the way they
should, they worked.
I love it when a
plan comes together.
(THEME MUSIC CONCLUDES)
Tell me about your
football experience.
- Is that... Is that...
Oh, buddy.
I figured that would be easy
to talk about, football.
Yeah, well, football in
itself is easy to talk about.
But the courage
to do what we did
is deep, deep, deep, deep,
deep rooted.
(GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING)
I tried to walk
on at Ohio State.
That didn't work out.
And then I end up
getting an internship
with the New York Jets.
And when I got that
and got to be around
Coach Belichick,
Bill Parcells, Leon Hess,
I wanted to be a GM,
I wanted to be a
general manager.
I was fascinated with that.
Even at that young age, I
would look at Pepper Johnson,
Bryan Cox,
Frost, and say, "You guys
are these gladiators,
physical masterpieces."
The scripture "we were
created in God's image"
must have been
thinking about this.
And these two old guys over
here are controlling you.
You wanna run tonight,
son, or you wanna act
like a... rabbit?
It was amazing to watch.
(CHOIR MUSIC PLAYING)
Born in New York, and I
was raised in Long Island.
Growing up, we went to a church
on the corner of
these two streets,
and I can hear my mom
singing right now.
And my brother and I would
be champing at the bit
to get out of night service
before the streetlights came on.
So we could go play football.
My brother is the
best football player
that I've ever seen.
Fast, strong, relentless.
And he was cold-blooded.
As a big brother, I
wanted to make sure
that I could take his talent
and put it on a bigger pedestal.
I'm telling the little kid,
undersized kid in New York,
"You gonna play for
Ohio State one day."
"Are you sure,
Roy?" "Follow me."
How many times I went
to talk to teachers
because they failed him,
and then when he
couldn't play football,
I had to go beg teachers
to get his grades up.
So when my brother
went to Ohio State,
I saw that high school
football changes lives
because it provides
opportunities
to get higher education.
When I started this whole thing,
for me, it was an
opportunity to take it
from my brother or
two or three kids
to helping an entire
football team,
an entire school.
I had been working
for the African Methodist
Episcopal Church
for about three or four years,
just doing random
projects to help.
So, they came to me and said,
"Hey, we're thinking
about opening a school
called Christians of Faith
to help young men get an
education, go to college."
At this point,
you know, working,
years working with my brother,
getting him into college
and getting young
people into college
through the avenue of football,
I was like, "Hey, you know,
I don't mind working
on this project,
but we have to add a
football element to it."
The first day I met Roy,
it was after a football game.
He just said he always
wanted to have a team.
He wanted to impact kids.
I had coached for a long
time, and I was like,
"Oh, that's easy. I can
tell you how to do that."
For me, it was an
opportunity to have
a Christian school powerhouse.
And what better place
to do that than Ohio?
We talked about this, I
mean, every single day.
I mean, to two at
night sometimes.
And my wife is over
there and she's like,
"Hey, man, look,
just let me know.
You and Roy got
something going on.
What's going on? Is it
Roy or is it Regina?"
Tell me about John Branham Sr.
And his role in this process.
- Who? John Branham Sr.
Who's John Branham Sr.?
Of course, he would say that,
because he knows I
know the beginning.
I know every ins and outs.
Oh, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah. He, um, he was
around for a few weeks.
He was helping us out
with advice. Real smart.
I can't say a few weeks.
That wouldn't be right.
So... six months,
seven months maybe.
The goal was to get
the school started
and sports to come in
about two to three years.
He was like, "You're
talking about
a 150-million-dollar project.
It takes years to build
something like this."
The money was supposed to come
from people getting
insurance policies
through the church and leaving
that money to the school.
So, "Hey, you want to
help out the school?
Take out a 100,000 dollar
life insurance policy.
You can leave whatever
percentages to your family
and then leave a certain
percentage to the school."
So then he gives me a list of
things that we're going to need.
And once he gave me that list,
it's just like anything else.
Just go get it.
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
So I get into my Hannibal mode,
just putting the grind
on and getting out there.
Kept talking to people,
talking to people,
talking to people.
We had people calling
from other states like,
"Hey man, I want to coach,
I want to help you guys."
And we hadn't started anything.
We had got engineers
and architects
to draw up this facility.
And the facility had a
rooftop basketball court
and little ponds for
kids to go fishing in.
The idea was that if the
facility is really good,
it'll help draw in the players.
It would probably cost
hundreds of millions of dollars
to do something like what
they were talking about.
Especially to build, like,
physically build a school,
a building, a field, like,
renovate a whole thing.
Next thing I know, I
get a call from Roy.
He's like, "Branham, that place
you took me to, SuperKick,
the indoor facility,
we're going to rent that
for the kids to practice."
I said, "Yo, man, what kids?"
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
I go up to SuperKick
indoor facility.
There was a bus,
like a tour bus,
with kids getting off the
bus, coming to practice.
And I'm sitting there
like, "What the hell?"
This is not what we
were supposed to create.
I was going to choke his ass.
How can you go and coach
a team of young kids
and you know it's not a school.
It's my philosophy
of business is,
do what the people
who have the money do,
even if you don't
have the money.
I trusted Roy all
up into the point
where I didn't trust him.
I'm insecure, I'm an extremist,
and I'm very resourceful.
And that's a bad combination.
I... I remember the first day
that I learned
about COF Academy,
which was probably the same time
I learned who Roy Johnson was.
COF Academy was Christians
of Faith Academy,
which was the precursor
to Bishop Sycamore.
(WHIMSICAL MUSIC PLAYING)
Ben Ferree is a
former investigator
for the Ohio High School
Athletic Association.
He said he began looking
at Bishop Sycamore's
predecessor years ago.
I worked at the Ohio High
School Athletic Association
for eight years.
It was my job and, uh, I
was pretty good at my job.
So I knew a lot about
high school sports.
The Ohio High School
Athletic Association
is the governing body
for high school sports
in the state of Ohio.
Its general mission is to
have some sort of fairness
in the competitive landscape
to protect the players,
to protect the schools.
I met Ben when I was
a freshman in college.
Um, he was a year older than me,
and he also worked
on the newspaper.
Ben loves rules.
He loves, like, minutia and,
like, following the rules
and being like, "Hey,
look at this weird thing."
He's like a little puppy
who, like, finds things,
and then just like dig,
dig, dig, dig, dig, digs.
It was, I think,
the summer of 2018
and Ben was doing
this job at the OHSAA,
where he always wound
up with weird stories.
One day, he just sent something
to the group chat, like,
"I have this really weird school
that is, like, a
brand-new school
and says they're
D1 with 750 kids."
And it was very clear, very fast
that this was one
of those things
that Ben was going to
sink his teeth into.
I was intrigued by Roy, um,
because he... he opened my
mind to what fraud could be.
I had no idea
the depths with which you
could get away with things.
And his life provided
a fantastic case study
for all the flaws
of the legal system.
Let's go, everybody,
let's go, let's go.
Here you go.
Three, two, one.
Yellow, let's go.
I met Roy at an indoor soccer
training place called SuperKick.
- They were having a media day.
And I get there, and it's all
just sort of, like, chaos.
There's like, kids
running around,
people with
clipboards and stuff,
but there wasn't any
organization or anything.
And there was basically no
other media there at all.
It was pretty much just me
and someone that they had
hired to do video for them.
Roy was sharper than
most of anybody I've ever met.
He knew what to
say, how to say it.
Um, he knew how to
talk about things
that were way beyond me as
far as how to build a school
and what hoops and things
you had to jump through.
We actually met
at a Panera Bread.
This dude had long
Adidas socks on,
gym shorts and a big
Iron Man T-shirt.
So, he sat down, but the
moment the guy started talking,
we were both impressed.
We were ready to go.
Talked for two or three hours.
Really sold us on the vision.
We had the proposal ready
and he saw the number on it.
Didn't even flinch about it.
He's like, "I'm going
to go to the bank.
I'm gonna get you
guys squared away
within the next month.
No problem."
Anthony and I walk out
into the parking lot,
and we just closed
the biggest deal
of our life, man.
The plan was to have them get
as much film as they could,
and then put it all together
and see what we
could do with it.
He... He said,
"You're going to
get us on Netflix."
I was like... "All right."
Yeah, right?
Maybe one day get it on HBO
or Netflix or whatever, right?
It seemed like we were
gonna kind of build...
You know, you don't want to say
the communications
department of the school,
but it kind of was that.
Um, kind of be the
creative directors
of the school that's
about to start,
that's supposed to
be an IMG Academy
of Columbus, Ohio.
This here is a brotherhood.
(INTENSE MUSIC PLAYS)
We hold ourselves
to a higher standard
than anyone could
ever set for us.
Work harder. Get stronger.
Be smarter. Play faster.
- Dream bigger.
(MUSIC CONCLUDES)
IMG Academy is a
school that was built
to be an academic arm
of what is basically
a sports academy.
They are probably the most
known school in the country
when it comes to athletics.
They have the best facilities,
the best schedule,
the best trainers,
always one of the
top-ranked teams,
gets kids to college,
gets kids to the NFL.
Nothing about IMG seems
like a high school.
It seems like a
professional team.
Like, if you look at the
facilities they have,
they're as good as any
college or pro team.
They're kind of like
the establishment,
and they're what COF Academy
was essentially striving to be.
There might not be that
many schools in America
that are as high
profile as IMG Academy,
but the same concept applies
to dozens or hundreds of
schools around the country.
All of these schools exist
for the same purpose,
which is to play football.
And education, or
taking care of the kids,
or any of that
stuff, is secondary.
I think Roy looked
at IMG Academy
and he said, "Why
can't I do that?"
But with kids from
bad backgrounds.
