Chicago Public High School League
Encyclopedia
The Chicago Public High School Athletic Association, commonly known as the Chicago Public League (CPL), is the interscholastic competition arm of the Chicago Public Schools
. The governance of the CPL is set through the Department of Sports Administration and Facilities of CPS.
, which started during 1889-90. Some of the schools that participated in the Cook County League still exist today: Crane
(as English High and Manual Training), Englewood
, Lincoln Park (as North Division)Hyde Park
, Phillips
(as South Division), Calumet, Marshall
, Austin, Lake (now Tilden), and Lake View
. Three other schools from this League have since gone to other leagues around the area: University High, which plays in the Independent League, Lyons Township High of LaGrange and Oak Park High, both of which now play in the West Suburban Conference
.
The Chicago Public High School League was formed in the summer of 1913, when the Cook County High School League broke apart as a result of the Chicago Board of Education desire to be responsible for a league in which all the schools would be under its jurisdiction. The suburban schools joined by University High formed the Suburban League (Chicago area)
.
In the first 15 years of the Public league's history a full plethora of sports were offered. The dominant powers were such traditional powers as Hyde Park, Lane Tech, Crane Tech, Englewood, joined by new powers Senn
, Lindblom, Schurz
, and Tilden Tech. The mid-1920s saw the adoption of such exotic sports as gymnastics
, rifle
marksmanship, fencing
, indoor golf
, and speed skating
, but none of these sports ever attracted more than a small percentage of the schools.
During the 1920s, the Chicago Public League, which had unofficially abided by the Illinois High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) ban on all girls interscholastic contests, began to relax its strictures against interscholastic sports for girls. The league in 1922 began sponsoring tennis, golf, and swimming competition, and became lax in its ban on the other sports, so that the girls began interschool competition in basketball, volleyball, and softball. However, when the CPL schools began joining the IHSAA in 1926 (so as to participate in the state golf, tennis, and track and field contests, in which the IHSAA that year assumed joint sponsorship with the University of Illinois) the league then ended its sponsorship of girls' golf, tennis, and swimming, and cracked down on girls' interscholastic contests in the other sports. The CPL did not return to girls' interscholastics until the early 1970s, with the passage of Title IX
by the federal government in 1972.
Beginning with the Great Migration
coming in the 1920s, a number of schools became predominantly African American, notably Phillips (started as South Division), DuSable
(started as New Phillips), Dunbar, Forrestville (now King), Carver; and later into the second half of the 20th century with Julian, Simeon, Curie
, Orr, and Kennedy.
The advent of charter school
s in the late 1990s and early 2000s yet saw another expansion of the league as schools such as CICS, Noble Street, and ACT Charter were included. The CPL as it stands today is very diverse with nearly every major nationality and race represented in all sports.
, a graduate of Robeson and former member of the Chicago Bears
. Pruitt currently governs competition in football, wrestling and lacrosse.
/Girls Catholic Athletic Conference. Today, coaches in the high school sector of the CPL actively recruit the elementary division to fill their ranks, as opposed to earlier years where most kids came into the high school athletic arena with little or no experience.
Another reason schools play for The Shield is the venues that they play in. Every year The Shield is contested in a number of professional or major college stadiums. Over the years they have included Soldier Field, the UIC Pavilion, United Center, International Amphitheater, Chicago Coliseum
, Chicago Stadium
, Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park-US Cellular Field, Loyola University Chicago
, Chicago State University
, Northeastern Illinois University
, and DePaul University
.
players, with the highest competition division being the Jackie Robinson
conference. In girls' basketball, there are three divisions: Red, Blue, and Green.
champion at Soldier Field
for the city title. The game would be later dubbed the Prep Bowl in 1934 by Mayor Edward Kelly as a Thanksgiving fundraiser for the city's poor. Until the advent of the Illinois state playoffs in 1974, the Prep Bowl was the main attraction of the fall season, attracting crowds in upwards of 100,000 in its heyday and averaging close to 65,000. Since 1974, crowds have dramatically dwindled with the emphasis switching to earning a state championship. The renovation of Soldier Field in 2003 has seen a steady resurgence in crowds for the game, averaging around 20-25,000.
