By Tommy Deas, APSE Second Vice President
Daniel Brown of the San Jose Mercury News won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2014 contest in Feature Writing for the Over 175,000 circulation category.
Brown won for a feature on the connection between Giants relief pitcher Sergio Romo and a young cancer patient. He will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2015 APSE banquet. The banquet and awards dinner on June 27 concludes the APSE Conference at The Westgate Hotel in San Diego, Calif.
Brown edged runner-up finisher Chris Ballard of SI.com, garnering 49 total points to Ballard’s 47. Josh Peter of USA TODAY Sports placed third.
Sports editors in the Over 175,000 category submitted 123 feature entries.The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest chair Mary Byrne of USA TODAY Sports 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 early February, preliminary judges at the APSE Winter Conference in Lake Buena Vista, 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 Feature Writing category is judged on human interest, reader interest, quality of writing and thoroughness of reporting. Each member news organization was permitted up to three entries in this category.
The top 10 is listed below with links to writers’ Twitter pages, APSE member websites and winning entries.
- Daniel Brown, San Jose Mercury News, 49 points, 2 first-place votes
Giants’ Sergio Romo inspired a teen girl to keep fighting
- Chris Ballard, SI.com, 47 points, 1 first-place vote
Ryan Anderson tries to move forward after girlfriend Gia Allemand’s suicide
- Josh Peter, USA TODAY Sports, 42 points, 1 first-place vote
Whatever happened to O.J. Simpson’s white Ford Bronco?
- Baxter Holmes, Boston Globe, 40 points, 1 first-place vote
Bill Russell, K.C. Jones treated like ‘Rock’ stars at Alcatraz
- J. Brady McCollough, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 33 points
Evgeni Malkin: A Russian tale with roots founded in ice and iron
- Dennis Lin, U-T San Diego, 32 points, 1 first-place vote
The fighter: MMA helps Kruchten with PTSD
- Dave Sheinin, The Washington Post, 30 points
When dyslexia blocked his path to college football, Maryland high school player took unusual route
8. John Meyer, Denver Post, 26 points
Jeff Lowe, legendary mountain climber, slowly dying of ALS-type disease
- Emily Kaplan, SI.com, 17 points
- Joe Drape, Steve Eder and Billy Witz, The New York Times, 14 points
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