Hopeful Athletes Pay Thousands, But Where Did The Money Go?
Jan 7, 2025
“If you’re getting to the point where you’re thinking we’re doing anything fraudulent…you’re totally wrong.” — Leo Etienne, founder of the postgrad football team Advanced Prep Academy and the nonprofit high school sports magazine, The County Buzz.
For nearly a decade young football hopefuls have paid up to $10,500 each for a spot on the postgrad football team, Advanced Prep Academy, only to be met with spotty housing and meal plans and inadequate health and safety protocols, according to USA Today. Leo Etienne, who founded both Advanced Prep Academy and a nonprofit high school sports magazine, The County Buzz, is now at the center of controversy over where this money ultimately went and what it was spent on.
USA Today and CharityWatch analyzed recent tax filings of The County Buzz and found that most of the money raised, about $400,000, was spent by the nonprofit on occupancy despite the organization having no physical or online presence in more than a decade. According to USA Today, when journalists interviewed Etienne about the source of his nonprofit’s revenue and how these funds were spent, “Etienne would not, or could not, explain to the reporter the sudden surge to his tax-exempt nonprofit or name a single service it offered…”
CharityWatch CEO, Laurie Styron, told USA today: “It’s pretty extraordinary that he can’t even answer the most basic questions about his nonprofit and how the money is raised or spent…A charity that can’t even tell you one specific program that it’s operating or quantify what it’s doing with even one dollar of its resources–that’s a major red flag.”
Etienne started Advance Prep Academy as a nonprofit organization in 2016 but later converted it into a for-profit business, moving players from hotels into his rental housing, and tripling the price he charges to players from $3,000 to $4,000 a head to up to $10,500. Players interviewed by USA Today described “crowded housing, inedible food, shoddy equipment and a lack of water and trainers on the sidelines. Some players said that when they were injured they were encouraged to keep playing rather than getting treatment.”