Two years ago, Estevao Divino came home one day to find his younger son Brian talking about making flyers to post all over the school. Brian, at the time a sophomore on Staples High's volleyball team, when asked responded that his team was at risk— not enough boys were signing up to play. Estevao’s wife, Alessandra, who is a real rstate agent at Compass in Westport, encouraged Estevao to build a website to help get the word out that the team needed more players, just like he had done to help Earthplace Nursery School back in 2008. “When the next season started, they had just barely enough numbers for the JV team,” Estevao says. He wanted to keep the momentum going, so he started writing articles about the games and taking photos of boys' volleyball games and posting them to the site he’d made. Parents and students read the site voraciously. “I noticed that if I missed a stat or something, my son was getting texts saying ‘hey, your dad missed my stat.’ And then parents started asking me if they could print my articles and include them in their child’s college applications. I realized people were watching very closely,” he says. He considered that, perhaps, there was an untapped audience for content about Staples High sports. “When the [volleyball] season was over, I was sitting with my wife and kids on the patio [his older son, Steven, graduated from Staples in 2023], and I asked them: If I started a podcast about Staples High School would you guys listen?” They all said yes!
And that is how PrepZone, a podcast hosted by Estevao that covers the world of Staples High School athletics, was born. The first episode was published in August of 2023, and the concept took off immediately. The success is thanks to Estevao’s beat-reporter commitment to covering every detail of Wreckers sports fastidiously— and supportively. “One thing that I think really sets us apart is that we keep things very positive,” he explains. “We’re covering students. I choose to always focus on the positive.” So, if a student-athlete has, say, multiple mistakes in a game or misses the winning shot, Estevao is careful to attribute that to the team, rather than the individual. “Those things can really stick with a kid," he says. His goal is to free them from that pressure. "You can still report accurately, without using names and numbers."
PrepZone covers, on average, five to six games per week with post-game interviews, articles, and photos. New episodes come out on Mondays, and have featured coaches, players, and athletic staff from a wide swath of sports at the school. “But our plan for PrepZone is to really cover the school as a whole,” says Estevao, who hopes to spotlight other aspects of student life like the renowned theater program, Staples Players. “I’m fascinated by these kids who are putting in so much work and countless hours— basically living an adult life,” he says.
Estevao’s background isn’t in journalism— he’s in sales— but he has a unique interview talent with guests on the podcast, and both guests and listeners love the feeling of connectedness the show provides. (The PrepZone Instagram account had, at press time, nearly 3,000 followers of devoted Wreckers fans.) “I think the hyper-focus on Staples is a big part of our success— the fact that we’re only covering things near and dear to our listeners' hearts really drives people to follow along,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many people say, ‘the minute I leave the game, your channel is the first one I go to.’”
It’s not a responsibility he takes lightly. “As the game is going on, I’m taking notes, I’m getting prepared for the post-game interview,” he says. “When the [record light] goes on, I am very serious and professional about what I’m doing.” Some of his favorite feedback has been from coaches: many of them have told him they’ve been treated and looked at differently by parents and players alike after sharing personal stories and the intricacies of their lives on the podcast. “A lot of people see the coaches as the person who benches their kids, or who doesn’t play their kids, or the one yelling at the field. By having them
share their philosophy, why they do what they do, their family life, it has really humanized them,” says Estevao.
Listeners have wondered if PrepZone will continue after Brian, now a senior, graduates this spring. For Estevao, there’s no question. “When we started this, it was about my wife and I trying to make sure our son had a team to play on,” he says. (And, yes: the boys’ volleyball team at Staples is still going strong.) “Having my wife and son going to games with me, it’s our family project, and the support of my family means everything to me. And now, we’re doing this for the community. I feel like I’m getting way more than I’m giving!”
Find episodes of PrepZone on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow them on Instagram at @pprepzone.
“We’re covering students. I choose to always focus on the positive.”