'Nobody's missing' at Sports

What was once a small pool hall frequented by a "laid-back old man's crowd" is now a 14,000-square-foot establishment attracting people of every race, religion and sexual orientation, said Kilroy's Sports Bar general manager Maggie Prall.\n"We capture every audience," she said. "Nobody's missing."\nWith six areas inside the bar that feature attractions such as live DJs and dueling pianos, Kilroy's Sports Bar, 319 N. Walnut St., was voted Best Bar in Bloomington. Manager Paul Miller said Sports is so popular because it offers something for everyone. Constant summer renovations are one way Sports tries to offer more to customers.\n"We have the nicest bathrooms you'll find at any bar in town," Miller said. "Those things help."\nThe family-owned bar is now the champion of the Bloomington bar scene, but without Kilroy's Bar & Grill, 502 E. Kirkwood Ave., Sports might have never existed.\nMaggie's mother Linda Prall opened Kilroy's Bar & Grill on Kirkwood as a restaurant in 1975. The restaurant was only a stone's throw from the fraternities and sororities on Third Street, and it soon became a favorite among IU's greek community, she said. With business booming and an abundance of managers, Linda bought a punk-rock bar in 1991 on North Walnut Street called Stardust. Maggie went to work at her mother's new bar Kilroy's Sports Bar when she graduated from Bloomington High School South in 1996. She was joined by her sister Liza in 2000.\n"We were here through the Final Four," Maggie said, referring to the 2002 men's basketball season when IU made it to the final round of the NCAA tournament. "We had the time of our lives."\nThe sisters left Sports in 2003, preceding a bad year for the bar in 2004, Maggie said. The sisters returned in 2005 to find the bar's live-music scene crashing.\n"The only thing working was the DJs," Maggie said. "We decided to move that upstairs and work on the downstairs."\nMaggie brought dueling pianos to the first floor of Sports after seeing the attraction during her annual trip to a restaurant-and-bar show in Chicago.\nAfter changing the inside, long lines outside the bar became Maggie's biggest frustration, but she found a solution when an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight was televised at the bar. With a crowd of hundreds of men who were drinking, Sports started a ladies-only line in an attempt to prevent fights from breaking out. The ladies loved it, Maggie said.\n"We want to have girls. They keep it fun and lighthearted. They're the life of the party," Maggie said. "If we make them happy, the guys will follow"