With COF Academy,
their target demo
was athletes who
were good at football
or thought they were
good at football,
but were not going on to
play at the next level.
Be that because they didn't have
the grades to get into college
or didn't have the grades
to academically qualify,
or be that maybe they
didn't have any offers
to play at the next level
but felt that they should.
And that's really the dream
that they sold them on,
was, "We will get you
into a D1 school."
"If you come here,
we're going to get
you into big schools.
We're going to
bring in top talent.
We're going to bring
in the D1 talent.
We're going to rival IMG."
So, when people say
D1 or Division I,
they're really talking
about the highest levels
of college football.
These are the schools that
you see on television.
That's where people see you.
That's where you get
measures of fame and celeb.
If Christians of Faith
does begin placing
multiple kids in D1 programs,
then Roy all of a sudden
becomes a nationally
known high school coach,
that you go play
football for Roy Johnson,
he can get you into D1 programs.
That would have a lot of cachet.
Go.
So, I walked around,
talked to other coaches
like, "Y'all do understand
there is no school."
He's like, "Oh, man,
you know, you gotta...
You got to let that go."
I said, "I'm gonna tell
you what I'm gonna let go.
I'm gonna let go of his
neck after I grab it."
So he left, and then
the other people working
on the projects, they left.
And then it was
just these couple
of parents and myself.
- (GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING)
The real shocker came
when the AME Church
issued their statement,
saying they had no
involvement with COF Academy.
It was poor communication
between that bishop,
that administration,
and the pastors.
He just didn't have
the heart to be like,
"Yeah, I said it was okay."
That was really something
we had not even considered
he could possibly
be lying about.
But as it turns out,
there's nothing Roy
won't lie about.
So...
they pull out and...
why don't you guys
stop COF at that point?
I couldn't.
This is the part I go back
and forth on all the time
between whether it's ego
or whether it's heart.
(LIGHTHEARTED MUSIC PLAYING)
See, I knew the
kids. I knew them.
I knew the neighborhoods
they were from.
I knew some of
them were homeless.
Now they had nowhere to go.
What was I supposed to
do? Just leave them?
Go back to these 50 kids
and say, "Let me do you
like everybody else that
did you up to this point."
Do you think it
was irresponsible
to keep pushing
the program forward
even though you
didn't have the money?
- Yes. Would you do it again?
Yes.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
I'm Magneto. These
are my mutants
and I'm fighting for 'em.
Any means necessary,
I'm gonna get this done.
I kept the season
afloat on my own.
I've seen some of
the best football.
We played in a gorgeous stadium.
This team flew all
the way to Texas.
Don't walk past the time
if you don't mean it!
COF flew to Texas.
We played 11 games
with no financial backing.
This is what let us know
that the dream was possible.
This is what let us
know that it could work.
We failed as COF.
The church pulled
out, it was a failure.
And so let's get
back to the ground.
Let's find out what we didn't
do right on the first time.
Let's get back at it.
Let's get on the schedule.
Let's get the better
kids, let's keep going,
and let's push
and get this done.
So we started working
on Bishop Sycamore.
("STEP HARDER" BY
RXALU LOADED PLAYING)
Can't nobody tell me nothing
They know I'm built for this
Daddy counting dirty money
Hoes think I'm filthy rich
Andre Peterson was one of
the coaches at COF Academy.
His son was in the program.
He was a prominent part of
what became Bishop Sycamore.
(DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING)
If he had some Infinity
Stones and a gauntlet,
you would think he was Thanos.
He's like the Black Thanos.
I was passionate about it
because I believed
in the vision.
I saw the desire,
but most importantly,
I saw the need.
My dream for Bishop Sycamore was
a place for young men to be able
to come and get the
help that they needed.
Christians of Faith
and Bishop Sycamore
should absolutely be
considered the same school.
For all intents and
purposes, they were.
It was run by the
exact same people.
In their first
year of existence,
Bishop Sycamore was wearing
COF Academy's equipment.
Because COF ended so badly,
I kicked up the
notch on recruitment.
When we looked at the young men
that we were bringing
into the program,
it was something in their
life that wasn't right.
They had an unhealthy home life.
They had bad grades.
They needed more film because
they didn't play a lot.
The end goal was they
wanted to go to college.
Since I was a kid,
my dad's never been there.
You know, he's never came
to a football game of mine.
I'm a big mama's boy, but
I always wanted my father.
So, you know, it was hard.
(GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING)
I kept it under my skin.
I didn't really say
anything. But as I got older,
I always wanted
my dad, you know?
And that's where it
started playing a big toll
on just me mentally.
I connect with the
game of football.
It brings heart,
drive, dedication,
you know, hunger.
If you don't have hunger,
you can't become a man.
You got to eat in this
world. So I'm gonna eat.
Where I'm from, opportunities
don't come around.
So when you have an opportunity,
you got to capitalize on it.
And that's what I
was trying to do.
Coming from a broken household,
getting evicted back-to-back,
and so football is just a
way to help get my mind away
from everything that
was going on at home.
When I was seven years old,
my dad caught a m*rder
charge, or homicide.
So football was
the only way that I had,
a... a male support.
That was where I was
getting disciplined.
It was always that
family effect.
At first when Roy hit me,
I was in need of an opportunity.
(PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING)
It was COVID.
I was, you know, just sitting
on the couch, working out,
waiting on the gyms
closed to open up.
They seen me on the QB list,
they've seen that
I was top ranked.
They said, "We a
up-and-coming program."
Got to explaining the teams
they were playing, IMG,
Saint Francis.
"Okay, you know, Coach,
talk to me, you know.
You know, you sound nice,
all right? Like,
what... what's up?"
When you're realizing
that something that you
just put a lot of your life
in that was supposed to
be your way out is over,
and someone comes
along and tells you,
"No, it's not over. In
fact, it's just starting.
You're going to be
playing in Alabama."
A lot of people would...
Would buy into that.
They dream of being in the
NFL. They dream of being rich.
They dream of being famous. And
you sell them the idea that,
"Hey, I'm going to get
you to these places
that will give you the
chance to get there.
All you have to
do is work hard."
I got promised
that I'd be at a big-time
school. I'd be D1.
Basically, I got promised
everything you
will want to hear.
Well, he called my mom.
He was telling her,
"Oh, we're supposed
to be playing a big-time
school called IMG."
I took the phone, I was like,
"Yo, IMG is a dream school,
I always wanted to play against
them or play with them."
So, I went to learn,
to better myself and
to play football,
to get a... a
scholarship, to go D1.
If you go to Bishop
Sycamore's Twitter page,
it is literally just hundreds
of messages tweeting at players,
"Hey, DM me. Hey,
DM me. Hey, DM me."
The dream that they
sold them on was,
"We will get you
into a D1 school."
He was saying, uh,
"You just come and play ball...
and we're going to
get you to school."
He was just selling me a dream.
At the time, you know,
I was in a lost space.
So I took it as a chance for
me to start something new.
I looked at my mom,
I said, "It's gonna be
the biggest opportunity.
You know, it's going to
be life-changing for me."
Coach Roy DM'd me on Instagram.
"Hey, what's up, bro?
I want to fly you out and
let you come to our school.
This school I'm building up,
all-Black coaching staff,
I want to build it up."
I'm like, "All right.
Bet, bet, bet."
You know, it sounds
like a fairytale story.
Damn, I got this opportunity
and I don't have nothing
else. I'm just home.
So this is a time for me
to like, potentially get
a scholarship somewhere,
because, man,
where we come from,
our parents don't have money
to pay for school, no
big-time university.
I'm gonna get y'all the
opportunity to get filmed.
I'm gonna get y'all
the opportunity
to get your grades up.
I'm gonna get y'all
the opportunity
to travel around the
country and play football.
What they told me was that
they would be able to help me
get my ACT score up as
well as get extra tape
to be able to attend college.
That dream would be
incredibly powerful,
um, for those kids.
If you are maybe
not good at school,
you're not... just not
that great at academics,
or maybe you are but you
can't afford college.
Or maybe you just come
from a rundown area
where college is not a
likely option for you,
sports is the golden ticket.
Coach Roy had it down pat.
Flew me out. I'm in first-class.
He picked me up
in this nice car.
We go eat in a nice restaurant.
I'm like, "Man, this the life."
I'm seeing facilities, I'm
seeing athletic trainers,
turf fields, jerseys,
other players.
Man, like this program
is finna be lit.
Like, we finna... We
finna tear some people up.
Come on, come on,
come on. Go, go, go.
I used to drive around the
neighborhoods to find kids.
I would just go
into neighborhoods
and I'd look for what was
familiar for me, right.
I need two telephone poles,
a bunch kids doing football.
- Let's go recruit.
Hip-hop was so influential
on... on... on my pitch to
talk to kids that, literally,
I would talk to them
about recruiting football
and I would use
Suge Knight's line,
because of what he
said about Bad Boy.
Any artist out there
wants to be an artist
and wanna stay a star...
You want to go to college?
If you don't want your coach
all up on your Twitter...
and don't have to worry
about the executive producer
trying to be all in the video...
On your Instagram.
All on the record...
Talking about how
he made you hot.
- Come to Death Row.
Come to Bishop Sycamore.
I literally took that from Suge.
And I literally applied
it to these kids.
(UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING)
I'm loving what I'm hearing.
"All right. Let me get
back to you, Coach."
Hey, come on, Ma.
He was all excited.
He got off the phone,
had me talk to Roy
and they told me,
"Hey, he's going to be put
up in a... an apartment.
We're going to
take care of him."
I was focused on
the school as well,
because he only had two
credits left to graduate.
So I was super excited.
I was ready for him to go
on to the next chapter.
Where there's no vision,
the people perish.
You know what that means?
You have no idea?
