B.S. High

There’s a documentary out about Bishop Sycamore, a fake high school in Ohio that was put together by some guy named Roy Johnson.

I’m not sure how I missed the story when it happened - Bishop Sycamore played a football game on ESPN against the number one-rated school in the country.

It was an absolute blood-bath as the kids from the fake school got destroyed.

And I can’t do the documentary justice. Suffice it to say that it is one of the most disturbing stories I’ve ever watched.

Somehow, Johnson recruited kids, had them pay tuition, applied for PPP loans during Covid in their names, and faked his way all the way to a game on ESPN. (Allegedly).

(ESPN also deserves some of the blame here).

And the documentary was disturbing because Johnson appears to be nothing more than a conman who destroyed lives, ran up debt, and apologized for absolutely nothing!

“Oh, I hate him,” Kathy said, about halfway through, and that was even before the most disturbing of the offenses were even exposed.

At the end, Johnson goes on a rant, explaining that high school football is simply a huge business that preys on the ambitions of poor kids who are looking for a way out of poverty and miserable lives.

And he’s not wrong there!

But he also exploited those ambitions for his own shot at becoming infamous and perhaps rich.

Years ago, I read an article from a Dad whose boy was a high school football star as an offensive lineman.

The kid eventually went to a Division 1 school and played 4 years. He got a few professional tryouts and played on the practice squads of a couple of pro teams, but his career fizzled out because he had more than a dozen concussions along the way.

The Dad was interviewed for the article because eventually the kid ended up severely damaged. The last the Dad saw him, the kid was homeless, and could barely remember his name.

The Dad begged people to not let their sons play the game. He spoke, not about the NFL stars who end up with CTE (and there are hundreds of examples there) but about the kids who play in high school and college and end up discarded after schools make millions off of them.

Watch the documentary and witness the black kid crying at the end, and then think of a quote from John Mellencamp as he spoke on a talk show:

“They took black men out of the cotton fields and put them on the playing fields.”

Slaves to our entertainment.

Disturbing.

Who is ready for some football?

I didn’t watch a minute of a game yesterday. I hope that they don’t somehow suck me in.

I feel dirty watching it.