Players paid thousands for a new chance at college football. Where did the money go?

Leo Etienne swivels back and forth in his chair behind a faux wooden desk in a cramped office. An unopened pack of toilet paper rolls rests on a side table next to a printer. Etienne prefers to be interviewed here instead of in his main office, which he says is too messy. 

Inside the concrete office building-slash-warehouse with no exterior signs, off a road with no sidewalks in a Central Florida city of 20,000, a group of about two dozen young men lift weights while blasting hip-hop music. Others congregate in a meeting area in the front. A garage door opens to a beat-up grass field where they train each morning and afternoon.

The building is one of the main hubs of the burgeoning and shady industry of postgraduate football, where overlooked high school graduates pay thousands of dollars to pursue their dreams of playing in college. Perhaps no person has done more to accelerate the rise of this chaotic, hope-laden and perilous world than Etienne. 

Sporting a black polo shirt bearing the logo of his makeshift team, Etienne speaks many words but provides few answers. With almost every question, he dodges, deflects and veers off on tangents.

His sentences often begin with, “Again” – as if he has answered the question already. Over a two-hour interview with USA TODAY, he says “again” more than 200 times.

“If you’re getting to the point where you’re thinking that we’re doing anything fraudulent,” he says, “you’re totally wrong.” 

Over the past nine years, hundreds of young men have paid up to $10,500 each for a spot on Etienne’s postgrad football team, Advance Prep Academy, or more for other teams in the league he founded: the National Post Grad Athletic Association, or NPGAA. At least 39 teams from 13 states have been affiliated with the league since its inaugural 2021 season, according to its website and social media accounts. Other postgrad leagues have sprouted up since, but none with a broader reach.

In postgrad football, teams of typically 20 to 30 athletes spend four or five months living in motels or temporary housing, practicing in public parks and playing games mostly against one another – and sometimes colleges or their junior varsity teams – hoping to get noticed.

Across the country, Etienne and others have sold it to young men as a last resort for those who didn’t get recruited and, for those who did, a way to parlay their offers into better ones. They pitch these teams, which are unattached to any school, as places where athletes can sharpen their skills, build their physiques, get film to show recruiters and even take classes part time at a nearby community college – all while saving their precious five years of NCAA eligibility. 

In this unregulated space, however, horror stories abound of coaches and team owners breaking promises and absconding with players’ money, including in Etienne’s league. Housing and meal plans fall through, leaving players hungry and sometimes homeless. An absence of health and safety protocols causes athletes who suffer severe injuries to go without medical care. Owners of two teams that competed in the NPGAA for multiple years were busted in 2022 by the federal government for defrauding athletes.

The league was supposed to mitigate that problem. With its creation, Etienne promised a system of governance, a shared set of rules and an enforcement arm empowered to crack down on programs that deceive and mistreat players. For annual dues of $3,000, member teams could purchase an air of legitimacy – just like the NCAA. Instead, a USA TODAY investigation found that Etienne has not only failed to enforce the rules, but he has broken them himself.

Etienne insists he is one of the good guys helping young men in difficult situations find opportunities in an industry whose reputation has been marred by a few bad actors. But interviews with former postgrad players, coaches and team owners, internal league documents and emails obtained by USA TODAY paint a different picture of Etienne: as a man who profited off his customers’ hopes and dreams while repeatedly failing to deliver what he promised.

Several ex-players and coaches told USA TODAY they questioned what Etienne had done with the hundreds of thousands of dollars his team and league generated. Financial records obtained by USA TODAY show that a little-known nonprofit organization of which Etienne is the sole officer recently reported raising more than $400,000 – and spending almost every penny on rent – despite having no physical or online presence in more than a decade.

From behind his desk, Etienne would not, or could not, explain to a reporter the sudden revenue surge to his tax-exempt nonprofit or name a single service it offered – which set off alarms among financial experts.

“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,” said Laurie Styron, executive director of CharityWatch, which investigates wrongdoing in the nonprofit sector. "A charity that can’t even tell you one specific program that it’s operating or even quantify what it’s doing with even one dollar of its resources – that’s a major red flag.”

