Post-grad football lures players with a second shot at glory. They rarely get it.

Hezekiah West thought he had a fresh chance to score a place on a college football team – his dream since childhood.

The once-promising running back from Wayne County, Mississippi, spent part of his high school senior year sidelined with a torn thigh muscle. College coaches had stopped calling. Signing day came and went without any offers.

That’s when West turned to Mississippi Prep, a post-graduate football team unaffiliated with any school. He’d get a brand-new season to impress college teams, the coaches told him. For a fee.

“We develop kids to play at the highest level,” a Prep coach texted to West. “We believe you can be a guy at the next level.”

The promises kept coming: Mississippi Prep would help him build his skills. He’d connect with college coaches and get game tape to showcase his best plays, all without burning his precious NCAA eligibility.

But when he arrived to play in 2023, the reality was starkly different. Games were canceled without warning. The video footage was blurry – when there was any. And there was no sign the team had connections with college coaches. West began to worry he had been reeled in by empty promises, but he stuck it out.

He’d grown up admiring the young men who left his hometown to play college football and who were greeted as heroes upon their return. He still hoped to be just like them.

“If I leave, I won’t get the opportunity to play football again,” he thought at the time.

West’s story is commonplace in the predatory world of post-graduate football, where thousands of young men have been lured by the promise of achieving their athletic aspirations, a USA TODAY investigation found. These programs thrive in the unregulated space between high school and higher education, and they’re fueled by the hopes of athletes who garnered little attention from big-time colleges, whether due to bad grades, small size or injuries.

Owners of these teams often describe their players – more often than not men of color – as “at-risk” or “inner city youth,” whose best hope to attend college is through football. They understand these desires – many played in college or the NFL themselves – and have discovered they can promise anything while delivering next to nothing. They charge their players thousands of dollars and seldom face consequences when their programs fall apart.

Among USA TODAY’s findings:

• Program owners often exaggerate or misrepresent the food, lodging and other services they say they’ll provide. Seasons often end early and without warning.

• Injuries are commonplace and made more dangerous by the lack of athletic trainers or safety protocols. College and high school football teams play and practice under strict health and safety rules, but experts say they fear for post-grad players who have no such safeguards.

• Few players find the college offers they’re seeking. Those who do succeed often say it's despite their post-grad program, not because of it.

• Local law enforcement and federal regulators have cracked down on a handful of team owners, but no single agency regulates or oversees them.

USA TODAY’s findings are based on more than 100 interviews with young men who have played for post-grad teams, their parents, coaches, program directors as well as medical and regulatory experts. Reporters also reviewed the websites and social media accounts of more than 100 teams around the country. The investigation also drew from hundreds of pages of public records USA TODAY obtained from city governments, colleges, the Internal Revenue Service and the players and team owners themselves.

Students and families banking on these programs to lead them to college would be better served going to a junior college or walking onto a college team, said Chris Fore, a former high school and college football coach. He has been monitoring post-grad teams for the past five years and posting about them on social media. They drew his suspicion, he said, because of their pay-to-play business model.

“All of California, you don’t get charged a dime to play junior college football,” he said. “You pay for your classes, so that was really a red flag.”

Some players did find their post-graduate experience valuable and as advertised. They say it helped them become better players and find new college opportunities. A number of them have gone on to earn offers from junior colleges and NCAA schools, though those who go Division I are few and far between.

Investigation: Unsigned high-school players paid him thousands for a new chance at college football. Where did the money go?

Several team owners conceded problems with other post-grad teams but painted rosy pictures of their own. They described themselves to USA TODAY as altruistic, helping athletes who otherwise would have been left behind and losing money while doing it. Rather than acknowledging the concerns about their programs, many of them dismissed the players and coaches who criticized them as disgruntled.

Derrick Crudup Jr., Mississippi Prep’s owner and a former quarterback for the University of Miami, disputed much of what West and at least six other players said about his program. One game was cancelled, he said – not several. And he said he would not make promises about where players would end up.

“We don’t have anything to hide,” Crudup said. “We didn't do anything wrong to any kid.”

Crudup also insisted that coaches explained the living situation beforehand to players.

But West and several other players told USA TODAY that they expected comfortable housing and meals when they signed up, based on the sales pitches they got from coaches. West’s contract with Mississippi Prep, which he shared with reporters, promised “housing,” but it didn’t mention that he would live in a single room with five other players in temporary quarters built for emergency workers after Hurricane Katrina. Meals were not included.