Success in the state playoffs for the Public League has been fleeting at times, but since elementary football came on board in the late 1990s, the league has seen considerable progress in competing with outside competition. Between 1979 - when the League first gained entry into the state playoffs - and 1983, at least one Chicago Public school earned a state semifinal berth, with Robeson making it all the way to the Class 6A championship in 1982 before losing to (Rockford) Guilford. Since 1983, only two schools have made it to the state semifinals: Morgan Park
(2005) and Hubbard (2000, 2006). The CPL continues its quest for state championship in football.
On the city level, football has been long dominated by schools south of Madison Avenue, but north side powers like Lane and Schurz have also hoisted The Shield as league titleholders. As of the end of the 2006 season, Chicago Vocational
holds the record for most football city titles with nine, with Lane and Julian tied for second with eight. In addition, the advent of the Chicago Conference Championship game in 2004 has given the second division an opportunity to earn at least one piece of hardware before being seeded into the Prep Bowl tournament. The Intra-City Conference championship is the only title that that division can attain, having no opportunity to vie for the Varsity or State championships.
Among the stadiums used to stage the city championship were the Chicago Coliseum, International Amphitheater, the UIC Pavilion, and recently the United Center. When the boys championship was contested for the first time at the United Center in 2000, the league set a new state attendance record in basketball as 20,002 patrons watched Westinghouse earn the crown against Whitney Young. To date, every championship game that was held at the United Center earned more fans than the present state championship sites of Carver Arena in Peoria and Redbird Arena in Bloomington combined.
The most city basketball championships for boys is a dead heat as Crane and Marshall each have 11 Shields. There's no question who is the top team in the girls' ranks: Marshall, with 23 championships - the most by a single sports team (boys or girls) in league history.
A tradition that has been a staple of the CPL baseball ranks has been the city title game played in either of the major league stadiums, Wrigley Field
or US Cellular Field (formerly Comiskey Park
).
Lane Tech has the most city titles in the sport of any school, having won its 22nd title in 2005. It is the most titles for any boys sports team in league history.
Parker and Senn earned boys' state tennis titles during the 1930s and 1940s.
Walter Payton
Girls Volleyball finished fourth in state in 2008.
State track and field titles have come in bunches for the CPL. The earliest known state track championship for a Chicago school dates to 1895 with Englewood. Since then, Hyde Park, Phillips, Lane, Senn, Tilden, Harlan, South Shore, and Morgan Park have earned the gold medal at the state championships. Also, Tilden earned a pair of state wrestling titles for the city in 1946 and 1952.
Chicago Public Schools
Chicago Public Schools, commonly abbreviated as CPS by local residents and politicians and officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, is a large school district that manages over 600 public elementary and high schools in Chicago, Illinois...
. The governance of the CPL is set through the Department of Sports Administration and Facilities of CPS.
History
Origins of the Chicago Public League can be traced back to its predecessor, the Cook County High School LeagueCook County High School League
-Beginnings:The Cook County High School League embracing all the public high schools in Chicago and its suburbs was one of the pioneer interscholastic leagues in the country...
, which started during 1889-90. Some of the schools that participated in the Cook County League still exist today: Crane
Crane High School (Illinois)
Richard T. Crane Technical Preparatory High School, commonly known as Crane Tech Prep or Crane Tech High School, is a public high school in Chicago, Illinois. It is located at 2245 West Jackson Boulevard in Chicago's Near West Side community area....
(as English High and Manual Training), Englewood
Englewood Technical Prep Academy
Englewood Technical Prep Academy or sometimes referred to as simply Englewood High School , part of the Chicago Public School system, served the Englewood community on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois....