There's no plan, this...
If you don't have the
vision, you'll perish.
My first impression of
Roy, um, awesome guy.
(PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING)
He knew how to talk,
made you feel comfortable.
So he was a cool
dude, most definitely.
I looked up to him
because I felt like he was
a Black man in America
actually trying a positive way.
He showed me enough to where
I knew how to trust him.
Like, I can trust a coach
where they come in clutch.
Like a... It was like having
an uncle on the field with you.
Like that... Like
that big cool uncle.
It's like, he was
just like one of us.
Talk about your coaching style.
Hold on a second.
Did you already
speak to players?
Or am I getting the first
sh*t to explain me as a coach?
No, you... you get
the first sh*t.
Oh, I get the first
sh*t, man. I'm just...
I'm an understanding
coach, who, uh,
was out there
embracing... Um...
(PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING)
My style as a coach,
I think I'm creative.
You rollin' with me
I'm passionate.
Go ahead, go ahead. Yeah.
I could tell you some stories
that you would never believe...
but I literally would say
whatever I needed to say
to pull that dog up out you.
Anything.
What kind of coach was Roy?
Um...
Do you feel like Roy was
like an actual coach?
I mean... Okay. So my
opinion of Roy is like...
I've done yelled,
scream, motivate,
pull, tugged, hugged.
Made fun of kids, made
fun of their situations.
Roy is...
not a coach.
(DUBIOUS MUSIC PLAYING)
It is a law that if you coach
interscholastic activities
in the state of Ohio,
you have to have what's called
a pupil activity permit.
Uh, it ensures that you're
safe to be around kids
by having a background check.
Roy Johnson did not have
one of those permits,
nor did he even
ever apply for one.
We have no coach and we
have no film sessions.
We didn't really have no plays.
In terms of the playbook...
Yeah, one of them
stupid kids said...
One of those young men
that I like, they was like,
"We got it off Madden."
Back to throw.
And he can't get a throw
off. He's taken down!
I was like...
Well, one, I wasn't the
offensive coordinator,
so, no, I didn't
get it off Madden.
Like, once we've seen
that he didn't care,
just a bunch of teenagers, like,
you think we gonna care that
you're not making us run?
Oh, nobody's going to say,
"Man, make us run." Like, we...
You know, at the time,
that would've been
something that someone
should've stepped up and said,
"We need to have this
type of structure."
But like, he doesn't... He
doesn't have any structure.
He's one... He's
real cool, laid-back.
But at the end of the day,
he's still going to be
about money at all times.
I never thought that I'd be
in a situation where...
I, uh, would have enough
money to rent an entire hotel.
As I dug into the case, I found
multiple unpaid parking tickets,
unpaid court costs,
unpaid business loans,
unpaid tax liens.
Not a guy that really cares
if someone's out to get him.
I don't feel like I went into
any situation thinking like,
"Oh, I'm just not
going to pay it
just because I don't
want to pay it."
I think I went
into the situation,
like, "Okay, I can swing it,
I can get it together,"
and then didn't pay it
because life happened
for whatever reason.
Roy went to a paintball park
and left them a
credit card, and said,
"The person responsible
for this credit card
will come in to
settle up our tab."
Then they left.
And the paintball company
sort of waited and waited
and no one showed up.
When they ran the card,
it bounced. It declined.
I just don't care to
handle this small problem.
On my list of things
to take care of,
a 300 dollar paintball
bill wasn't it.
We get a comment on one
of our Instagram posts
from that paintball park,
saying, "It's f*cked up of
you guys not to pay us."
Roy just said,
"Don't answer that."
Yeah, he said, "Any
bad press you get,
just don't answer them.
We want all this to be
positive and, you know..."
Obviously, a positive narrative.
It's just what the man does.
Probably a six or
seven-month period
that we were involved
with COF Academy,
we probably made 50 or 60
bucks just through gas money.
- We split 60 dollars.
- Yeah.
So 30 each.
For gas.
That's beyond...
That's a friendship,
that's beyond business.
Those guys, like,
they're my friends.
Like, I know them.
I'm sorry.
Life happens.
They're going to get paid by me
when I get money
together to move on.
He was like, "You know, JD,
I need you to go to
this hotel for tonight.
And we're going to get
everything situated
in the morning." Easy, bet.
The hotel was only like
32 dollars a night.
And keep that fact now.
First day we there...
Boom, boom, boom!
It was the lady from downstairs,
the hotel lady,
and she was like,
"Can you tell Roy
to come pay me?"
And it's like, man,
like I'm seeing
they're not paying bills.
They say, "All right, if
you need ten to 15 rooms,
you can pay it in either
net 30, 60, or 90."
So I was like, "I can
get this hotel room
and pay it in 90 days?" sh*t.
What would you think
I was gonna do?
They offered me
credit and I took it.
To my knowledge,
Roy has... at least a
dozen lawsuits against him.
(PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYING)
Obviously, you've had...
You've had a few
lawsuits, right?
Is that fair to
say? Over the years?
Yeah, I've had a few
lawsuits over the years.
I think that's fair to say.
The ones that you looked up.
How many do you reckon you had?
How many did you count?
Um... Over 30.
- Thirty lawsuits?
Yeah, you've had over 30.
Um, I mean, it's pretty wild.
How come you've had
so many lawsuits?
Because I didn't pay the bills.
Why didn't you pay the bills?
I don't know. Might've been
I didn't have the money.
Didn't care.
Lazy, arrogance. There's
a lot that goes into it.
I would literally have to
look at all 30 lawsuits
and look down and look at 'em.
What does it feel
like to be a co...
Well, actually,
are you a con man?
No, that's not, like,
my trade or profession.
Okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm...
No, you know, I'm dodging it.
- Roy is absolutely a con
man. Is he any good at it?
That's a great question.
He's kind of good at it
and kind of awful at it.
I'm not sure what the name
of the television show is
exactly, but I think one
of the terms is n*gga-ish.
So I'm not a con
man. I'm con man-ish.
- (GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING)
Man, there's some hustles I could
tell you about, man, that I did.
And that's what they were.
They were hustles, man.
You know, I would call
a grocery store in
the morning and say,
"Hey, I need to order
25 rotisserie chickens."
And they will order the 25
rotisserie chickens and cook them.
And then I wouldn't
pick them up,
and then I would show
up when the deli closed
like six, seven o'clock,
because I knew, at night,
they would mark them down
to two dollars apiece.
But I didn't... I mean,
I didn't have a choice.
Where am I going to find
food to feed 50 kids?
Originally, everything was
supposed to be catered,
have all these
meals and whatnot.
But we found out that
it wasn't like that.
It seemed like
these kids got fed,
but it was whenever Roy
could make it happen.
When we first started,
we were usually
getting fed pasta.
I was eating pizza
and pasta every day.
The mac and cheese would get put
out because nobody would eat it.
And then that same
night, it's reheated
and it's there like
four nights later.
I saw pictures that
he would send me
and I'd be like...
- "What is that?"
- It's not oatmeal. I don't know.
I don't even know
what we ate that day.
Like, it was a porridge?
A whole bunch of food
like mixed together,
- like, just try it out.
- We out there playing football.
Ain't nobody really got
any money or anything.
And where I'm from,
it's only one way, so...
They going to Walmart,
they stealing,
Kroger, stealing it.
There got a time we all
got kicked out of Walmart
like none of us
could go in there.
We had to steal TV dinners
and stuff like that,
chicken and stuff.
With financial backing
comes stability.
And once that didn't happen,
it was almost like
they were on an island
by their self,
surrounded by water.
And now you have to
learn how to survive
or you have to learn how to,
you know, do whatever you can
to get out of it,
get off the island.
Coach Roy and Mr. Peterson
told me that they would be able
to help me get my ACT score
up as well as get extra tape.
Get to those colleges
that I wanted to go to.
For the school, it's...
it's... It began
with meeting the
needs of those kids.
One, two, three...
To my understanding,
there were no
educational standards.
They did not have teachers.
They did not provide any
education themselves.
The school that we visited
months before we got there
was not at all the school
that we, quote,
unquote, "attended."
The school that we
actually attended,
it was called YouthBuild.
In 2019, the first year
of Bishop Sycamore,
they claimed that
they were going to be
the athletic arm of YouthBuild.
It was a school for kids
that got locked up
during high school
and kids that
probably dropped out
and just wanted to get a GED.
Bishop Sycamore started
running up bills
in YouthBuild's name,
and expecting them to pay
for things that YouthBuild
had not agreed to pay for.
And so almost as
soon as it started,
the partnership was dissolved.
We never really
had like a teacher
to help us for our ACT.
We really was pretty
much on our own.
Coming in, I told him,
"I need to move my GPA
from here to here."
You know, he told me, you
know, "We have a trusted,
accredited source to
bring your grades up."
And I said, "Okay, I'm gonna put
all my marbles in one basket.
Imma trust you with this."
In its paperwork, it
says students go to class
from 7:10 a.m. to 3:05 p.m.
at Franklin
University's library.
We're supposed to be going to a
school called Franklin University,
and Roy's telling us,
"Okay, this is the building
where we'll be taking
our classes at."
We get there and the doors are
locked, we can't get in, so.
You guys never had any
type of brick-and-mortar
school location in...
in the entire process?
No.
Look, you tell a teenager,
"You don't have to go
to school anymore,"
they're not going to stop
and say, "But wait a minute,
there are consequences to
this." No. They're like, "Cool.
I don't have to go
to school anymore."
They figured everything
would be taken care of
because the grown folk on duty
said that everything
would be taken care of.
Three games into the season
and we haven't touched a
single academic assignment.
- We don't have any laptops.
We don't really
have a solid place
for everyone to, um,
everyone to do work.
