Johnson Central cancels Friday matchup against Bishop Sycamore
After everything that’s gone down over the last 48 hours with Bishop Sycamore, it felt more than likely that Johnson Central would end up not playing them this Friday. A few days ahead of kickoff, that is now the case.
Johnson Central has canceled its matchup against Bishop Sycamore that was previously scheduled for this Friday in Paintsville, KY. Johnson Central Athletics confirmed the report through the school’s Twitter.
“We have informed them (Bishop Sycamore) that we are not playing the game Friday night,” Johnson Central principal Justin Arms told KSR on Tuesday. Arms is also the football team’s defensive coordinator.
A new opponent has not been announced at this time. Johnson Central did not play last week due to COVID-19 protocols.
“I can assure you that it’s not going (to happen) going forward,” Arms said about scheduling Bishop Sycamore.
For those out of the loop, Bishop Sycamore has been at the center of a massive scandal for duping ESPN into broadcasting their games even though the “school” was clearly overmatched. We broke it down earlier in the day if you need to catch up real quick.
But essentially, Bishop Sycamore is not a real school and has little to no proof to claim that it is. The football team was massacred on Sunday 58-0 against IMG Academy (and on top of that, had played just two days earlier on Friday), and several media outlets unearthed the red flags and issues that have hung over Bishop Sycamore since it was founded in 2019.
Some of those red flags included 20-year old players, fake names, no real schooling system, fake addresses, unpaid bills, and the shady figures in charge.
“It’s very unfortunate for our kids to be put in this situation but also I’m sure Bishop Sycamore has some very good kids on their team,” Arms said. “All of them led to believe that they had an opportunity to chase a dream. They probably have a lot of kids like us, lotta kids that want to try and play some football in college that have been talked to, persuaded, and lied to. It’s a very very unfortunate situation all the way around.”
Following the national (and very public) backlash, Bishop Sycamore fired its head coach, Roy Johnson, on Tuesday. Who exactly fired him is a good question… Johnson also reportedly holds an active warrant for his arrest.
Johnson Central has actually played Bishop Sycamore once before–a 34-8 victory by Johnson Central in 2019. Admittedly, the two teams facing off again this Friday would have drummed up some national attention, but it’s in the best interest of the high school to avoid hopping on board this endless train of controversy.
“We’re scrambling man, I’ll be honest,” Arms added. “We actually started trying to pursue a game as early as yesterday morning. The fallout happened Sunday evening on ESPN. I got with Coach (Tommy) McKenzie, our athletic director here, and said really there is no way possible we can play in this game so we started putting some feelers out for teams that had open dates.”
Arms said that Johnson Central has already spoken with multiple schools about finding a replacement for Friday, although no team has stepped up just yet. Johnson Central has even tried to bring a high school from West Virginia over to play.
“We’re struggling, we’re scrambling man,” Arms said. “But our kids definitely deserve a chance to play on Friday night.“
If any high school out there is in need of an opponent for Friday night, you know where to go.
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