'I was helpless'

By the time athletes and their families who sign up for post-grad football realize they’ve been hoodwinked, it’s often too late.

Michelle Palm told USA TODAY she had qualms in 2022 about sending her son Kellen across the country from their home in Spokane, Washington, to a post-grad football team in Florida called Prestige Worldwide Sports Academy.

A high school coach had warned her it could be a scam. She overlooked it, she said, because the coach, Roosevelt Roberts, made a good impression over the phone.

Based on their phone calls and the gleaming pictures on Prestige’s website, she believed her son would live at a fancy resort in Fort Lauderdale and get three meals a day, recruiting exposure and a minimum-seven-game season for one flat price: $6,600.

In April of 2022, Palm started paying toward the program, which was to start in September, according to receipts and emails she shared with USA TODAY. They show that by July she had paid $3,850 and was requesting details of what, exactly, she was paying for.

That's when Prestige sent a new bill: The total “tuition” would be $7,500, with additional deposits and fees adding up to $1,100. Meals weren’t included, either; they would cost another $1,150.

Staying at the Chateau Mar Golf Resort – the housing advertised on Prestige’s website – would also cost thousands of dollars more. Some players paid and lived there. But Kellen would end up living in a Comfort Suites with three players to a room, one sleeping on a sofa.

“I have also just learned that meals will NOT be included as initially offered and even the ‘resort’ housing is not part of the plan,” Palm wrote in an email to Prestige.

The program owner, Kenney Wilcox, denied misleading Palm. He told USA TODAY that he could not be held responsible for what an assistant coach may have told her over the phone. The meals, Wilcox said, were never included. And the costs were spelled out in the bill, he said, including that Palm was paying for a “more affordable housing option.”

The agreement, which Palm shared with USA TODAY, provides no information about what that option entails. She believed she was getting the Chateau Mar at a discount. Neither the agreement nor the Prestige website mention Comfort Suites.

Wilcox told USA TODAY he would clarify the housing options on Prestige’s website. It still shows pictures of Chateau Mar, though Wilcox said no players have lived there since 2022.

“We’re still promoting it because we want kids to pay for it,” he said. “If they can’t afford it, then we’re going to work with them to pay for an option that’s not as expensive.”

Palm said coaches later requested even more money to create a highlight reel for her son to show college recruiters. Palm thought that, too, was included.

In total, she said she paid about $10,000.

"I had no choice, because by then he was there,” Palm said. "I'm in Washington state. I was helpless." Parents in Palm’s situation have little recourse when they realize they have been deceived, and post-grad owners rarely face lasting consequences for their actions. If they do, it’s easy for them to rebrand and continue their operations.

In 2016, a player filed a class-action lawsuit against Jireh Prep, a North Carolina post-grad team, and its owners, Jeffrey and Kindra Rabon, after receiving little for the $13,000 he paid. The lawsuit said the Rabons made numerous misrepresentations to players about the program, including inflating their connections to college coaches.

The suit fizzled after the Rabons and the program declared bankruptcy. But Jireh Prep continued playing. Its new coach, Michael Hawkins, told USA TODAY the Rabons haven’t been involved in the program since 2021. The Rabons also denied involvement, but business records show they remain the team’s registered agents.

In September, sheriff’s deputies in South Carolina charged Nathaniel Drayton, a coach of the post-grad Hardeeville Vikings, with defrauding players and innkeepers after multiple hotels evicted the team for not paying. He was found guilty of two counts of defrauding a hotel and three counts of obtaining a signature under false pretenses, court records show. Three additional charges remain pending. Drayton did not respond to requests for comment from USA TODAY.

A Jasper County Sheriff’s official told USA TODAY players also did not receive the meals they’d been promised. The sheriff’s office said it is still investigating. Meanwhile, a Hardeeville assistant coach started recruiting players to a new team in Georgia, which never came to fruition. He now works for a team in Virginia.

Back in Florida, the younger Palm discovered that even Prestige’s fulfilled promises left a lot to be desired.

A contractor delivered all the meals at once for three or more days at a time. That meant players had to figure out how to store a dozen or more plastic takeout containers in only a hotel mini fridge. Much of it sat out and grew moldy.

