BY TODD M. ADAMS, APSE FIRST VICE PRESIDENT
Steve Politi of NJ Advance Media won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors’ 2018 contest in column writing for the A Division.
Politi will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2019 APSE Summer Conference Banquet at the Omni CNN Center in Atlanta on June 19.
Politi edged runner-up Sally Jenkins from The Washington Post. Ivan Maisel from ESPN.com placed third.
Sports editors in the A Division submitted 74 column writing entries. The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest chair Todd M. Adams and fellow APSE officers John Bednarowski, Lisa Wilson and Dan Spears prepared entries. In February, preliminary judges at the APSE Winter Conference in Orlando, Fla., and off-site around the country, selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10 separately on a secret ballot. Entries were given 10 points for a first-place vote, nine points for second and so on down to one point for a 10th-place vote. The final 10 were given to a second judging group, which ranked the entries 1-10 in the same fashion.
The winner and final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The winner in each category will receive a plaque at the summer conference. The second- through 10th-place writers will receive frameable certificates.
The column writing judges evaluated entries based on style, writing quality, originality and local appeal. Each entry consisted of four columns. The top 10 is listed below with links to the winning entries:
1. Steve Politi, NJ Advance Media (Iselin, N.J.) 1 2 3 4 – 52 points, 2 first-place
2. Sally Jenkins, The Washington Post 1 2 3 4 – 49 points, 4 first-place votes
3. Ivan Maisel, ESPN.com 1 2 3 4 – 42 points
votes
4. Tara Sullivan, The Boston Globe 1 2 3 4 – 40 points
5. Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times 1 2 3 4 – 37 points
6. Scott Ostler, The San Francisco Chronicle 1 2 3 4 – 31 points
T7. Mike Sielski, The Philadelphia Inquirer 1 2 3 4 – 24 points
T7. Mark Zeigler, The San Diego Union-Tribune 1 2 3 4 – 24 points
9. Master Tesfatsion, Bleacher Report 1 2 3 4 – 19 points
10. Paul Sullivan, Chicago Tribune 1 2 3 4 – 12 points