Etienne denies routing his for-profit football team's money into his nonprofit. He defends his team, league and postgrad football in general, pointing to former players who went on to play for junior or four-year colleges. Since 2016, six Advance Prep athletes have gone on to play for an NCAA Division I school, according to the "Wall of Achievement" just outside his office.

Etienne dismisses as liars the players and coaches who criticized his program. They don’t know how it works, he says, and will “say what they want to say.”

“Again,” he says, “I don’t have anything to hide.”

The team

Like many young men whose dreams of careers as pro athletes don’t pan out, Etienne had to figure out what to do with his life.

It was 2005. He had been a standout linebacker at the University of Kansas, but NFL teams passed on him because he was too small. The Buffalo Bills gave him a tryout but no contract. He signed with a Canadian Football League team but does not appear to have ever played.

Communications degree in hand, he returned to his hometown, Auburndale, Florida, and started The County Buzz, a magazine promoting local high school athletes. Within three years, the website went dark.

His other business ventures didn’t take off, either: a fitness and marketing club, a cleaning service, a Caribbean restaurant. Then he stumbled on an idea with some legs.

The world of postgrad basketball was well established. But only a few postgrad football teams existed around the country. And none were in Florida – a college football recruiting hotbed where decades earlier the state education board approved a gender equity measure that barred public community colleges from offering the sport.

Etienne saw an untapped market.

He started his postgrad football team, Advance Prep Academy, as a nonprofit in 2016. At first, players lived in a hotel and played anyone willing – mostly Christian and for-profit colleges. He charged $3,000 to $4,000 a player.

Within four years, Etienne converted his team into a for-profit business, moved players into rental houses and tripled the price. Today, Etienne charges up to $10,500 a head.

Thirteen former Advance Prep players and coaches told USA TODAY their experiences were far from luxurious, though some enjoyed their time. Several thought highly of Etienne, saying he cared about players and gave thoughtful motivational speeches.

Eight, however, said Etienne skimped on basic necessities. They 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 get treatment.

Fillimore Wynter, a tight end on the 2019 team, said Etienne told him he would get his own room. Instead, he slept in a bunk bed in a room with five players.

The houses were supposed to be stocked with enough food for three meals a day per person. But Wynter said Etienne dropped off food that looked to have come from a food bank, some of which was expired and moldy.

Wynter also said he was issued an old helmet that wasn’t properly conditioned and shoulder pads covered in cobwebs. Cedrick Harris, a 2019 running back, said the dirty shoulder pads caused him to develop a fungal infection on his chest.

Both players criticized the lack of water and medical trainers at games and practices. Wynter said no one helped him manage a concussion he suffered. Harris said coaches pushed him to keep playing after his knee gave out. He played in two more games, he said, before a doctor diagnosed him with a torn ACL.

What little game film both players received, they said, was so zoomed out and blurry it was unusable.

Etienne denied that anyone was offered their own room or housing and that any of the food came from a food bank, though he said some food may have been donated by a church. He said he was unaware of any fungal infection and sprays the pads with Lysol. For film, he said, he uses high-quality cameras.

Harris said his time at Advance Prep killed his football career, permanently damaged his knee and left him questioning what all his money was actually buying.

“Certain things were just fishy to me,” Harris said. “I feel like I didn’t get what I paid for.”

Four years later, not much had changed, according to two former coaches on the 2023 team. If anything, the living conditions seemed to get worse.

Xavier Smith, a 2023 assistant coach, said Etienne told him he would provide separate housing for coaches. On move-in day, however, he learned he would instead live in the same house as seven or eight players.

The house wasn’t stocked with food, either. At least a week passed, Smith said, before Etienne delivered some bags of chicken and cans of fruit, string beans and assorted vegetables.

Smith said Etienne stocked the fridge only twice all season. Players spent more money on takeout.

Etienne broke numerous other promises, Smith said –  that he would buy players new uniforms, that a team website would go live soon, and that the team would travel to Utah, Las Vegas and elsewhere for away games.