Many players jumped ship midway through the season, forcing those who stayed to play games out of position and without breaks. They started with 40 to 50 players, he said, but by season’s end only about 15 remained.

When Wilcox, the owner of Prestige, canceled the season prematurely, Kellen Palm returned to Washington early with little to show for his time there.

“It was a waste of money,” Kellen Palm said.

Wilcox said he canceled the season early because so many players had quit that they couldn’t field a team. He did not issue refunds to the players, some of whom said they paid $12,000 or more for the program, saying a full schedule is not guaranteed.

“I don’t think the 2022 season was a bad experience,” Wilcox said. “If they feel that way, they do.”

Prestige continues to operate a post-grad basketball team. Although its football team recruited players for the 2024 season, Wilcox again canceled it – this time, before it began.

After the 2022 season fell apart, Michelle Palm tried to recoup some of her money. Her emails and phone calls, her records show, went unanswered. Eventually she got her $750 housing deposit back, she said, after filing a complaint with the reality TV court show, Judge Judy.

"It's a time in their life when they're just so hopeful and eager and you want to support them at all costs,” Michelle Palm said of athletes after high school. “But not all costs."

What's the emergency plan? Call 911

Bryson Kurtz tapped the top of his helmet repeatedly – the universal sign in football that he needed to come out of the game.

It was October 2022. His post-grad team, Bonneville Football Academy, was getting blown out by IMG Academy, a program well known for producing top talent.

Bonneville had only 16 players – meaning most players had to play offense, defense and special teams, with few breaks. Kurtz, a 5-foot-10, 180-pound wide receiver, found himself playing left guard, a position typically reserved for a team’s largest players. Video footage of the game on the recruiting website Hudl shows IMG’s enormous defensive linemen bulldozing Kurtz play after play.

On defense, Kurtz recalled jumping up to intercept a pass and being popped by an IMG player on the way down, leaving him dazed and dizzy.

Despite tapping his helmet, Kurtz said his coaches didn't pull him out. He ran off the field himself. His coaches sent him back in.

Kurtz stayed in for another three or four plays. He knew he was likely concussed, he said – a doctor would later confirm as much. Realizing his coaches weren't going to protect him, he sat down on the grass. That got their attention.

His coaches took him out and sent him into the locker room. He sat there by himself for the rest of the game. No one came in to check on him. No one checked his vision, his memory – no concussion protocols were followed.

USA TODAY spoke to many athletes like Kurtz who say they were injured on the football field and didn’t receive immediate or adequate medical attention from coaches or medical trainers. West, for instance, had to find his own ride to the emergency room after dislocating his left shoulder while playing for Mississippi Prep. C.J. Sheets, on Kellen Palm’s team at Prestige Worldwide, screamed in pain, cramping from severe dehydration, during a half-hour ride on the team bus to a hospital.

For Kurtz, if he’d suffered a similar head injury at an NCAA college game, the league would require coaches to pull him for a medical evaluation. Only after an athletic trainer or team physician confirmed he didn’t have a concussion would he be allowed back on the field. If a concussion had been confirmed or even suspected, he’d be out for the day.

High schools in most states are held to similar standards. Forty-seven states require athletes to sit for the day if a concussion is suspected, according to data gathered by the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing sudden death in sport. Every state except Utah bans concussed athletes from returning to activity until cleared by a medical professional.

Two-thirds of states also require high schools to have emergency action plans detailing how they will respond in the event of a catastrophic health event during a practice or game, such as cardiac arrest or heat stroke. These policies include where to find emergency equipment such as an Automated External Defibrillator, addresses and directions to the nearest medical centers, and where the access areas are for an ambulance.

But post-grad football is unregulated.

State laws don’t cover post-grad sports, said Rebecca Stearns, chief operating officer of the Korey Stringer Institute, who tracks policies in each state. And the National Post Grad Athletic Association, which since 2021 has acted as a governing body over at least 39 post-grad teams, including the Bonneville team Kurtz played for, has no written health or safety requirements.

Leo Etienne, the NPGAA's founder and commissioner, who also runs a post-grad team in the league, told USA TODAY his team does not have access to a defibrillator. His emergency plan: Call 911.

The dearth of health and safety protocols in post-grad football is particularly concerning because of the dangerous nature of the sport and the demographics of those who play, Stearns said.