There's no teachers.
So I'm kind of iffy about it,
but I don't want
to go tell my mom.
I'm like, "Oh, I'm
not doing school."
I don't necessarily
think there was a gap
between what was promised
and what was delivered. Um...
I... I guess... I guess
in a way you could...
You... You probably
could say that, I guess.
If these were individuals
who were under the age of 18,
you have a legal obligation
to provide them a
very strict framework
and make sure that they're
doing what they need to do
because they're not adults yet.
The brain isn't fully formed.
But one of the things that
Bishop Sycamore and COF Academy
would always dance around
was the age of their players.
Notably, they filled out
on their paperwork in 2020
that they had three students
and in 2021 that they had one.
Now, obviously, there was
more than three people
out on the football field.
So why weren't all these
players on Bishop Sycamore
being considered truant?
The answer would
be, if they were all
already out of
school and over-aged.
I already graduated from
high school. So, Coach Roy
trying to search
up classes for us
at YouthBuild down in Columbus.
They tried to find us classes
so we could look like
a real high school.
Roy would tell people,
"We... we don't have
graduates on our team,
we don't have players
over 19 on our team.
We are just a high
school like any other."
Hard work on three.
- One, two, three. Hard work!
There were remarks
made at practice like,
"We're going to go out there
and play a bunch of
17 and 18-year-olds
and whoop the sh*t out of them."
Which kind of led you
to believe that...
these kids might be grown men.
And, obviously, you know,
the way they look,
they looked old.
You could definitely see it.
There were players
with children,
one that just came out of jail.
Just something you
can look at and see,
like, this isn't a
high school program.
Ben Ferree said you guys had
players who were too old?
- Mm-hmm? Junior
college players
that were playing in
your team, is that true?
It's not true. Ben
Ferree doesn't know
what the hell he's
talking about.
One that stands out to me
who did play for Bishop
Sycamore in 2021,
his name is Mecose Todd.
He was listed as playing at
a JuCo, a junior college.
He was listed at that
college as a sophomore.
What are the odds that someone
two years removed
from high school
is age-eligible for high
school athletics still?
You know Mecose was
already in JuCo.
And you know I played at
JuCo. And you know this stuff.
When you're in JuCo,
you can't go back to high
school. Like, that's...
That's basically your
clock has already started.
It always felt like we
were not supposed to be
doing things that we were doing.
Looking, looking, looking.
Gets hit from behind and sacked.
There are some big boys.
What do these kids eat?
I knew I wasn't eligible to
play high school football.
But what he kind of made it seem
like was that he had a prep team
as well as a high school
team that was playing.
So our school was a hybrid
of a high school-prep school.
I don't understand
how people just buy into
that hook, line, and sinker.
There's no such thing
as a hybrid high
school-prep team.
That does not exist.
If there's one prep
school player on a team,
it is a prep school.
You're bringing 20,
21-year-olds out here
to compete against
15, 16, 17-year-olds.
Like, that is flatly wrong.
But it's masked by the fact
that they weren't good. But
there was still somebody
on the other side
of this 20-year-old
who probably looked up
and was like, "Damn,
that dude looks old."
The lie is when you tell
people that you are a school,
and then when you
compound on that lie
by saying "We are
a high school."
What's the high
school age limit?
Does anybody know?
Is there some type
of organization
that says how old you have to
be to play high school football?
Where's that manual?
Does anybody have that?
In OHSAA regulations,
you can be 19
years old and play.
The day you turn 20, you
are no longer eligible
to play high school athletics.
Cool. What's that have to
do with us? We're not OHSAA.
So what are you talking about?
What, to play with OHSAA school?
I'm not OHSAA.
We weren't OHSAA.
There was nothing about
us that was OHSAA.
I didn't belong to OHSAA,
I wasn't a OHSAA member.
Everything about
that organization
is just disgusting.
And then they run around and
call themselves the state,
but they're not even
governed by the state,
they're just an association.
Did I break a law? Is it
illegal? Am I in jail?
Some things, there
aren't laws against
because people lack the
imagination that anyone
is unscrupulous
enough to do them.
No, it's just Ben Ferree, OHSAA,
and what they thought
is your opinion.
Roy, the issue is that you lie.
I think I'm the most
honest liar that I know.
So if you ask me if I'm
a liar, or have I lied?
Yeah, absolutely.
But I would tell you that.
My core value is loyalty.
So I wouldn't lie to
somebody I'm loyal to.
Or more importantly, I
don't think I would lie
to somebody who is loyal to me.
Roy will tell you he's a liar.
And then Roy will
say, "I'm a liar.
So I know that I need to
tell the truth about X, Y, Z,
because you'll just look
into me because I'm a liar."
I will not lie about
something I can prove.
I'm not going to tell you we
did something and we didn't
- when I can prove it.
- But you're comfortable to lie
about things that
can't be proven.
Yes.
My name is Joe Maimone.
I'm a matchmaker to the
top teams in America
in the world of high
school football.
I had heard of Bishop Sycamore,
just from being in the business.
Roy called me, we
started talking.
He told me, "I want to
assemble the best schedule
in the history of
high school football."
They didn't care about
winning or losing.
They just wanted to
experience playing the best.
Play against good teams,
that gives you
good varsity film.
Big throw from Harris.
- Caught at the end zone!
On one level, you can
be a coach that says,
"I want my kids to compete
against the best of the best."
But the adults in the room
are the ones who have
to look around and say,
"Nah, we don't need to do that."
And you can do
that in basketball
or chess or something else
that doesn't involve
getting hit in the kidneys.
Like in this... this... There are
different consequences to this.
IMG is one of the toughest teams
in America to schedule for,
because of how good they are.
So I surround myself with
those type of clients
who want to play the
IMGs of the world.
Even though you lose to
IMG, if you're playing well
against one of
their top players,
that can get you a
scholarship somewhere.
The exposure helps.
The only thing is, if
you're not that good,
exposure means getting exposed.
Do you know why IMG played us
in the Canton Hall of Fame?
Because nobody else in
Ohio wanted to play them.
They think it's a
finesse thing, right?
"How did you finesse
your way onto ESPN?"
I didn't. They called us.
After assembling
Bishop Sycamore's
2021 schedule,
it was ranked the fourth
toughest schedule in America.
Not only were they playing IMG,
they were playing
a team from Texas,
they were playing a
team from Las Vegas,
they were going
down to Maryland.
It was a great schedule,
one of the best I've ever
put together for any team.
We're on ESPN...
playing at the
Canton Hall of Fame.
Win, lose, or draw, we win.
We're there. We win.
I love it when a
plan comes together.
The first game of the season
- was at Archbishop Hoban.
Harris looking under pressure.
Scrambles and dropped
down at about the 45.
They're a really good team.
They've had about four or
five state championships.
There I'm playing against the
top programs in the country.
Let's go.
The second game on
my schedule is IMG.
It was an opportunity
for me against IMG
to go in there and
showcase who I really am.
But the week of, Roy tells us
we got another game on Friday.
He's like, "Yeah, we're
gonna take this game
to get prepared for IMG.
They had scheduled
individually, on their own,
the Pennsylvania team on Friday.
This to me was one of the
craziest things to come of this.
It was finding out
that they had played
two football games
in a span of three days.
Had no idea about it
and would definitely would
have talked them out of it
or let them know my
feelings, uh, not to do it.
Especially when you're playing
a top-five team in America
48 hours later.
Welcome to the Woodland
Hills Showcase.
Tonight's first
matchup is going to be
Bishop Sycamore versus Sto-Rox.
Every single snap, you
are ramming your body
into somebody else,
and you're doing that
a hundred times a game.
Bishop Sycamore comes out
being led by their
quarterback, Trilian Harris.
Teams are playing two
games within one week,
but not Friday, Sunday.
Not that small a window.
You need time to recuperate
from one game to play the other.
I've been around
the game a long time
and I've never witnessed a team
that played two
games back-to-back.
Shotgun formation.
Harris gets the snap.
He's under pressure.
And he's taken down!
You wanna know what
that feels like?
Go run into a wall 30 times
and then come back
two days later
and say, "Yeah,
I'll do that again."
Except this time, against
a much sturdier wall.
If it was such a big concern
that they should only play
one game per week,
then you should make that
a national law and rule,
the health people should
come in and say all that,
and guess what I would do?
"Hey, bro, we can't
play these two games.
We can't do that, because
it's against the law."
But they didn't make it
illegal, so we played the game.
There's no law saying you
can't play football games
within 48 hours of each other.
There's no law saying you can't,
you know, drive a
nail into your leg.
People just don't do it
because it's stupid
and unhealthy.
You could not demonstrate
less of a regard
for the safety of your players
than having them play
two tackle football games
in a span of three days.
People were sharing helmets
because we were lied to,
saying that we had, um,
equipment on the way.
Trilian had to wear his helmet
that he had in high
school that I bought him,
that I know it
wasn't registered,
and it wasn't a certified
helmet for this season.
And his helmet comes off!
I can't believe
this happened again.
Uh, were players
sharing helmets? Yes.
Is that dangerous?
Football is dangerous. Yeah.
And that'll just
about do it here.
The Sto-Rox Vikings come
out and get a victory
against Bishop Sycamore.
There weren't safety concerns
because there just wasn't
anyone paying attention.
There wasn't enough
eyeballs on it.
When it's on ESPN
and... and you have
millions of people seeing
the horrible situation,
then it gets a little
more spotlight on it.
Welcome to Canton, Ohio,
home to the Pro
Football Hall of Fame.
IMG Academy out of
Florida, a powerhouse,
against Bishop
Sycamore from Ohio.
And all of a sudden, we
see that Bishop Sycamore
has scheduled IMG Academy at
Hall of Fame Stadium on ESPN.