Smith said he realized early on that he had been deceived. He said he felt obligated to stay for the sake of the players.

"To pull me into something like that, as a man, I can deal with it," he said. "But to pull all those kids into that? To see them have to go through this – it was one of the most stressful times I've ever dealt with in my life."

Kalvin Rymer, Advance Prep’s head coach that year, said he and Smith tried to figure out how Etienne was spending the players’ money. The math didn’t add up. Coaching salaries accounted for no more than $20,000 total – and Rymer said Etienne paid him only $4,000 of the $7,000 his contract stipulated.

Smith and Rymer said that when they asked Etienne questions about the budget, he ignored their messages, changed the subject or said he would get back to them, but he never did.

“I feel like some of the money that our kids were giving was going toward (the NPGAA) and some personal stuff on his behalf,” Rymer said. “My coaches, we just felt like this money has to be going somewhere for personal gain.”

Etienne said all the money players pay for Advance Prep stays in the program. He said that the business does not turn a profit and that even though it is his full-time job, he does not take a salary. He said his main source of income is his business transporting people in medical vans. He also remains the president and lone officer of The County Buzz, though IRS filings show he reported working zero hours a week there.

Asked how much it costs to run Advance Prep each year, Etienne said he could not come up with a number “off the top of my head.” He said most players do not pay the full price of $10,500, but all pay at least $5,000.  

At two dozen players, that’s $120,000 to $252,000 in annual revenue.  

“All I can say,” Etienne said, “is we’re breaking even.” 

The league

In 2020, as the nation was reeling from the uncertainty of a once-in-a-century pandemic, Etienne saw an opportunity for growth.  

The NCAA, which canceled most of its spring and fall sports that year, granted all athletes whose seasons had been cut short by COVID-19 an extra year of eligibility. That meant more roster spots than usual would be filled by returning athletes, leaving fewer opportunities for incoming freshmen and transfers. 

Those athletes would need a place to go. Enter postgrad.

Etienne registered the National Post Graduate Athletic Association in May 2020 as a nonprofit, listing himself – his full name, Learo Etienne – as president. The IRS soon after granted the organization tax-exempt status.  

But the NPGAA was riddled with falsehoods. USA TODAY’s investigation found Etienne promoted fake teams to grow his league, failed to crack down on teams that misled players, and pocketed program owners’ money without delivering what he promised.

In May 2021, a few months before the NPGAA’s inaugural season was set to begin, Etienne posted a graphic on social media claiming the league was 20 teams strong. 

Four of those teams, however, never existed. 

They have virtually no online footprint, other than a few sparse social media pages, and no registered businesses behind them. Two of them used Native American logos identical to those of Hallsville High School in Missouri and South Jones High School in Mississippi, except with the letters “AP” and “SC” photoshopped on. 

Shown a copy of the graphic by USA TODAY, Etienne, unprompted, pointed out the four questionable programs, saying they hadn’t worked out. Asked who ran them, he said he didn’t know. He later acknowledged being “affiliated” with one of them – Excel Prep Academy – and creating its Facebook page. 

He said he could look up the ownership information for the other teams in the league’s database. Asked to do so, Etienne said he was too busy. He never did. 

It’s unclear how many of the other 16 teams on the graphic actually competed during the 2021 season. Almost all appear to have since folded, while new teams have filtered in and out of the league.  

Bonneville Football Academy, based near Orlando, Florida, joined during the 2022 season. Jill Todd, the team’s owner and manager, told USA TODAY she paid as much as $3,000 a year in league dues.

Todd said she had hoped the NPGAA would provide the structure and oversight that postgrad badly needs. But the league has done little, if anything, to enforce its code of conduct, which requires honest dealing, ethical behavior and respect between coaches and players.

Prestige Worldwide Sports Academy, a league member since 2021, advertised the luxurious Chateau Mar Golf Resort in Fort Lauderdale on its website as the hotel where players would live. When players on the 2022 team arrived, however – some having moved across the country – only some stayed at the resort. Others were told they would instead live in a Comfort Suites, three players to a room, one on a sofa – unless they paid thousands of dollars more. 

