Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
He Pretended To Be In High School - The James Hogue Story
16 Oct 2025
James Hogue is an American impostor and career con man best known for infiltrating elite institutions by assuming false identities.
Full Episode
So this adult pretends to be a high school student so that he can run on the track team? Now, the guy's name is James. And James, he's around 25 years old when this story starts, and he's living in California. And the dude seems to really, really love long distance competitive running, like he used to do it back in his school days. And so one day in 1985, he comes up with a crazy idea.
Why not pretend to be younger and enroll in high school again so that he can run competitively again? So he enrolls as a student at a local high school, and he pretends to be 16 years old. And he gives them a name that he had stolen from someone else, and he gives them a whole bullshit elaborate backstory about how he's an orphan whose parents died.
And the school admins, they feel sorry for him, and they believe him, and they're just like... All right. And so, boom, 25 year old James is now going to high school. And he does pretty well there, probably because he's been there before. But he starts making friends and the teachers and parents love him. And he's like acing all his classes. But as I said, what James really wants to do is run.
And he's really good at it. I mean, he's a former state champion. Now, the school is still checking out his backstory while he attends. So he can't officially join the school's track team yet. But he does start training with them. And during training, James, he doesn't hold back. Like, he doesn't pretend to be at the level of the other runners. James f***ing dominates.
He kicks the s*** out of them on the track. And then there happens to be a big cross-country race coming up. And James wants to run it so bad... Now, he's not officially on the school's team. However, he is allowed to run the race with the other runners, but they tell him not to finish. Like, he's not allowed to officially win because, you know, he's not on the team.
And the next thing you know, he is running that race. And he's trucking along, and soon enough, he's way ahead of the other runners. Next thing he knows, they're all way behind him, and instead of quitting the race at the last minute like he was instructed to do, James can't resist himself, and he crosses the finish line, and he comes in first place, beating all those teenagers.
So now all eyes are on James, the big winner. But after the race, he doesn't report to the officials table and claim his victory. So some sports reporters who are covering the race are like, well, that's weird. Who the hell is this kid? And one of those reporters starts asking around and he gets James's name, but not his real name, the fake name he used to enroll in school.
And so this reporter then calls up the local municipal office and asks if there's a birth certificate on file under this fake name. But here's the thing. When James adopted this fake name, he didn't just invent it out of thin air. He actually stole the identity of a random kid who happened to die as an infant.
And so this dead kid whose name he's been using has an actual birth certificate on file. And so the municipal office tells the reporter, yeah, we have his birth certificate and it says he died two days after birth. And the reporter is like, oh , he's a fraud. And he calls the school and he puts the story out there.
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