CHICAGO — The Bigs want to make Chicago Sports great again, and they need some help.
The Bigs, a black-owned, Chicago sports media website, has launched a GoFundMe campaign dubbed "Make Chicago Sports Great Again" — a riff on President-elect Donald Trump's winning campaign slogan — in hopes of training the city's next generation of sports journalists.
"Through our mentorship we hope to give children who are aspiring to be sports journalists in Chicago their first taste of the media experience," The Bigs GoFundMe page states. Mentees would cover games, do pre and post-game interviews and get the locker room experience.
The site's goal is to "show a younger generation that although it is alright to aspire to be the next Michael Jordan or the next Derrick Rose, it is just as cool to want to be the next Jim Rose or Scoop Jackson," the GoFundMe post continued, referencing prominent sports journalists and reporters from the Chicago area.
The Bigs, founded by South Siders Terrence Tomlin and Eugene McIntosh, just celebrated one year of covering the city's sports teams and local high school basketball scene through blogging and interactive videos.
.@javy23baez giving love and hugs to family....he's a #WorldSeries CHAMP pic.twitter.com/xwXRyrP4xr
— #TheBIGS (@itsthebigs) November 3, 2016
"At our core, we are two guys born and raised on the South Side of Chicago that love where they come from and understand that the only difference between us, and someone caught in a web trying to be part of this Chicago Sports industry, is opportunity," they wrote on the GoFundMe page.
"Opportunity is the key. And the biggest dream that we have for #TheBIGS is for it to become a place that provides that opportunity for young storytellers throughout the city of Chicago to experience the dream that we are living today. "
Each person who donates $25 will receive a t-shirt with the The Bigs' logo on it. More information is available on the site's GoFundMe campaign page.
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