Kenney Wilcox, who owns Prestige, said those players and their parents signed paperwork agreeing to a “more affordable housing option.” Neither the agreement nor the program website mentioned Comfort Suites.  

McDougle Technical Institute, a Florida-based cosmetology school, operated two postgrad teams in the NPGAA at the same time the federal government was investigating it for financial fraud. U.S. Department of Education investigators, records show, found the school defrauded players and falsified attendance records to illegally siphon more than $800,000 in financial aid money – intended to help students go to college – to its football team. The department revoked MTI’s certification to receive financial aid in December 2022 and denied its appeal the following year.

Octavia McDougle, the school’s owner, declined to be interviewed. She denied the allegations, saying in a statement that the federal investigation was unfair and violated the institute’s due process rights. 

At Southwest Florida Preparatory & Technical Insititute in Naples, a player in 2023 uploaded to YouTube a video of the team’s head coach and owner, Derek Jenks, rage-screaming and cussing in the face of another player. As the video went viral online, Jenks suspended himself before returning to the team less than two weeks later.

Jenks told USA TODAY that the player deserved the tongue-lashing but that he regretted his behavior, attributing it to his “old-school” coaching style. He left the NPGAA after the 2023 season and rebranded his team to Rising Prep Academy. 

Etienne took no responsibility for the conduct of those teams or owners. He acknowledged taking no enforcement action against them.  

“We don’t run the organizations,” Etienne told USA TODAY. “As the NPGAA, we can’t take responsibility for how they’re running their program because we don’t know what’s being said on a day-to-day.” 

The league’s “compliance services” department, meanwhile, launched an investigation into Bonneville in September, records Todd shared with USA TODAY show – for allegedly rostering an overage player. 

Three postgrad team owners told USA TODAY they left the NPGAA, or planned to, after growing disillusioned with Etienne’s disorganization, poor communication and excuses.  

Todd, for instance, emailed Etienne in September to complain that he had still not added Bonneville back to the league website since deleting it a year and a half earlier – which she said hamstrung her recruiting and sponsorship efforts.  

The NPGAA membership agreement Todd signed in 2023 – a copy of which she shared with USA TODAY – promised marketing support, site visits, team rankings and polls, weekly and end-of-season awards, game of the week selections and a “pre-season kickoff classic” game. Almost none of that happened, she wrote in her email to Etienne. 

Etienne didn’t respond.  

Etienne told USA TODAY he was unaware of Todd’s email. When shown a copy, he said he disagreed with parts of her assessment without specifying which. He acknowledged falling behind on player awards, game of the week selections, not hosting a preseason kickoff classic and never visiting Bonneville. 

“We’ve yet to address that all these things aren’t happening that I was promised, and I was told many times that I don’t understand and these things take time,” Todd told USA TODAY. “I don’t know if it’s an intent to defraud or it’s just a lack of organization.”

For Todd, the last straw came days after that email.  

Etienne had scheduled an away game for Bonneville against Atlantis University, a for-profit college in Miami, for Oct. 12.  

That came as news, however, to Joel Williams, Atlantis’ athletic director and head football coach. Williams told USA TODAY his team was traveling to Jacksonville to play a junior college that weekend. 

“I’ve never heard of Bonneville Football Academy in my life,” Williams said. 

Scheduling snafus had long frustrated Todd and other owners and coaches, who said Etienne sometimes did not tell them who or where they were playing until the morning of the game. Upon learning her team’s planned game against Atlantis had apparently been fabricated, Todd wrote Etienne again to complain.  

Again, Etienne didn’t respond.

Where did the money go?

A long trail of business, financial and court records Etienne left behind might help explain how he spent his customers’ money.  

At the same time he was building his postgrad empire, USA TODAY’s investigation found he was also racking up tens of thousands of dollars in personal debt.  

In 2017, a judge in Polk County, Florida, held Etienne in contempt of court for failing to pay child support to the mother of one of his children. The state filed a similar motion to hold Etienne in contempt again in 2023, court records show. The judge did not grant that motion.