Football already accounts for the vast majority of heat-related deaths in sport, she said, and college-aged men, particularly Black men, are at heightened risk for cardiac arrest.

"If you're not prepared and you're not trained, and you don't have the equipment available," she said, "you're not going to be able to save that athlete.”

'You have talent, but we don't trust where you played.'

On a hot September Sunday in Miami Gardens, Florida, the post-grad Naples Knights took the field against the junior-varsity football team from St. Thomas University. About 20 Knights players – undersized at nearly every position against a full squad of about 60 St. Thomas players – were there for a chance to make big plays and record game film to show college recruiters.

They lost. 56-0.

Later, the team posted a highlight reel to Hudl, a football recruiting site. Only there was a catch: The video portrayed Naples as the victors, crediting the Knights with the catches and touchdowns made by the other team.

The Knights owner, Jen Armstrong, who was convicted of home burglary in 2013, blamed Hudl for the error, and said one of her coaches would fix it.

As of mid-November, barely anybody had watched it.

Players come to post-grad football with one goal in mind: to catch the attention of college coaches. But very few actually make it. Promised contacts evaporate. Promised game film is zoomed out, shaky, or worse. Just 3% of high school football players will ever play for an NCAA Division I football team, about the same as Harvard’s acceptance rate.

Many high schools lack the resources to help prospective athletes navigate the recruiting process, said Dave Morris, a college admissions consultant. That information vacuum, he said, creates a feeding ground for owners of post-grad programs.

“They know there’s a group of people who really don’t have a lot of resources, but they have this desire to play football,” Morris said. “And they’re going to use that to just absolutely skin them.”

Some players told USA TODAY they received offers after their post-grad program, but often at junior colleges or smaller NCAA Division III institutions they had initially wanted to avoid. Others who played for larger schools said they found a path independent of their post-grad team. That was the case for Cole Olson, a former punter for Mississippi Prep who played at Ferris State University, a Division II team in Big Rapids, Michigan, and is now seeking to transfer to another team.

Olson had been a soccer player at his Montana high school, but he pivoted to football in the summer ahead of his senior year as a kicker. He managed to pick up several offers with the help of an agent, but most were too expensive, even with aid.

He had committed to Midland University in Nebraska when Mississippi Prep coaches reached out to him on Twitter. They offered him a scholarship that reduced his cost to just $2,000. He liked that it cost less and thought it might lead to offers from bigger colleges.

He took it. And he struggled through the 2023 season just like West. He said he didn’t know Prep had touted him on its website as a success story until a reporter told him. He scoffed at his inclusion because he said the team did little to help him get recruited.

Few games were filmed. And when coaches did capture footage, it often missed the full range of his kicks. Another challenge? Olson said the college recruiters he contacted after he finished the program told him, “you have talent, but we don’t trust where you played.”

West said he encountered similar skepticism trying to walk onto a football team in Montana that plays in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. He didn’t want to share the university’s name because he had not yet finalized a spot.

Crudup, the Mississippi Prep owner, said that his program has helped players get offers. He declined to share the names of any, saying he didn’t want them caught up in the story. He added that Olson could claim that the program wasn’t helpful, but at the same time he did play games and get game video through the team.

“I am not saying that Mississippi Prep did everything,” Crudup said. “But if he didn’t play at Mississippi Prep, I don’t know if he would have got to the school he was at.”

Olson said he was able to attract some attention from recruiters thanks to some leftover high school connections. He also played football at Garden City Community College in Kansas before Ferris State picked him up.

Though he doesn’t regret his time at Mississippi Prep, he thinks there are much better ways to get into college football, like playing for a junior college or walking onto a team. When he sees players commit to Mississippi Prep online he reaches out with a warning:

“Hey man," he says. "This isn’t all you’ve been told.”

Chris Quintana is a reporter on the USA TODAY investigations team with a background in higher education and student loans. Contact him at cquintana@usatoday.com, @CquintanaDC on Instagram and X, or by Signal at 202-308-9021. 

Kenny Jacoby is an investigative reporter for USA TODAY who covers issues in sports, higher education and law enforcement. Contact him by email at kjacoby@usatoday.com or follow him on X @kennyjacoby.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Post-grad football: New start for aspiring players or costly dead end?