By Roman Rickwood, Sports Analyst

If you have never heard of the high school Bishop Sycamore it’s because it’s not a real school. Bishop Sycamore played the #1 ranked school in the country, IMG Academy, in high school football on the night of August 29 on national television. IMG Academy, a boarding school in Bradenton, Florida, took on Bishop Sycamore in a game that was supposed to be a high-scoring dogfight of a game with both teams supposedly having a lot of college-bound players on each team. However, the score said otherwise, with IMG blowing out Bishop Sycamore 58-0. The first red flag was when ESPN failed to produce numerous names for Bishop Sycamore players as the “school” failed to provide them. This game led many, including Forbes magazine, to suspect the legitimacy of Bishop Sycamore as a school as well as a football program (forbestalk.com). The game resulted in investigations into Bishop Sycamore’s background, standing, and licensing. The investigation led to many more questions and almost no answers. Bishop Sycamore is listed as an all-online charter school; however, they get no funding from the state or the federal government. Also coaches failed to produce an official website or address for the school. Then the suspicions came down on the players, specifically on their ages. At first there were rumors of players as old as 30. However, these rumors were never actually proved. Another thing that came up was that the night before Bishop Sycamore faced off against the best team in the nation, they played against another school; due to the dangerous aspect of football, this is a complete disregard for health and safety of players as fatigue often is the leading cause of injuries. Most games are played a week a part.

It appears that the motive behind Bishop Sycamore scheduling games against far superior opponents comes from the want to play on national television. To make matters worse, the Bishop Sycamore head coach at the time of the game had active warrants out against him. Fox News has him being sued by multiple people.

While the Bishop Sycamore situation has become something of a joke, these adults took real advantage of young athletes by promising them things they could not deliver. As well, they put them in harm’s way by making them play games on back-to-back nights. In a statement, the new coach tried to explain that Bishop Sycamore was not a high school, and then proceeded to give a shaky explanation for what exactly they are–a “post-grad football academy” (USA Today). Whatever the outcome is for Bishop Sycamore and its players, the memes that are Bishop Sycamore will live on.