The term “whistleblower” carries with it a certain weight. It evokes thoughts of Edward Snowden, Mark Felt and Daniel Ellsberg—insiders who took great risks to leak important information to the public. These people are rarely rewarded or revered for their courage and are often subject to ridicule, hatred and, in some cases, legal and societal repercussions.
Ben Ferree says he doesn’t quite fit that definition, though it’s not entirely off-base, either. Indeed, he’s a skeptic, a truthteller and an unrelenting tipster who got me interested in a story that snowballed into one of the biggest sports scandals in Columbus. But Ferree didn’t uncover wrongdoing that occurred behind closed doors. The things he revealed were in plain sight, easy for people to see—as long as they were willing to open their eyes.
You wouldn’t know it to look at his resume or his social media following, but Ferree is a central figure in one of the most intriguing and discussed sports stories of 2021—the rise and fall of Bishop Sycamore. The saga began in 2018, when Ferree learned about a school called Christians of Faith Academy. At the time, Ferree was the assistant director of officiating and sport management at the Ohio High School Athletic Association, the governing body for Ohio’s high school sports. The position was one of the lowest on the organizational...
A Senate Democrat has proposed a bill to repeal the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit, which passed in President Donald Trump’s budget bill last year. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, made numerous ...