Andre Peterson

Monday marks the one-year anniversary of Bishop Sycamore’s game against IMG Academy, which was nationally televised on ESPN and which led to a series of investigations into the school. Andy Dowling and Ben Koo have a one-year retrospective on this at Awful Announcing, and it includes some notable new comments from Andre Peterson, the founder and director of that school. In particular, Peterson said that he’s still looking into reviving Bishop Sycamore as a prep school:

Andre Peterson, who founded Bishop Sycamore in 2019 and serves as its director, cautioned that the final chapters have yet to be written. Peterson said he’s currently exploring all possible options for moving forward, including rebooting Bishop Sycamore as a prep school.

“And that may be the direction we decide to go with, if we decide to continue it,” said Peterson, who acknowledged the numerous challenges Bishop Sycamore could face in the wake of events these last few years. “It’s funny, because I still get messages on Twitter from kids who, if we were functioning now, they would come here.”

On some levels, it’s remarkable that people would still be interested in attending a school that attracted so much negative publicity, not to mention numerous cases of litigation over unpaid bills. And this isn’t even with a name change, unlike when this school went from predecessor Christians of Faith Academy to Bishop Sycamore. However, that piece does indicate why there might be some interest. The school it was modeled after, St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, has been quite successful (but with much more resources and firm financial backing).

And Bishop Sycamore was offering the chance to play against high-profile programs, sometimes on national TV, for a much lower cost (a $1,000 deposit, then $100 a month, although Peterson said only 13 to 14 players actually paid anything) than many junior colleges or post-grad football academies. However, that was also part of the issue. Part of the allure of the school was reclassification, letting graduated players play another year of high school football, but that actually wasn’t permitted under Ohio High School Athletic Association rules. So if Bishop Sycamore did come back, they’d not only have to address the debts and the bad publicity, their roster model would likely have to change.

The other thing to consider is that a relaunched Bishop Sycamore, even if it came with more stability and resources, might have a harder time getting back where it was. As that feature discusses, a lot of Bishop Sycamore’s profile came from the profile of opponents they took on. Those opponents might not be eager to face a school with this kind of record even if the particular past issues were addressed.

But that piece does show off the sometimes very informal nature of high school scheduling, with Peterson (seen above in a 2021 interview with Cleveland NBC affiliate WKYC) saying “Nobody said they would play [IMG Academy]. We were actually the only ones who replied back.” And even if Bishop Sycamore itself doesn’t return, there may well be other schools with major question marks showing up in those kinds of games.

[Awful Announcing; image from WKYC on YouTube]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.