Three high school football players in Virginia say they were duped into visiting a college football program that doesn't exist. A man named Willie Williamson invited the boys to tour Redemption Christian College in Virginia Beach.
“We were under the impression that it was this big thing," Bernard Walker said. "He made it seem like, you know, the college is really known in the area, we get a lot of people there, a lot of support from churches, and everything like that."
“So we came out here and this is what it was, we came to his house,” Walker said.
When Walker and his friends Keishay Harvey and Robert Brown asked to see the school, Williamson told them that they were already at it. It's an online college.
WVEC reports that Virginia Beach police investigated but found no criminal activity. They handed the case over to the fraud investigation team.
Williamson told the station that there is a football program through the school's sister school, Century International College. “I just brought other kids down here, I’m still bringing kids here, so you publicize it,” he said.
It's an unfortunate situation that captures how little help some players receive while going through the complicated, often confusing college football recruiting process. They see the opportunity to go to college, to play football at the next level. Most high school football players have the help of parents and coaches throughout the process. Without that help, the process can be overwhelming – and wrought with situations that a teenager might not know to look our for, such as an online college trying to recruit.
Yahoo Sports has not been able to find a contact for or any information about Century International College, or an affiliated football program.
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