CHICAGO — When a Chicago-based sportswriter noticed a lack in coverage of the city's public school sports, he decided to do something about it.
The Public League was his solution.
The website, which launched in July, covers Chicago Public League basketball and football the way ESPN covers pro sports. Founder Eric Van Dril, a suburban Chicago native who now lives in the Avondale/Logan Square area, work was regularly featured in Pioneer Press papers and several 22nd Century Media publications.
He told DNAinfo that he got the idea for the website when he saw a tweet from Sun-Times prep sports editor Michael O'Brien.
The most popular story on our site last month was the Payton-Robeson gamer. CPS is criminally ignored in the media, starving for coverage.
— Michael O'Brien (@michaelsobrien) October 22, 2015
"I'd considered doing a conference-specific website for the ESCC (East Suburban Catholic Conference) previously, but that idea was flawed because of the distance that separates the schools and the fact that the vast majority of its football games are played on Friday nights," Van Dril said. "CPS does things differently, though. It plays football games on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. That was crucial, given that I would be the only person working for the website when it launched."
Van Dril charges his readers to read his content (47 cents per article. $5 per month), a measure that turns off would-be readers for many websites.
Van Dril said the website coverage has gotten rave reviews from the people he writes about the most.
"The feedback from coaches, administrators, parents and fans has usually been one of two things. It's either like, 'It's great you're doing this. I love what you're doing. CPS athletes deserve to be recognized.' Or it's, 'It's great you're doing this. I love what you're doing," Van Dril said.
"The Sun-Times and Tribune's coverage has really died off in recent years. The market is definitely underserved. The supply has gone down significantly, while the demand remains constant. People in Chicago still care deeply about high school football and high school basketball."
Van Dril also looks at the analytics of his website and the stories he's written as proof of that demand. He also said he doesn't have an average of how many stories he posts a day. It depends how the news turned out on a particular day.
Many of the schools and teams Van Dril has covered since launching his website echo his sentiments on why it is important to cover high sports in Chicago.
"I think having more media coverage of high school sports is important not just to highlight our best players, teams, etc., but also to show the role athletics plays in academic success and community involvement," said Jeff Niemiec, the athletic director of Solorio High School.
"Coaching stipends and athletic funding in the Public League has always been way below its suburban counterparts, so it's really important that the value our coaches and programs have on young lives is put out into the forum for people to see and hopefully change some views."
Along the way, Van Dril has covered some heartwarming — and heartbreaking — stories. Among them was a preview on the Raby football team, where the team had held a "lock-in" for four days in which the team slept at the school, parents were allowed to bring meals, and cellphones were taken away in a team-building exercise.
"The Raby High School football preview section on the lock-in was really enlightening, I thought. My favorite part was that Raby's coach brought inmates to the school to address his team, as well as a female doctor in to talk about what it's like to be a woman. Football isn't always about football," Van Dril said.
Van Dril, 29, said he has no plans at this point to cover anything outside basketball and football. He told DNAinfo that he will assess how long he can go with independently funding the website.
"I take pride in working really, really hard and that's what I've done thus far. Financially, my wife [Hanan, a civil rights attorney] and I were in position to make it work. We calculated our budget and we figured out that we could get by for a year without me making any money. She's amazing," Van Dril said.
"Fortunately, the website has been making money thus far — more money than I thought it was going to make, starting off. But we'll sit down together once the high school basketball season concludes and assess if I can and should continue it."
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