, Lincoln Park (as North Division)Hyde Park
Hyde Park Career Academy
Hyde Park Career Academy is a public 4-year high school located in the Woodlawn neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It is a part of the Chicago Public Schools District 299.-Notable alumni:...
, Phillips
Wendell Phillips Academy High School
Wendell Phillips Academy High School is a public 4-year high school located in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is part of the Chicago Public Schools and is named for the noted American abolitionist Wendell Phillips...
(as South Division), Calumet, Marshall
John Marshall Metropolitan High School
John Marshall Metropolitan High School is a public 4-year high school located on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It serves the students of the East Garfield Park, West Garfield Park, North Lawndale and Humboldt Park neighborhoods. Marshall's principal is Kenyatta Butler...
, Austin, Lake (now Tilden), and Lake View
Lake View High School (Chicago, Illinois)
Lake View High School is a public 4-year high school located in the Lake View neighborhood of Chicago,Illinois. It serves grades 9th through 12th. It is a part of the Chicago Public Schools District 299.-History:...
. Three other schools from this League have since gone to other leagues around the area: University High, which plays in the Independent League, Lyons Township High of LaGrange and Oak Park High, both of which now play in the West Suburban Conference
West Suburban Conference
The West Suburban Conference is an athletic conference in DuPage County and Cook County in the state of Illinois.The conference was founded in 1924.-Member schools:All of the schools are also members of the Illinois High School Association...
.
The Chicago Public High School League was formed in the summer of 1913, when the Cook County High School League broke apart as a result of the Chicago Board of Education desire to be responsible for a league in which all the schools would be under its jurisdiction. The suburban schools joined by University High formed the Suburban League (Chicago area)
Suburban League (Chicago area)
The Suburban League, located in the Chicago metropolitan area, was formed in the fall of 1913 following the dissolution of the Cook County High School League the previous June. The original members were Evanston, LaGrange, Morgan Park, Morton, New Trier, Oak Park, Proviso, Thornton, and University...
.
In the first 15 years of the Public league's history a full plethora of sports were offered. The dominant powers were such traditional powers as Hyde Park, Lane Tech, Crane Tech, Englewood, joined by new powers Senn
Senn High School
Nicholas Senn High School is located on the North Side of Chicago in the Edgewater community. Senn High School was inaugurated in 1913.-Education:...
, Lindblom, Schurz
Schurz High School
Carl Schurz High School is a public secondary school located in the old section of the Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.This school is named after German–American Carl Schurz, a statesman, soldier, and advocate of democracy in Germany....
, and Tilden Tech. The mid-1920s saw the adoption of such exotic sports as gymnastics
Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
, rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
marksmanship, fencing
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
, indoor golf
Indoor golf
Indoor golf is an umbrella term for all activities in golf which can be carried out indoors. Venues include indoor driving ranges, chipping areas, putting greens and golf simulators.- Golf simulator :...
, and speed skating
Speed skating
Speed skating, or speedskating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in traveling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skating...
, but none of these sports ever attracted more than a small percentage of the schools.
During the 1920s, the Chicago Public League, which had unofficially abided by the Illinois High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) ban on all girls interscholastic contests, began to relax its strictures against interscholastic sports for girls. The league in 1922 began sponsoring tennis, golf, and swimming competition, and became lax in its ban on the other sports, so that the girls began interschool competition in basketball, volleyball, and softball. However, when the CPL schools began joining the IHSAA in 1926 (so as to participate in the state golf, tennis, and track and field contests, in which the IHSAA that year assumed joint sponsorship with the University of Illinois) the league then ended its sponsorship of girls' golf, tennis, and swimming, and cracked down on girls' interscholastic contests in the other sports. The CPL did not return to girls' interscholastics until the early 1970s, with the passage of Title IX
Title IX
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a United States law, enacted on June 23, 1972, that amended Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 2002 it was renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, in honor of its principal author Congresswoman Mink, but is most...
by the federal government in 1972.
