Adam Himmelsbach of The Boston Globe won first place in the Division A team beat writing category of the 2025 Associated Press Sports Editors contest.
Contestants in the team beat writing category submitted four-part portfolios that included pieces of breaking news, event coverage, enterprise and a wild-card submission. Himmelsbach, the Globe’s Celtics writer, entered a portfolio that included breaking news on private equity executive William Chisolm buying the franchise; coverage of the Celtics’ playoff loss to the Knicks, in which Jayson Tatum suffered his 2024-25 season-ending injury; an enterprise story on how a week in the jungle with a chess prodigy helped Joe Mazzulla become a better coach; and a feature on a longtime staffer who’d been with the Celtics for nearly 50 years.
APSE contest winners will be honored at the 2026 APSE Summer Conference banquet July 18 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va. Registration for the conference is open; you can register right here.
Himmelsbach will receive a first-place plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frame-worthy certificates.
Sports editors submitted 44 entries in the Division A team beat writing category. Contest chair Perryn Keys and APSE officers Paul Barrett, Erik Hall and Tony Maluso prepared the entries.
Contest results: Digital, print and podcasts | Writing and photography
Judges convened in late February, in person at the APSE Winter Conference in Las Vegas and remotely around the nation, to select the top entrants. The first group read 176 total pieces in the category and determined 10 finalists, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10. The final 10 were given to a second judging group in late February and March, ranking the entries from Nos. 1 to 10 in the same fashion.
The final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The top 10 are listed, with first-place votes in parentheses, along with links to the winning entries.
The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
1. Adam Himmelsbach, The Boston Globe 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
2. Julia Poe, Chicago Tribune (4) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
3. Zack Rosenblatt, The Athletic (1) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
4. Ryan Wood, USA TODAY Sports-Wisconsin 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
5. Tim MacMahon, ESPN.com 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
6. Tony Garcia, Detroit Free Press 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
7. Curt Hogg, USA TODAY Sports-Wisconsin (1) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
8. Evan Grant, The Dallas Morning News 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
9. Susan Slusser, The San Francisco Chronicle 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
10. Laura Albanese, Newsday 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