Dude, we can't miss that.
That's Roy Johnson's
idea coming to fruition.
What if they're good?
I was sitting at
home, I was like,
"I'm gonna binge-watch
something."
I made me some lemonade,
got my cookies on deck.
And then all of a sudden, I
saw Roy drinking the water.
And I'm telling you,
I dropped my cookies
and the first words I...
I yelled at my wife,
"Hey, man, the clown's
on TV doing this thing."
Roy Johnson, the head coach
for Bishop Sycamore,
they're a bit of a
mystery in this game.
Roy, how did you pull
this off? I don't know.
I don't know how you did it,
but, like, it was amazing.
You watch them growing up.
Like, everybody watches
the IMG Academy growing up.
So you know you're playing against
the best school in the nation.
So it was definitely surreal.
I was happy for Roy.
I was happy for the boys,
happy for the coaches.
So, it was like...
It was emotional.
Like, I remember coming
out of the tunnel.
Before I got to the tunnel,
my wife looked at me
and I just... And I
just burst into tears.
Trilian was extremely excited.
That's all he could talk about.
That's all he could
post on Twitter.
It's what we do from
the West to the Midwest.
So, we're going up, baby.
Let's turn this up.
You see the one-three.
Let's f*ckin' go!
The day IMG game, waking
up. It's a lot of nerves.
So I said a prayer and
I went to the mirror.
I'm looking. I'm... You know,
my eyes is getting watery.
I'm looking. I'm like,
"It's the biggest day
of your life, bruh."
Let's go!
The day of competition
is a big deal.
Now, you take this and
you make it teenagers,
and you tell them that
they are being put
on the most important
stage in American life.
Television.
I'm so hyped right now.
Just imagine all the emotions
that come up with that,
because TV confers
an authority in this country.
Be legendary on me.
Be legendary on three.
One, two, three!
Bishop Sycamore will kick it off
and IMG Academy will receive.
Going to the game, I
think everybody thought
we had a big chance of winning.
Like, everybody's
hopes were high.
You don't go into this game
thinking that you can't win.
I've never thought
that we couldn't win.
He honestly and
truthfully thought
that we were gonna
go into the IMG game
and stand a chance.
How likely is it they
could have beaten IMG?
They hadn't won a
game in two years
and now they were
gonna fight the champ.
End zone.
Hauled in by Tate with one hand.
I'm playing against
one of the top programs
in the country.
And now if I b*at them,
I'm the man, you know?
If I b*at them, I'm
a dog out here, man.
I'm gonna get the
most respect out here.
I saw that as a chance,
like, to really prove myself
that I'm that dude.
It's my only sh*t, for
real. This is my chance.
First time we get
to see this offense.
Trilian Harris is
their quarterback.
History is written
by the winners.
It's not written by the losers.
On second and nine.
Harris gets rid of it,
completes near sideline.
If we win, sponsors
are different,
signing day is different.
People congratulating us.
Fourth and one from
inside its own 30.
Bishop Sycamore will go for it.
If you hear Roy Johnson
just b*at IMG Academy,
now my school automatically
is the top school.
And IMG will take over.
The ball comes out.
It's gonna be a tall order
for this Bishop
Sycamore offensive line
to hold up throughout the
course of four quarters.
If Bishop Sycamore had
beaten IMG Academy,
it would have been
the proudest moment
of Roy Johnson's life.
ESPN would be
running around like,
"We had this flagship
team that we brought on."
Underdogs and all that. Yeah.
New York Times is talking
about Roy Johnson, the genius.
"Look how he's helped
these kids recover."
But that definitely
didn't happen.
Low throw. It's caught.
And reaching across
the goal line,
it's Carnell Tate.
The injured player
for Bishop Sycamore
is number 54.
We do not have a 54 on
the roster we were given.
Safety comes first
with football,
but we didn't have any trainers.
Actually, the IMG game,
my mom was the trainer.
One of the staff members
from the stadium came in
and he was like, "Where
are your trainers?"
I said, "I am the trainer."
And he was like, "What?
They're supposed to be supplied.
They were supposed to
get somebody out here,
you know, if somebody
got injured."
And I was like, "Well,
that didn't happen."
First ten minutes of the game,
one of the kids tore his
ACL. It was a bad knee injury
and Roy was just out there
with some of the coaches.
No medical staff,
nobody out there.
A red zone chance for IMG.
Still fighting into the end zone
from 12 yards out.
This is throwing a bantamweight
with just a few
fights under its belt
into the ring
against essentially
your heavyweight champion.
At that moment, I was
extremely concerned.
From the 15, Harris will
throw. Backpedaling.
Jihaad Campbell gets the sack.
And Trilian Harris,
the quarterback
for Bishop Sycamore,
limping on the sideline.
I'm gonna sit back there
and take them hits,
but I'm gonna get back
up. I'm gonna get back up.
I'm gonna keep playin'. Play
me. I don't give a f*ck.
I don't care.
'Cause in that moment, I'm like,
"Bro, I can't go out like this.
I can't."
And I want college
coaches to know that,
okay, at least he a dog.
Harris heaves it down field.
Incomplete.
As I was throwing the ball,
my arm came up and my
shoulder came down.
I felt the pop. So
I'm dangling my arm.
You can tell. Like, you know,
you can tell it that I'm hurt.
End of the second quarter,
Trilian goes up for a pass.
The linebacker came and
hit him in his shoulder.
As he was off the field,
he threw his helmet.
He, you know, was like,
"I'm good. I'm good.
I'm going back in the game,
I'm going back in the game."
I was like, "No, you're not."
I don't care if we got
whooped a hundred to zero.
All I know is I wanted to
go out fighting as a dog.
The coaches, of course,
let him go back in.
I was like, "He is not
going back in this game."
We get a new quarterback here,
- Isaiah Booker.
He's listed as a receiver
or a defensive
back on the roster.
Right. Not even listed
as a quarterback.
My backup, he broke his ankle.
But we are seeing
Isaiah Booker here.
He is under pressure
and gobbled up.
The inherent danger right now.
That looked like a young man
not prepared to face
this kind of a defense.
The thing about
watching football is
you recognize there's a chance
that somebody is
going to be hurt.
But when you watch one team
just be physically superior
in every way to another team,
and it's clear that
that team can't compete,
you felt like the referee
should have been coming in
or somebody should've
thrown in a towel and said,
"Hey, man, this is enough.
Our guys can't do it."
Now, it's on the coaches.
You know, you say you care
about us, but did you really?
I go to the sideline,
tell the coach,
"I felt my knee pop."
"If it ain't hurting, you good."
So, I go back out there.
Then come to find
out I tore my ACL.
I'm telling him, "It popped."
Not one coach said,
"Don't go back out there."
It was disgusting.
I was literally sick to
my stomach watching it.
Driven hard out of bounds.
Quarter number two
comes to an end.
Halftime came
and he literally
cussed the kids out.
We come in at halftime.
My phone is blowing up.
Fake school this.
Fake school that.
I got over a thousand
messages in my requests.
I'm thinking to myself,
like, man, it's halftime.
We will have a running clock
here in the third quarter.
IMG to kick off to
Bishop Sycamore.
There were media outlets
that I had reached out to
telling them, "This
is a fake school.
You need to cover this,"
that just completely blew me off
and said, "No, we're not
running a story on it."
Gage reaching and he is in.
So to see it go viral simply
because it existed on ESPN
when they could have
run that story any time
in the last three years.
That was just like,
"Go f*ck yourself."
Trending on Twitter,
seeing my name,
you know, it hurt.
Grown men tweeting my son that
he should go k*ll himself.
He is never gonna be sh*t.
Like, "You suck.
You're a Bishop
Sycamore quarterback."
Jonathan Mambila in
there now at quarterback.
Also listed as a defensive
back wide receiver.
Too high, tipped, intercepted.
People got the narrative
that I'm a grown man.
People got the narrative
that I'm a JuCo dropout.
These are grown-ass men losing
to f*cking high schoolers.
Hill handed off. It's
Gage and he'll waltz in.
You 20 years old, 21,
and you playing
high school kids,
they smacking you
around on the field?
Man, get out of here
with that nonsense!
This is not a representation
or a microcosm in any
way, shape, or form
of Ohio High School Football.
It takes a lot for
a broadcast crew
to be critical of what they
are seeing in real time.
Nobody knows who
Bishop Sycamore is.
The last thing you want
is to have this be
representative of the image
your program projects
going forward.
It had to be so
transparently fraudulent
that people who
were on the payroll
to promote this event could
not keep up the story.
They get it right back.
Makes it a pick six.
I would be stunned if
Bishop Sycamore ever plays
another football game.
And that will do it.
The absurdity kept stacking
and stacking and stacking,
and it couldn't have
possibly been funnier.
If I was a viewer,
I'm clowning me.
Like I'm... I'm...
I'm clowning me.
And then we found out what
this meant to the kids.
I'm not even Adrian Brown.
People see me as
Bishop Sycamore,
the fake school.
Y'all are gonna be
clowned forever.
What amazes me about
this particular con
is the dream for this con
was for everybody to see it.
The fallout after the team's
blowout loss continues.
Who is this team?
What sort of education
are these players getting?
And it will be
interesting to see
if there's a criminal
investigation.
- Maybe from a fraud
standpoint. Yeah.
Were they raising money
under false pretenses
and not delivering it?
Now, we can tell
you they have fired
their head coach.
Teams scheduled to
play Bishop Sycamore
canceled their games
following last week's
televised loss.
The Fairfield Inn & Suites
in Canton alleged
that the team used
counterfeit checks to pay
for its stay during its
matchup against IMG Academy.
(SOFT MUSIC PLAYING)
The day before the IMG
and Bishop Sycamore game,
Roy asked me to pick him up.
