Bishop Sycamore Scandal Documentary in Production By HBO
An upcoming documentary chronicling the puzzling story of the Bishop Sycamore football team is scheduled to be released in 2023, HBO announced Thursday.
“BS High” will examine the real story behind the fictional Columbus, Ohio-based high school and the scandal that captivated the sports world in the summer of 2021. HBO will produce the aptly-titled documentary, which will also stream on HBO Max, with Academy Award-winning directors Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe at the helm.
The announcement, ironically, falls on the one-year anniversary of Bishop Sycamore’s infamous 58–0 loss to perennial powerhouse IMG Academy on ESPN. After the game, the team fired then-head coach Roy Johnson, who was under investigation for fraud and had an active warrant stemming from a domestic violence case.
The shocking coaching change and nationally-televised blowout marked the end of the team’s brief time in the spotlight as the program’s legitimacy came under fire shortly thereafter, setting in motion one of the year’s most bizarre stories.
Not long after Johnson’s firing, Bishop Sycamore’s founder Andre Peterson addressed the controversy surrounding the team, saying the program was not a “scam.” His comments were almost immediately contradicted, however, by Johnson’s successor, Tyren Jackson, who said around the same time that Sycamore was a “post-grad football academy” and “not a school.”
As more information started to emerge in the ensuing weeks and months, Bishop Sycamore ultimately proved to not only be a fake team but an entirely fabricated school altogether. The unexpected revelation produced a number of startling discoveries along the way, including the school not having a physical address and not being registered with the Ohio High School Athletic Association. The team also had players as old as 19 and 20, some of whom reportedly had prior experience playing in junior college.
In December 2021, the Ohio Department of Education officially found that the Bishop Sycamore scandal was, indeed, a “scam” following an investigation. Per the Associated Press, “the state found no evidence that Bishop Sycamore enrolled multiple students this year and concluded it didn’t meet minimum standards, including for academic offerings and student safety.”
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