About the project

CityBall is a feature-length documentary showcasing a year in the life of student athletes in the Kansas City Missouri School District. Once the toast of Kansas City athletics, the Interscholastic League is now riddled with problems including budget cuts, below average facilities, coaching turn-over, and staffing shortages. The students themselves have to overcome daunting odds just to graduate from high school. Many live in very low-income surroundings, having to work multiple jobs to contribute to the household’s well-being. Some are learning from the examples of older siblings that gang and drug-related activities can be destructive, and even deadly. This project explores the positive role of athletics in the precarious lives of these impressionable students. It also delves into the roles played by parents, coaches, and school administrators in the many decisions that influence the futures of young athletes in Kansas City.

About the producer

Stephen Spiegel is a sports producer, videographer, editor, and writer. He has produced award-winning programming for Metro Sports for ten years. He developed the idea for CityBall several years ago while covering a local team with barely enough football players to take the field. He began to question why the students continued to band together, and what caused their number of team members to shrink so drastically. To help answer these questions, Spiegel takes his camera into the locker rooms, onto the fields and courts, and into the homes of several Kansas City student athletes.

Stephen Spiegel

About Metro Sports

Metro Sports, part of the Kansas City division of Time Warner Cable, is Kansas City's 24-hour all-sports television network. It's shown on Time Warner Cable Channel 30, and on Comcast and Sunflower cable systems in the greater Kansas City area. Metro Sports features live and taped telecasts of sporting events, studio shows, original documentary-style programs, blocks of ESPNEWS, and other sports programming.