Beginning with the Great Migration
Great Migration (African American)
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Northeast, Midwest, and West from 1910 to 1970. Some historians differentiate between a Great Migration , numbering about 1.6 million migrants, and a Second Great Migration , in which 5 million or more...
coming in the 1920s, a number of schools became predominantly African American, notably Phillips (started as South Division), DuSable
DuSable High School
DuSable High School was a public high school in Chicago opened in the Bronzeville neighborhood in 1934. It was named after Chicago's first permanent non-native settler, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. DuSable was built to accommodate the growing Phillips High School in the 1930s. The campus was...
(started as New Phillips), Dunbar, Forrestville (now King), Carver; and later into the second half of the 20th century with Julian, Simeon, Curie
Curie Metropolitan High School
Curie Metropolitan High School is a public 4-year magnet high school located in the Archer Heights neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The school has a Technical, Performing Arts, and International Baccalaureate Programme...
, Orr, and Kennedy.
The advent of charter school
Charter school
Charter schools are primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter...
s in the late 1990s and early 2000s yet saw another expansion of the league as schools such as CICS, Noble Street, and ACT Charter were included. The CPL as it stands today is very diverse with nearly every major nationality and race represented in all sports.
Administration
The CPL is headed by the Director of Sports Administration and Facilities of the Chicago Public Schools. Calvin Davis currently holds this position. Davis, who has 25 years of teaching, coaching, and administrative experience in the Chicago Public Schools took over in 2003 after being selected by CEO Arne Duncan to replace Dr. J.W. Smith who retired that year. Under the Director are the City Wide Sport Coordinators, who govern competition in the sports that they are assigned. Some coordinators handle multiple sports: one example is Mickey PruittMickey Pruitt
Mickey Pruitt Mickey Pruitt Mickey Pruitt (born January 10, 1965 in Bamberg, South Carolina is a former professional American football player who played linebacker for five seasons for the Chicago Bears and Dallas Cowboys....
, a graduate of Robeson and former member of the Chicago Bears
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...
. Pruitt currently governs competition in football, wrestling and lacrosse.
Basic playing levels
Nearly every sport has four playing levels: Varsity, Sophomore, Freshman and Elementary. Incoming freshmen can 'play-up' to either sophomore or varsity levels; the same with sophomores for the varsity. The elementary school sports program which offers 17 sports for girls and boys in grades five through eight for 500 schools was developed in the late 1990s by the league as a way to close the athletic gap between the CPL and its parochial counterpart, the Chicago Catholic LeagueChicago Catholic League
The Chicago Catholic League is a high school athletic conference based in Chicago, Illinois, USA. All of the schools are currently part of the Illinois High School Association, the governing body for Illinois scholastic sports...
/Girls Catholic Athletic Conference. Today, coaches in the high school sector of the CPL actively recruit the elementary division to fill their ranks, as opposed to earlier years where most kids came into the high school athletic arena with little or no experience.
"The Shield"
The championship trophy of the CPL is noted by "The Shield". A school holding one of these trophies is recognized as having beaten a very large field of competitors for the city title. Until 2004, the trophy was made of wood with either a gold or silver plate notating champion or runner-up finish. Since 2004, it is now made of black marble with gold trimming and plated with a silver sculpture of the sport the trophy was earned in. Between 1972 and 2002, the holder of The Shield gained automatic entry into the Illinois State Finals in most sports (except football). Since then, the city championship has been decided prior to the start of the state tournament.Another reason schools play for The Shield is the venues that they play in. Every year The Shield is contested in a number of professional or major college stadiums. Over the years they have included Soldier Field, the UIC Pavilion, United Center, International Amphitheater, Chicago Coliseum
Chicago Coliseum
The Chicago Coliseum was the name of a succession of three large indoor arenas in Chicago, Illinois from the 1860s to 1982 that each served as a sports venue, convention center, and exhibition hall over the course of their respective histories. The first Coliseum briefly made an appearance in the...
