Ryan Holmgren of the Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2015 contest in Explanatory writing for the Under 30,000 circulation category.
Holmgren won for a his feature comparing the University of Wyoming’s football program and rival Colorado State University’s program. Holmgren focuses on recruiting expenses and the differences between the two schools.
Holmgren will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2016 APSE banquet. The banquet and awards dinner concludes the APSE Conference June 22-25 at the Omni-Charlotte in Charlotte, N.C.
Jon Blau of The Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.) placed second. D.C. Reeves of The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News took third.
Sports Editors in the Under 30,000 category submitted 51 explanatory entries. The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest chair Tommy Deas numbered each entry, assuring they had been stripped of headlines, graphics, bylines and any other element that would identify the writer or news organization.
In late February and early March, preliminary judges at the APSE Winter Conference at Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., 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 top 10 is listed below with links to writers’ Twitter pages, APSE member websites and winning entries.
1. Ryan Holmgren, Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, 51 points, 1 first-place vote
Future of Wyoming athletics’ $5M match from state remains uncertain
2. Jon Blau, The Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.), 49 points, 3 first-place votes
Concussion a long-term ordeal for South junior
3. D.C. Reeves, The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News, 40 points, 1 first-place vote
Deontay Wilder feels spurned by Alabama regarding title fight venue
4. Brad Elliott Schlossman, Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald, 38 points, 1 first-place vote
College hockey’s large-budget and small-budget schools continue to butt heads
5. James Crepea, Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser, 31 points
Why is Auburn’s cost of attendance so much higher than its tuition, room and board?
6. Tom Green, Opelika-Auburn News, 29 points
Surveillance footage shows Duke Williams’ bar incident ‘not a rampage’
7. Kalle Oakes, Sun Journal (Lewiston, Maine), 28 points
8. Nathan Baird, Lafayette (Ind.) Journal & Courier, 23 points
Purdue men opt for “secret scrimmage”
9. Matt Harness, Pioneer Press (Chicago, Ill.), 21 points
John Deere Classic raised Jordan Spieth’s career to ‘different level’
10. Fletcher Page, Athens (Ga.) Banner-Herald, 19 points
Fifty years and 20-hour bus rides since Southern University and Athens shared an exchange
