By Phil Kaplan
APSE continues its commitment to collegiate sports journalists by awarding four scholarships for 2025.
And for the fifth year in row, two of the scholarships are awarded to student journalists attending historically Black colleges and universities.
Sam Jane, who will be a senior at the University of Maryland, is awarded the Joe Sullivan/Jack Berninger Scholarship; Liana Handler, who will be a senior at the University of Florida, will receive the Roy Hewitt/Tim Wheatley Scholarship; and Niles Garrison, who will be a senior at Morehouse College, along with Bridges Cailyx Wilson-Jones, a sophomore at Stillman College, are the recipients of the Garry D. Howard Scholarships.
The scholarships are for $1,000 apiece and are awarded based on the quality of the journalism, academic record and need. The scholarship was established in 2007. All four winners will also be given APSE student memberships.
Jane is a summer intern at The Baltimore Sun and is a sports editor and football writer at The Diamondback, the student-run newspaper. He recently covered Super Bowl 59 and traveled to Africa to cover the NBA’s advancement. He has worked as a high school sports reporter for The Washington Post and previously interned on the news desk at MLive.
Handler has had bylines in UF’s student-run paper Independent Florida Alligator, the Tampa Bay Times and North Central Florida NPR and PBS station WUFT News. She is a member of the Sports Journalism Institute class of 2025 and interning at The Baltimore Banner this summer.
Garrison is the managing editor of Morehouse’s newspaper, The Maroon Tiger, and is a journalism major and Spanish minor. He is a member of the Sports Journalism Institute class of 2025 and interning at the Florida Times Union in Jacksonville this summer. He’s been an HBCU fellow for Open Campus Media and part of the inaugural class of the Ed Bradley Journalism Fellowship at New York University.
Wilson-Jones is the co-founder and host of The Corner Dorm Podcast, a student-led platform centered on campus culture and world issues. The journalism major has been an intern with WVUA News as a writer and cameraman and with TIDE 100.9 FM as a reporter and board operator. Additionally, he hosts Thursday Throwdown, a weekly radio segment on 105.1 The Block that spotlights local high school football.
Members of the APSE Scholarship committee are John Devine of the Miami Herald, Naila Meyers of the Star Tribune, Julie Jag of the Salt Lake Tribune, Lisa Wilson of The Athletic, Jane Havsy of the Daily Record, Jim Pignatiello of MassLive, and Phil Kaplan of the USA TODAY Network South Region.