He needed to go get a check,
which in my mind is like,
okay, you're gonna
go to the bank.
He's like, "No, let's
stop over at Kinko's."
I'm like, "That's weird,"
'cause that's just printing.
And he told me in my
ear when he did this
that it was a hot check
and that it was going
to pay for the hotel
through Education Resource.
Education Resource was
what his mom created.
It was a nonprofit organization.
But she passed away,
so he gained control
of the business.
And I was like, "So you're
printing off a check?"
He was like, "Yeah, we
have to print off a check
to give to the hotel."
He was like, "Oh, no.
It's good. It's good.
It'll get taken
care of. I just...
We'll just have to
move money around,
but these are gonna bounce."
I'm like, "Well, I don't
wanna be a part of that."
Did you print fake checks
- to pay the hotel in, uh...
- Canton, Ohio?
Canton, Ohio?
- No.
What were you printing
at Kinko's then?
At Kinko's?
It was the... That's
like the account numbers
for the account that we had.
You put it on the check
and then pay them.
But we ended up paying
with credit card.
They needed
something to hold it.
We know the checks
didn't go through.
- That's what we know.
- It's not attempted fraud.
The account was valid,
there's money in the account.
- They know that. They
never had a bad check.
And I don't know who
told you about Kinko's,
'cause that's not right either.
There's no doubt in my mind
that Roy knowingly
bounced those checks.
Anything that Roy could
not pay, he did not pay.
A lawsuit alleged
Coach Roy Johnson owed
110,000 dollars in hotel fees
at this Baymont Inn.
I think every place
the team stayed at,
where you would have
to pay money to stay,
they were evicted from.
We would move the kids in
and get the first
two months free,
whatever it is.
And then, you know,
you're thinking that
by that time that you would
have the funding coming in
to continue that.
Getting evicted three
months in is about as quick
as you can get evicted.
That means you never paid
a single bill.
Hey, we can go to these places
and live there for three months
and not have to pay a dime.
And that's about the length
of the football season.
Then we're out of there.
And that's what they did.
Roy told everybody, "This
the end of the season.
We got like two
days to get out."
I walked past the
front desk lady
after I packed my things
up. And she's like,
"Do you know why you guys
are getting kicked out?"
And then she was like,
"He hasn't paid."
Since like we literally
first got there.
Uh, home. Everybody went home.
Some of these evictions
are in these kids' names.
That's something on your
record as an individual
that could affect your credit,
that could affect your ability
to get financing in the future,
that could affect your
ability on where you can live,
what kind of apartments
you can rent in the future.
I know about the eviction
thing. I know about that.
Because after they
all moved out,
we didn't pay for the next month
and so they had to
file an eviction.
That's just how
the process works.
You had dealt with them.
You made sure that
they were cool.
- Yeah, they were... Yeah...
They were situated after that.
Yeah, they were situated home.
They were taken care of.
- And they were taken care of.
Yeah, the eviction didn't
happen till after. Yeah.
Me getting evicted with the
eviction notice on the door,
it was more so like,
"We're getting kicked out,
what we gonna do?"
I didn't know the
eviction was on my record
till my mom told me. She
starts yellin' at me.
I'm like, "What are
you yellin' at me for?
I don't know what
you're talking about."
And then you had to get a...
Mr. Peterson got an attorney.
The attorney went to court,
dealt with the court situation,
and then we moved on.
He had a lawyer.
Bishop Sycamore, rather,
had a lawyer to help them
with the eviction cases.
That lawyer then had to
turn around and sue them
for not paying him
for helping them in
the eviction cases!
He would try to be
buddy-buddy with the kids,
telling them things
that he does,
making it seem like it's okay
to get away with
that type of stuff.
Coach Roy made it feel like
it was okay to be a criminal.
Like as long as we was
gettin' this money.
Like, we getting this
money by any means.
Like, that's the
thing. By any means.
Ask him.
Ask him!
Come on, bro. You don't
care about us, really.
You care about money.
This man was telling
kids that you gotta pay
a mandatory fee to
attend this school.
The cost was
approximately 12,000.
Yeah, to this day, I'm
still receiving an invoice
from Bishop Sycamore,
and it's from
Education Resource.
Kids and their parents called
and told Coach Roy
that we don't have
the money for this.
And Coach Roy literally said,
"I can help you with that.
Take out a loan."
Roy pressured the kids
into doing PPP loans,
and it made it seem that
the money was gonna go
towards tuition.
So now they're thinking
this is like a
grant or something.
And the whole time, it's
just nothing but a loan.
If you don't do this, how
else are you gonna cover
a 16,000-dollar tuition
being an 18-year-old
unemployed student athlete?
They don't understand that,
okay, you do this loan,
this gonna go and
hit your credit.
They're just understanding
that 50 people wanna get D1,
50 people wanna
go play football.
But 50 people also got told,
"Well, this is the only
way that can happen."
The first day, the
parents were gone.
It was just us and the coaches.
We had to sign a paper
with our information.
We signed our names,
gave our address
and we signed our Social.
After I signed it, I
immediately called my dad
just to get his take on it
and to see what he had to say,
and he was kind
of upset with me.
And what he told me was to
just immediately get them,
get the paper and discard
it, or have them discard it.
What did they say?
- They said that, uh,
they said that
they discarded it,
got rid of it.
Have you given other people
- your Social Security number?
- No.
Did you take out two PPP loans
for 20,833 dollars?
No, I don't... I didn't...
I don't know
anything about that.
I ain't taken out no loans.
I didn't get any PPP loans.
We didn't get any PB loans.
The school didn't
get 100,000 dollars,
500,000 dollars, and we
just had it anywhere.
That did not happen. I would
not tell 40, 30, 20 kids
to all take out PPP loans
from the United
States government.
I don't even trust the
United States government.
They were just on my ass.
With Coach Roy, he's smart.
He... He'll play you
so dumb to your face
to the point where
you will think
he's dumbfounded
to the situation.
But don't do it
because he's smart.
Like, he's smart. Real
smart. He'll play you.
Legally, I did not
commit any fraud.
I just hang out in the gray.
What do they call
me? Loophole Leroy?
- (LOW MUSIC PLAYING)
So one morning, the
sun barely coming up.
There's five geese on the road.
This man goes full speed...
and ran the geese
over with no remorse.
Did you ever run over
a gaggle of geese?
- Yeah. Oh, you did?
Mm-hm. Yes, it was a geese.
But I guess, because
there were multiple there,
that would be considered
running over
multiple geese, yes.
This man says, "I
gotta show you n*gg*s
what it's like to go to w*r.
It ain't nothing like the smell
of fresh blood in the morning."
What happened is,
it was by accident.
But then after I ran it over,
then I had to make
a joke about it.
And he reverses full speed.
Like, if you do that
to some birds...
and then you justify
it by saying that,
imagine what else you would do.
Imagine what you're capable of.
(OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING)
Early on in the season,
we came out for
practice one morning...
and then there's a homeless man
like trying to get
into Roy's car.
So when I walk out the
front of the building,
my car door is open
and somebody's in it,
like, you know, looking
for something, whatever.
This person looks up.
And when I look up,
it's not a player.
It's just some guy.
So I was like, "Yo!"
This guy had my cell
phone, my wallet, my stuff.
So he turns around
and I was like, "Bruh,
you don't want this."
'Cause at this point, now a
bunch of players were in it.
I told the team
the reason he's
acting like this...
is because he never had
a dad whoop his ass.
And then he took his belt off.
He literally whipped
him with the belt.
The homeless dude with the belt.
- I just started smacking him
on his butt until
he gave me my stuff.
And I think he by accident,
'cause he maybe turned,
got hit, like, you know, on
the arm and the face, but...
That went on for like a
little, probably five minutes,
and then everybody on the
team just got licks in.
The homeless guy, after
the fight, he walked away
with his, like,
holding his ribs.
Like, he didn't have
his bike anymore
'cause they broke his bike.
And the police show
up, and they're like,
"What happened,
what's going on?"
And he's laying there
and he's like...
"I knew I shouldn't have broke
in his car and took his stuff.
But they shouldn't...
They shouldn't have
done me like that.
There was like a
hundred of them.
A hundred of them!"
And I was... I was just like...
I would never get involved
in anything like that.
So I was kinda like
standing there as a bystander.
I'm like, "This is not
where I wanna be at all."
And I was like...
I was just shook.
My son called me, and he said,
"Mom, I wanna come home."
He was really adamant,
like, "I wanna come home."
So when they were taking him in,
'cause he said he had to go
to the hospital, he was like,
"Am I gonna get
pain meds for this?"
All my kids are in college,
but I got one kid
staying at home
'cause he doesn't trust men,
he can't play football,
he can't do anything
'cause you f*cked him up.
You royally f*cked my kid up.
- (MUSIC FADES)
There's a lot of anger in me.
Insecurity, fear, and
hurt comes out as anger.
I don't want people
to see me upset
or I don't want people
to know that I'm scared,
so you come out with anger.
And it's not really the anger
that gets me in trouble.
It's the aggression
that comes out of it.
That "fold 'em" side
of me never comes out.
And what I mean by
a "fold 'em" side,
you've gotta know
when to hold 'em,
know when to fold 'em,
know when to walk
away, know when to run.
Fold 'em, walk away,
run, not in my DNA.
Good morning, Mr. Johnson.
You are charged with
domestic v*olence,
which alleges that you did
knowingly cause physical harm
to a family or household member.
So, one of the... the... The
things we didn't talk about
the last time you were here
that we feel like
we have to address
is the domestic abuse warrant
that you had out for your
arrest during the IMG game.
- Mm-hmm.
- (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING)
Can you explain that
situation to us?
