Friday Night Lies: The Bishop Sycamore Story

In August of 2021, a high school football team became the talk of the nation. A featured matchup on ESPN pitted national powerhouse IMG Academy against a school known as Bishop Sycamore—a program with an unfamiliar name, a barely functional website online, and a long list of baggage.

The supposedly elite Bishop Sycamore lost 56-0, embarrassing broadcasters and setting social media alight. Within days, this system fired its coach, deleted its website online, and prompted a string of official investigations.

The story of the school, on the other hand, started three years earlier when an unknown program known as COF Academy launched in Columbus, Ohio. Journalist Andrew King and whistleblower Ben Ferree pushed for years to expose this exploitation of highschool football and education systems which left vulnerable students within the crossfire and culminated in a series of lawsuits and criminal charges.

Readers will learn the way a pair of old friends hatched a disastrous plan on this rigorously reported tale of ambition, greed and the allure of sports.