The Internal Revenue Service in 2019 hit Etienne with a federal lien for $11,795 in unpaid income taxes dating back six years. Etienne paid it off sometime before March 2022, when records show the IRS released the lien. 

In August 2022, Etienne bought a three-bedroom house in Winter Haven, Florida, a city neighboring Auburndale – his second house in the area. Property records show he bought the house with a $314,000 mortgage backed by the Federal Housing Administration. But Etienne did not appear to make any payments for at least the first year. A $38,000 lien was placed on the house in November 2023.  

Around the same time, The County Buzz – the high school sports magazine Etienne launched in 2005 – made a miraculous comeback. 

Back when The County Buzz, a tax-exempt nonprofit, still had a functioning website in 2007, an IRS filing shows the fledgling organization that year raised only $122 – putting it $1,000 in the red. 

More than a decade later, the defunct magazine suddenly reported its highest revenue ever – all apparently without publishing one piece of content. 

In 2019, it reported making more than $70,000 in contributions. 

In 2020, amid a global pandemic, its revenue surged to $188,000. 

In 2021, it reported bringing in $158,000. 

Etienne described The County Buzz to USA TODAY as a “youth empowerment organization.” In addition to producing a high school sports magazine, he said, it used to sponsor football camps in the community.   

Asked how the nonprofit makes its money, Etienne initially told USA TODAY, “The County Buzz isn’t making any money.” Asked how it reported raising $417,000 from 2019 to 2021, he struggled to explain.  

“We are part of different organizations where we provide services,” he said. “With providing services, we’re compensated through the services that we provide.” 

Etienne declined to name any programs or services The County Buzz has provided in the past five years or a single donor. Several old news articles corroborate that the organization sponsored youth sports camps in Florida in 2007 and 2008, though USA TODAY found no trace of any camps or events it has sponsored in more than a decade.   

USA TODAY found only two organizations that reported donating to The County Buzz – $15,000 each – in 2020 and 2023, respectively: United Way of Central Florida and Givewell Community Foundation, two large Florida-based nonprofits that distribute millions of dollars in grants each year. The United Way grant says it was designated for “Disaster / Emergency Relief.”  

Neither organization responded to USA TODAY’s requests for comment.  

Etienne said The County Buzz does “stuff with the state, as well.” A state-run database of vendor contracts, however, does not show any contracts between Florida’s state agencies and Etienne’s nonprofit.  

Over the same three-year period that its revenue skyrocketed, The County Buzz reported spending almost all of the money it raised – $380,000 – on a single line item: “occupancy, rent, utilities and maintenance.” 

Asked repeatedly what The County Buzz rented, Etienne had no answer. 

Its registered address is the same office-slash-warehouse in Auburndale that houses Advance Prep. The property owner, Emir “Butch” Rahman, told USA TODAY he knew of Etienne’s football operation but had never heard of The County Buzz. All he knows, he said, is Etienne pays his rent. 

“Again, we don’t run a small operation,” Etienne said. “We service our community. I don’t know what else you want me to tell you.” 

Nonprofits are ripe for financial abuse, said Robert Nordlander, a former IRS special agent who spent two decades chasing tax evaders and money launderers – especially organizations like The County Buzz that have no internal controls, independent board or oversight.  

"Based upon what I'm seeing, there's a huge potential for tax fraud," Nordlander told USA TODAY, adding he would need to see The County Buzz’s books to know for sure. "Some of this income is probably from those football players, and the expenses, frankly, are highly suspicious to be personal in nature." 

Using a nonprofit to pay for personal expenses or those of a for-profit business is a form of tax evasion that can be considered money laundering, Nordlander said, if the money is obtained fraudulently.

Etienne denied doing that.

It was then Etienne signaled the end of the two-hour interview, saying it was supposed to be about postgrad football, not The County Buzz. 

“It can be suspicious all it wants,” he said.  

“But again – we’re not doing anything wrong.”  

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

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