, Chicago Stadium
Chicago Stadium
The Chicago Stadium was an indoor sports arena and theater in Chicago. It opened in 1929, and closed in 1994.-History:The Stadium hosted the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL from 1929–1994 and the Chicago Bulls of the NBA from 1967–1994....
, Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park-US Cellular Field, Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...
, Chicago State University
Chicago State University
Chicago State University is a state university of the U.S. state of Illinois, located in Chicago.-History:Cook County Normal School was founded in 1867, largely through the initiative of John F. Eberhart, the Commissioner of Schools for Cook County...
, Northeastern Illinois University
Northeastern Illinois University
Northeastern Illinois University is a public state university located in Chicago, Illinois. The main campus is located in the community area of North Park with three additional campuses in the metropolitan area. Tracing its founding to 1867, it was first established as a separate branch of a...
, and DePaul University
DePaul University
DePaul University is a private institution of higher education and research in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul...
.
Athletic divisions
With the exception of soccer, football, girls basketball and baseball, each sport in the CPL has two distinct playing divisions: Red and Blue. The Red division is considered the highest level of competition city-wide, while the Blue features programs just starting or not quite as talented. In soccer, there are 4 divisions: Premier, 1st Division, 2nd Division, and 3rd Division respectfully. In football, there are three divisions: the Illini (Red) Conference, the Chicago (Blue) Conference and the Intra-City (Green) Conference. In baseball, various divisions are notated by the names of famous major league baseballMajor League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
players, with the highest competition division being the Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...
conference. In girls' basketball, there are three divisions: Red, Blue, and Green.
Football
CPL sanctioning of football dates back to 1913. As early as 1927, the CPL football champion met the CCLChicago Catholic League
The Chicago Catholic League is a high school athletic conference based in Chicago, Illinois, USA. All of the schools are currently part of the Illinois High School Association, the governing body for Illinois scholastic sports...
champion at Soldier Field
Soldier Field
Soldier Field is located on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois, United States, in the Near South Side. It is home to the NFL's Chicago Bears...
for the city title. The game would be later dubbed the Prep Bowl in 1934 by Mayor Edward Kelly as a Thanksgiving fundraiser for the city's poor. Until the advent of the Illinois state playoffs in 1974, the Prep Bowl was the main attraction of the fall season, attracting crowds in upwards of 100,000 in its heyday and averaging close to 65,000. Since 1974, crowds have dramatically dwindled with the emphasis switching to earning a state championship. The renovation of Soldier Field in 2003 has seen a steady resurgence in crowds for the game, averaging around 20-25,000.
Success in the state playoffs for the Public League has been fleeting at times, but since elementary football came on board in the late 1990s, the league has seen considerable progress in competing with outside competition. Between 1979 - when the League first gained entry into the state playoffs - and 1983, at least one Chicago Public school earned a state semifinal berth, with Robeson making it all the way to the Class 6A championship in 1982 before losing to (Rockford) Guilford. Since 1983, only two schools have made it to the state semifinals: Morgan Park
Morgan Park High School
Morgan Park High School , located in Chicago, Illinois, at the intersection of 111th street and Vincennes Avenue is a public high school that opened its doors on its present site in 1916, as part of the Chicago Public Schools...
(2005) and Hubbard (2000, 2006). The CPL continues its quest for state championship in football.
On the city level, football has been long dominated by schools south of Madison Avenue, but north side powers like Lane and Schurz have also hoisted The Shield as league titleholders. As of the end of the 2006 season, Chicago Vocational
Chicago Vocational High School
Chicago Vocational High School is a public 4-year vocational high school serving students in the south side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It opened in 1940.The school was barely opened when the outbreak of World War II caused a change in plan...
holds the record for most football city titles with nine, with Lane and Julian tied for second with eight. In addition, the advent of the Chicago Conference Championship game in 2004 has given the second division an opportunity to earn at least one piece of hardware before being seeded into the Prep Bowl tournament. The Intra-City Conference championship is the only title that that division can attain, having no opportunity to vie for the Varsity or State championships.