I had a charge with
domestic v*olence.
I was supposed to go
to therapy for it.
I went to therapy,
I didn't complete the therapy,
and there was a warrant issued.
These are serious
allegations, obviously.
The victim did suffer
visible injuries
from this incident.
She had a busted lip and
there was blood on her chin
when officers arrived.
Did you ever hit her?
- No.
I lived with Coach Roy
for about four months.
I saw him on a weekly basis get
violent with his girlfriend.
And on a daily, he got
verbally abusive with her.
On a daily.
Why would people say
you were physically
abusive if you weren't?
I don't know.
So, in my head, when you
say physically abusive,
I never smacked her, I never
grabbed her by the head,
threw her against the wall,
never any of that. So...
Especially in front
of the players.
I wanna say my
second week there,
I hear him and Miss
Ashley arguing.
I just so happened to look up.
He slaps Miss Ashley,
"You stupid bitch! Look...
Look what you made me do
in front of my players."
- We get in the car...
And he's laughing about
it, like, "Yeah, man.
Look what I had to do to her.
Look what she made me do."
The victim has also
indicated that she ended up
in the hospital last week due
to the defendant's actions,
although he took
her to the hospital
and told her to tell them
that she, I think,
fell off a ladder.
How would I have responded
if my daughter came home
and said that situation
happened, right?
'Cause that's really
what it boils down to.
I'd have whooped his ass.
Would I send my kids to a school
if I knew the principal had a
domestic v*olence charge? No.
Simple as that.
So, you know, there are
some titles in society
that confer authority upon you.
Once you're a doctor,
you're not Mr. or Mrs.
Or Miss anymore, you're Dr.
That's the title that we
refer to you by always.
And "Coach" is that same way.
Like that, in this society,
is seen as somebody
who is a leader of men
and someone who is
supposed to guide young men
and make them better
and teach them
all of these values.
And that's what all
these kids were told.
And then they
ultimately see Coach
b*ating up his girlfriend
in front of them.
They ultimately find out
that Coach is a con man.
I saw an opportunity that I
thought could change my life,
and once I really,
you know, figured out
that they couldn't help me
and they're wasting my time,
that kind of...
That hurt me, like,
in a dramatic way.
I was feeling sick.
Um, feeling very sick
when it fell apart.
Feeling hurt. Um, asking why.
Well, I told my mom,
"I don't even wanna
be here no more."
You know, I was
losing everything.
I know what hurt is. I
know what depression is.
I was lost, you know?
What's my next move?
When Trilian wanted
to k*ll himself,
I was just thinking
about how many other kids
are out there
feeling the same way.
How do I tell my
momma that like,
"Mom, I'm at a school
where a coach wants me
to do the same illegal stuff
that you tried to
get me away from"?
It was over for me with football
and just school in general.
I just... After I left, I was...
I was pretty much just
done, like, with everything.
That took me to a...
very dark place.
If I didn't go to
Bishop Sycamore...
I'd be showing my ass
at college right now...
ballin', as we're speaking.
I'll still be having some
pain in my lower back,
so I just deal with it.
I feel like they left me
with a permanent injury.
I do regret going to
Bishop Sycamore. I do.
I tried to take this
opportunity as far as I can go.
And this has really
just broken me
all the way down.
All the way.
I need a second,
I'm crying and sh*t.
sh*t hard.
I swear I never
cried in my life.
I'll call my mom right now.
f*ck.
I tried to make a better
life for my family.
I can't do it now.
How can you do that to kids?
Take them from their parents
and destroy their dream.
How can you do that?
How?
Coach Roy is evil.
This man told me, all I
gotta do is play football...
to obtain my dream.
The whole time,
he tellin' me that
just so he could
benefit off of it.
That's evil.
How do you respond to that?
Can we take a break? Please.
Sure.
- That's some f*cking bullshit.
These m*therf*ckers, man.
Bruh, Pahokee?
How many tourneys
we paid for you?
Oklahoma just literally
hit us up, man, about him.
And I said... I said, Pahokee...
See, here's what I don't like.
What I don't like, in
trying to develop this,
is that everything is cool.
I get where you're coming from.
But, dawg, y'all had problems
with doing us this stuff,
and we'd clean it up for
you, we take it up for you.
When you talk about Pahokee...
I can't even explain
to you the things
that we did for Pahokee.
Man, ain't nobody
recovering from that.
I'm telling you why they're
not gonna recover from that.
'Cause it's not
about recovering.
It's about recovering
because I gotta do that
for my son and my
family, because...
Bruh, I don't need to recover
from something I didn't do.
Regardless of
whatever people say,
you always desire to be liked.
You always desire to...
The same way you feel
about somebody,
they feel about
you the same way.
And I think that's part
of the struggle, is...
those kids know that I
would do anything for them.
So now that you f*cked
up and you coming here,
you need the
opportunity, you get it.
Yeah, the ESPN sh*t messed up
so that's why you didn't get it.
All right, Pahokee, I
get it. But you, Pahokee,
he only care about himself?
If I only cared about myself,
why'd I spend all that money
on clothes and food
and flying them
all over the place, sending
them to camps, all this,
paying for attorneys
and all that,
if I only care about myself?
What's my benefit from that?
- And then I...
- And you got screwed on in IMG.
And... And...
Regardless of whatever happens,
you know, we still would
do whatever we can.
Zyshaun... Zyshaun knows.
Like we're still
trying to get Zyshaun
- in a school somewhere.
- Bruh, it is not...
There's no way to win it.
Roy, what did you do wrong?
What would you change?
I should've sent y'all
home. I was dumb.
I was egotistical. I thought
I could actually do it.
I got too emotionally
wrapped up.
I thought I could pull it.
And I did and I didn't.
Because I did that, I
dragged you into something.
I should've sent you home.
The minute the church
said it was over with,
I should've walked away.
That's what I should've
done. Should've shut it down.
(SOFT MUSIC PLAYING)
I don't think that he could have
possibly let them down any more
had he been in their lives
in any other capacity
short of being their fathers.
Because the coach is
seen as another father.
And that's what he exploited.
He exploited the goodwill that
comes from the expectation
that this is a person who's
here to make young men better.
But that's not what they
got. They got him, right?
They got his pursuit of profit.
They got his pursuit of glory.
How do you justify
doing it for the kids
when almost every
kid we talked to
said it just broke him?
So, there's that part
of me that wants to go,
"You entitled, selfish,
lying-ass n*gg*s!"
I saved you a year. Guess
why you were coming there?
Because you didn't have a
college to go to anyway.
That's why you came.
So because you had
nowhere to go, you came.
And you came to get
that extra year.
It served its purpose. It
gave you a chance to do that.
How did I dash your dream?
How did I keep you
from going anywhere?
You still went to college.
(HOPEFUL MUSIC PLAYING)
From the time Bishop
Sycamore ended,
I flew back to Texas.
And then as I was in Texas,
I was just training every day
and seeing my family,
being around friends.
But just training, make
sure I was always on top.
I was thinking,
anything could happen,
so just train, keep
training, never settle.
So one of my trainers
I was training with,
he got me in contact
with Grambling State.
Grambling State is known for
being an all-Black college,
um, but also the
coaches there...
You have Hue Jackson
that coached in the NFL.
Hue Jackson is the
former head coach
of the Oakland Raiders
and the Cleveland Browns
and has a great
reputation in the NFL
for working with quarterbacks.
He is one of those guys.
You want your quarterback
to get better?
You call Hue Jackson.
So for Trilian,
perfect person for
him to play for.
Hue, you know, loved him.
He said he loves your size.
He loves your ability.
He loves the way that you
think as a quarterback.
So, Trilian got the phone call.
And I was in a whole other room
and all I hear him
doing is screaming.
Hey, no. On God. I'm committing!
What? What? What?
Then he was like,
"I got the offer.
I got the offer." I
was like, "What offer?"
He's like, "To Grambling State."
I'm like, "You're
freaking kidding me."
I'm committed now,
dude. What you mean?
I want him to go to a HBCU.
Hey, I'm... Oh,
I'm committed now!
I felt that I'm living
my dream, you know?
Like even though
I'm not there yet,
I'm living my dreams.
I was very excited.
And so that's why I got
these tears coming out
'cause, you know,
I knew I have...
I can make it at a HBCU.
("ME OR SUM" BY
NARDO WICK PLAYS)
Now she think she me or sum
Let's ride, let's get it and
let's go, you know? So...
I cried. It's gonna
make me cry now...
Um, 'cause it's not happening.
So...
(HOPEFUL MUSIC STOPS)
As soon as they found
out about, you know,
Bishop Sycamore,
everything went left.
(SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING)
And as soon as I thought
that I was actually happy,
I found out my Grambling
offer got taken away
because I went to
Bishop Sycamore.
He basically said,
you know, that we are not
gonna be able to enroll you
into Grambling because it
wasn't even a real school.
We're talking about Grambling
and now we're talking
about a player
who spent a year at a
school that did not exist.
They don't have the manpower
and the money to do everything
that would have been necessary
in order to get that
young man in school.
And that's the tragic
irony of it all.
It might have been the
perfect place for him,
but probably doesn't
have the access
to the resources necessary
to help somebody who
needed what he needed
to get past the NCAA.
So, of course, we're
devastated. Start crying.
Trilian's like...
He wanna give up.
I broke down. Broke
down. I went to the room.
I broke down crying.
I'm supposed to be
living my dream.
You know, I was
supposed to be the one
to show the little homies
that whatever you go
through, you can make it.
You feel me? You can go D1.
To Roy, it's
basically a f*ck you.
You feel me?
And I'm gonna say it on
camera. It's a f*ck you.
I think race plays an
important role in this story.
