At the start of the 2006 season, the Detroit Public School League had 24 varsity football teams. Over the next five years, 10 of those schools would either close or merge. In 2012, East English Village Prep formed and Communications and Media Arts held its first varsity football season in 2014. The 2016 season saw 16 teams suit up. That number could possibly dwindle to nine by the time the 2017 season begins.

The Detroit News published an article on Friday which listed seven schools who are either apart of the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD), or Education Achievement Authority (EAA), but sports team participate in the PSL. According to the article, Northwestern, Osborn, Denby, Henry Ford, Mumford, Pershing, Southeastern are all in jeopardy of closing this summer due to low test scores. These schools have been performing in the low 5 percentile over the last three years.

If the state indeed closes all those schools, and the league had to play a season today, only Cass Tech, King, EEVP, Cody, Renaissance, Central, Western, CMA, and Frederick Douglass would remain, with Delta Prep and Edison scheduled to join the league in 2017, bringing the number to 11. In boys basketball, there would be 13 teams, and 12 for girls basketball. In a league that is already struggling to put out a good product, top to bottom, the future of the PSL is in peril.

"It's crazy that it's a possibility that I won't a have a job next year," Henry Ford athletic director, teacher, and boys basketball coach Ken Flowers said. "We come off back-to-back state championship runs in basketball, win in 2016, made over our gym, now they're talking about closing Ford."

"One of the main reasons I went into education was the stability, but there is none anymore. I would have never thought education in the city would be this bad."

The PSL excels in athletics, and have won a number of state titles in recent years, among its better teams. Western won the Class A state title in boys basketball in 2015, Ford won Class B in 2016, King won back-to-back Division 2 football state titles in 2015 and 2016, and Cass Tech went undefeated in 2016 to take the Division 1 football state title.

EEVP has been a consistent football program since its inception in 2012 under head coach Rod Oden, making the state playoffs four of the last five seasons. Juan Rickman has its basketball team ranked nationally. King girls basketball has forever been a state power, and Pershing is the mecca of boys high school basketball In the state. Northwestern football had won of its best seasons ever in 2015 under former head coach Jimmy Hill, going 9-1, and winning the city title. Now the historical school might be coming to a close in June.

"I think it's terrible," Hill said. "It's like we waste money putting it in all those schools, just to shut them down. It seems there can be a better solution than to keep closing schools, only to open charter schools in the same neighborhood without a proven program to make the desired changes. The charter schools that they opened up over the last 7-10 years have only worked to deplete DPS, and have no results to show for it. How you can have an area as big as Detroit with minimal public education is beyond me."

Denby football has made the state playoffs the last four seasons under head coach Tony Blankenship. The overall environment at Denby has made a 360-turn he insists. The school is still on the list for closure, but the administration at the east side school is optimistic that it will stay open.

"I was told by our administration that it's a formality of sorts to list schools, but that we didn't have anything to worry about right now," Blankenship said. "That being the case, if it is true, it would be incredibly disappointing with the strides we've made to improve Denby, both academically and athletically."

The athletics in the PSL are alive and well. But academics come first, and that is an area the school system has struggled in for years, hence the closing of dozens of schools over the years. One can point to a number of reasons as to why the academic experience in DPS is so poor: overcrowded classrooms, a deficiency in books and other resources, the overall environment, you name it. But as a product of DPS, elementary school through high school, not having adequate teaching, or enough teachers was probably the biggest issue.

"The thing that hurts DPS is staffing," said Hill, who also taught at Northwestern. "When we had Ms. Raines in place as principal, she had a full staff of teachers, and things went well. We had a period where we did not have a principal after she retired, and for whatever reason, the board could not staff the position. Now the new principal and direction is 100 percent on the right track, but they have to support him a little more with enough staff."

"To me, it's like a sports organization: the teams with long-term stability are the teams who always win. Growing up, we had people in place long enough to teach our big brothers and sisters, and still be there when we got there. There is no continuity anymore. Teachers also leave the district because of the freeze pay. Can't expect someone to do the job and not get paid, when people in the district next door to them get much higher pay. It isn't fair."

With so many of the public schools is Detroit closing, charter schools have become the alternative to education. There are so many charter schools in Detroit, it is hard to keep up. It has also become the alternative for the PSL as well. In basketball, Edison and Delta Prep joined the league and plan to do the same in football this fall. It is the only way the league can stay competitive and stabilized, by adding teams outside of the district. Charter schools are about to outnumber public schools in the city in due time, and that is a reality that cannot go unnoticed anymore.

"Charter schools are taking over for sure, and it's a money thing," Pershing assistant basketball coach Gregory Russell said. "I think charter schools have ruined DPS. The low test scores have zero impact for charter schools. Sooner or later, the kids or teachers have to be held accountable for the lower performing grades."

"But, at the end if the day, charter schools are picking up the slack where DPS fell off at. We have heard over the past decades, where numerous people in EAA and DPS have robbed the school system blind. The charter schools system just slid in and gave the city hope, I guess you can say. My only concern is where will the kids go to school if they do close? Kids need school to get away from everyday problems. If they close Osborn, Pershing, and Southeastern, where will the east side kids go? If they close Cody and Henry Ford, where would those west side kids go?"

A huge plus for PSL basketball has been the addition of Edison to the league. The Pioneers have gathered a lot of young talent over the years, getting a lot of its kids from the DPSCD. The PSL offers something that other leagues cannot offer, and that is quality competition. Expect a lot more charter school teams to join the league in the coming years, as more public schools close.

"Talking with Bo Neely (head coach at Edison), he said that the charter school leagues did not prepare them like the PSL does," Russell added. "Saying that he coaches to make kids better, not to build his resume. If it's helping the kids, I'm all for it."

Tarif Kumasi is the dean of students at Detroit Public Safety Academy and used to coach football at Cesar Chavez Academy and of one the schools set to close, Southeastern. So he has seen both sides of the fence. He agrees that charter schools are the future, but not everywhere.

"Charter school, although good in theory, were developed to break unions," Kumasi said. "It's an intricate plan that has held together steadfast. If you notice, cities with rich families have no charters, example, Grosse Pointe. The loop hole is close one school, and open a new one. The accountability only lies in closing them, not opening them."

"Charter schools can be a good thing with the proper management company and administration. Take for instance Cesar Chavez. But on the other hand, some of them are failing horribly. It's a money grab. Good PSL coaches will eventually have to go charter. A good one will take them to a title game. Charters will have legitimate athletics in spurts, but never consistently, because of the closures."

Who knows what the future holds for PSL athletics, with so many schools closing? And there seems to not be any let-up. Twenty-five more schools are scheduled to close in 2018 if they remain among the state's lowest performers, per the article, and you can bet that a large number of those schools are in the DPSCD.