Basketball
CPL sanctioning of basketball dates back to 1913, when the CPL was formed. The CPL didn't play for a state championship until the 1926-27 school year, when it first gained entry into the IHSA. The basketball ranks have enjoyed the most success at the state tournament of any sport sanctioned by CPS. The first state title for CPL basketball came in 1958 with Marshall, some four years after Du Sable earned the league's first ever state championship berth. Including that championship, CPL schools have enjoyed the top of the podium 22 times, 14 of those on the boys side. Eight of the ten girls' titles also belong to Marshall, thanks to the state's all-time winningest coach in the sport, Dorothy Gaters, who at last count was near 830 wins for her career after winning the state championship in class 3A in 2008 along with the Whitney Young girls team who won the class 4A state title in the first year of the class expansion from 2 classes to 4.Among the stadiums used to stage the city championship were the Chicago Coliseum, International Amphitheater, the UIC Pavilion, and recently the United Center. When the boys championship was contested for the first time at the United Center in 2000, the league set a new state attendance record in basketball as 20,002 patrons watched Westinghouse earn the crown against Whitney Young. To date, every championship game that was held at the United Center earned more fans than the present state championship sites of Carver Arena in Peoria and Redbird Arena in Bloomington combined.
The most city basketball championships for boys is a dead heat as Crane and Marshall each have 11 Shields. There's no question who is the top team in the girls' ranks: Marshall, with 23 championships - the most by a single sports team (boys or girls) in league history.
Baseball
CPL sanctioning of baseball goes back to the spring of 1914, and it entered the state tournament when that was formed in 1940. The league has had its share of state titles, with Lane, Fenger, Schurz and Hubbard taking their place atop the podium. The last state title earned by the CPL was 1973 (Hubbard); since then, the closest the league has come to a state championship was Simeon's 4th place finish in 1998.A tradition that has been a staple of the CPL baseball ranks has been the city title game played in either of the major league stadiums, Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field is a baseball stadium in Chicago, Illinois, United States that has served as the home ballpark of the Chicago Cubs since 1916. It was built in 1914 as Weeghman Park for the Chicago Federal League baseball team, the Chicago Whales...
or US Cellular Field (formerly Comiskey Park
Comiskey Park
Comiskey Park was the ballpark in which the Chicago White Sox played from 1910 to 1990. It was built by Charles Comiskey after a design by Zachary Taylor Davis, and was the site of four World Series and more than 6,000 major league games...
).
Lane Tech has the most city titles in the sport of any school, having won its 22nd title in 2005. It is the most titles for any boys sports team in league history.
Other sports
Between 1972 and 2002, the CPL had enjoyed status as sending its city champion to the Illinois State Finals in numerous other sports, including soccer, wrestling and softball. Prior to 1972, the Lane boys' swim team enjoyed nine state titles in the 1930s and 1940s, the earliest domination of any sport by any CPL team. Lane also earned the city's lone state title cross country title in 1963; Englewood is the city's only other top finisher in the state, earning runner-up status in 1955. Harrison earned the city's lone boys' state soccer title in 1973 and Schurz finished second in 1977; Lake View finished fourth in 2008.Parker and Senn earned boys' state tennis titles during the 1930s and 1940s.
Walter Payton
Walter Payton College Prep
Walter Payton College Preparatory High School is a selective enrollment public high school in Chicago, Illinois.- History :Walter Payton College Prep, founded in 2000, is part of the Chicago Public Schools system. The school, which is located on Chicago's near north side, is notably one of the...
Girls Volleyball finished fourth in state in 2008.
State track and field titles have come in bunches for the CPL. The earliest known state track championship for a Chicago school dates to 1895 with Englewood. Since then, Hyde Park, Phillips, Lane, Senn, Tilden, Harlan, South Shore, and Morgan Park have earned the gold medal at the state championships. Also, Tilden earned a pair of state wrestling titles for the city in 1946 and 1952.