The fact that the
players are Black
is the reason why
somebody like Roy Johnson
would think that he
could get away with this.
I don't view this in the
way a lot of other people do
and say, "Man, how could
you do this to your people?"
He did that to his people
because that's who
you can do this to.
Black players are the
commodity in athletics.
They are the prize
that everybody wants
and they are also the
least respected people
in the whole process.
So, yeah, he was
going to do this
to Black people.
An update tonight on the Bishop
Sycamore High School controversy.
So, in spite of what
had been happening
at Bishop Sycamore and
just who they were,
it took the ESPN game
for the state of
Ohio to care at all.
Now Governor DeWine is
calling for an investigation
into Bishop Sycamore.
The state of Ohio was
embarrassed by this
because this happened
on their watch.
And so the governor,
Mike DeWine,
has an investigation
into this one school.
What I hope comes out
of the investigation
is the truth.
Uh, there's a story here
and it doesn't sound
like a very pretty story.
They produce a 79-page document
that says Bishop
Sycamore is a scam
and that it's not a
real school at all.
They call the thing
explicitly a scam,
and then said they couldn't
do a damn thing about it.
As it turns out,
there's no law saying
you can't run a fake school.
This report doesn't do
anything to prevent them
from playing football
in the future.
It doesn't make anything
they have done illegal.
It doesn't send anyone to jail
or accuse anyone of any crimes.
It basically just scolds
them for 79 pages.
How is it that not
one person was like,
"Hey, we need to put
a law in here to say
that you can't
make up a school."
And the answer is very simple.
Nobody thought anybody
would make up a school.
Who would do such a thing?
All they could do was
shrug their shoulders
and be like, "Man,
that's f*cked up."
So what's the difference
between a school
like IMG Academy
and a school like
Bishop Sycamore?
Ultimately, they all
have the same purpose,
which is to be a place
that high school
football players go
to play football,
and if they go to school in
the meantime, that's fine.
Bishop Sycamore just
skipped the part
where they make the kids go
to class or do their work.
There are a lot of
schools in the nation
that put football first.
Some of them do it a
bit more reputably.
Some of them are
legitimately providing
an opportunity for kids who
otherwise wouldn't have it.
So what you wind
up with is a school
that has very good teachers
and everything else,
but that is there to supplement
the athletic programs
rather than the
athletic programs
being a supplement
to the school.
Bishop Sycamore is just the
most extreme example of that,
where the academics was a lie.
Football transcends sports.
Football is the
reason that I'm here.
I'm not here for education.
It's not about education.
It's about football.
Especially in Ohio.
They did an 80-page
investigative report.
Seventy percent of it was
talking about football.
There you go, Mando. Oh,
yeah! Look at him work.
There you go,
Mando. Almost there.
Good work.
And fortunately for me,
unfortunately for
a lot of students,
there'll be more kids next
year that need an opportunity
to take an online class
to get their grades up
and to play football.
So there's gonna be
another Bishop Sycamore.
There's other people that
have started charter schools.
But the reality of it is this.
Is that the reason why
I'm sitting in this chair
is because we played
the number one team
in the country on national TV.
That opportunity
wasn't provided to us
because I'm so smart.
That opportunity
was provided to us
because the system sucks.
And it's like,
people looking like,
"Oh, I can't believe
this, it's not fair,
they're cheating."
No, I'm not, I'm just
following the rules.
You wrote the rules.
I don't have the power
to write the rules.
Bishop Sycamore is just a name.
The concept is not
going anywhere.
Our frustration
needs to be directed
towards something larger,
because it's really easy
to pick out the Roy
Johnsons of the world
and then say, "Hey,
you are the problem."
But he's not the problem.
He is definitely
more of a symptom.
And we need to take a
real, honest accounting
of whether people
should be making
this much money off of kids.
If we're gonna get to
the point where we,
as a state or a country,
can actually punish people
who do something like
what Bishop Sycamore did,
that means we have to
reckon with what's going on
at these other schools.
But as long as the money
machine is churning, like,
no one really is
interested in any of that.
A lot of people in a
lot of institutions
can now see the benefit
of having schools,
because if they set up a school
and they set up a
strong athletic program,
there's a good chance
that they can get money.
Which is why you have so
many prep schools, right?
No one can deny that there's
prep schools out there
that are taking financial aid
and doing all types
of things like that,
because it's the
wild, wild west.
This whole game has
been built around
not paying players.
Therefore the money
goes to various adults
who are able to "provide"
the players in some way.
Once you demonstrate
you're somebody that has
access to players
consistently, now you got money
from people who just want
to stay in your good graces.
But then there's also money
that comes in from sponsorships.
You might even be able to
do endorsements around town.
Now, you're a pillar
of the community
because you have built
this football program
that does these
things for these kids.
Bishop Sycamore does not happen
if there wasn't an abundance
of money in high school sports.
If there wasn't this tie-in
between athletics and education.
And it was just sort of
the naivety of the world
to think that there
wouldn't be someone
as, um, exploitative as Roy,
who would come in and
do that to the extremes.
What was in it for you?
Making the insecurity
feel better.
There's a lot that goes
into why I was doing it.
You know what I mean? So now if
I'm saying it makes me feel better,
"Why does it make you
feel better to help kids?"
Because I wanna help.
Well, why do you wanna help?
'Cause it makes me feel good.
Why do you wanna feel
good? 'Cause I'm insecure.
- (SOFT MUSIC PLAYING)
I don't know what
the point of it was
'cause you're putting
yourself out there
and you're a criminal now.
Like, what was... what
was the point of it?
I really don't know.
Saying that there is one
reason for Roy to do this
or one motivating factor
is oversimplifying it.
Roy saw the kids as
a means to an end.
What that end was
is speculation.
It was perhaps profit.
If this is a scam
and he's just trying
to make some money,
either in the short term
or in the long term.
Or it could have just been
maybe notoriety and fame.
It was an opportunity for him
to have an image of himself,
you know, locally in Columbus,
but also what he thought
would be a nationwide thing.
And that is a powerful
pull in this society,
is I want people
to know who I am.
Whether it be fame or infamy,
I want people to know who I am.
But I don't think
there's value in infamy
when your infamy comes
from exploiting kids.
(TENSE MUSIC PLAYING)
We get our ass kicked. They
plaster me all over there.
Call me all types of names.
The New York Times
writes a story about me
calling me crazy,
calling me this,
I'm a con artist, all that.
We still win. You know why?
Because that game
got me on the phone
with Michael Strahan, and
now I'm talking to you.
I love it when a
plan comes together.
Now we got a platform
to raise funds,
talk about what happened,
talk about what this
program's about.
You wanna hear something
crazy about all this?
More than 15 schools, after
they canceled our season...
wanna play us next year.
You thought Bishop Sycamore
was going anywhere?
You thought the
stories that we made,
you thought the names
that we called this
was gonna go somewhere?
You didn't think we're
gonna climb that tree?
I can just see it now.
Just the apologies.
You don't have to
apologize to me.
Apologize to them.
The players, all those people
that you said didn't exist.
You owe them an apology.
Do you know what
my mother told me
before she d*ed?
She said, "Baby,
be still. Wait."
And so when this happened, I
knew she gave me that message.
So I was still. And I took it.
But I'm not gonna
be still anymore.
And I'm gonna tell you why.
After talking to you guys, I
know the trajectory of my life
is gonna change
drastically. I can feel it.
I can't see it, so I
don't really understand
how it's gonna work,
but I can feel it.
Better or worse?
- Better.
I feel the energy.
I feel something
that I haven't felt
in a long time.
Peace.
What DJ Khaled said?
"All we do is win, win,
win no matter what."
("BACK ON OUR BS"
BY J.D. PLAYS)
B-I-S-H-O-P I'm
sick of y'all
We back on our bullshit
Got nothing left to lose
Yeah we out here
Living ruthless
They gon have to prove it
Boy don't make me lose it
And there's nothing
else Left to say
Ready to die by my mistakes
You gave up on me too quick
Now I'm back on
my bullshit Yeah
Bro went to school And
did his thing in the field
Other partner like
f*ck the field
And I can't
change How he feel
I heard I might get
Booked for fraud
Tryna fight these appeals
Cuzzo a owl fly wit the flock
He trying to chase us a mil
We all kings
Where we come from
It don't matter How
you get it, just win
We all ask the lord
For forgiveness
Knowin' damn well
We gon sin again
We don't promote
The v*olence
But it ain't sh*t
To send 'em in
My father sat down
Served a homicide
Say he'll do it all again
Now I'm just lookin'
For the answers
It seem like life
Ain't been the same
Since we lost
The bro to cancer
Reminisce on college
Go back to school
And get my masters
They say slow money
Ain't no money
So I learned To
make it faster
We back on our bullshit
Got nothing left to lose
Yeah we out here
Living ruthless
They gon have to prove it
Boy don't make me lose it
And there's nothing
else Left to say
Ready to die by my mistakes
You gave up on me too quick
Now I'm back on
my bullshit Yeah
- B
- Boys to men switched up
Now we gotta
Bring lawyers in
- I - I had thought
You was my partner
You 'pose to love ya friends
- S - Scam likely
Every time you call
Like when this sh*t gon end?
- H
- He knew we came from sh*t
But he rather go
And stack dividends
- O - Over and over I ask
myself How could you let him in?
- P - Plenty
nights I question God
Feel like f*ck it we win
f*ck it we win
B-I-S-H-O-P I'm
sick of y'all
We back on our bullshit
Got nothing left to lose
Yeah we out here
Living ruthless
They gon have to prove it
Boy don't make me lose it
And there's nothing
else Left to say
Ready to die by my mistakes
(MUSIC CONCLUDES)
BS High (2023)
Moderator: Maskath3