By Jeff Rosen
APSE President
Rodney White of the Des Moines Register won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2017 contest in long video in the 30,000-75,000 circulation category.
White’s winning video told the story of Zac Easter, who suffered multiple concussions in football and killed himself at 24 when the symptoms of CTE became unbearable.
White will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2018 APSE banquet. The banquet and awards dinner concludes the APSE Summer Conference June 17-20 at the Marriott Hotel Nashville/Vanderbilt University. The second- through fifth-place winners will receive frameable certificates.
Justin Sellers of the Clarion-Ledger finished second.
The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest chair John Bednarowski and fellow APSE officers Jeff Rosen, Todd Adams and Robert Gagliardi numbered each entry. Preliminary judges selected a top five, and from there another group of judges ranked the finalists in order from 1 to 5 separately on a secret ballot. Entries were given five points for a first-place vote, four for second, etc. The winner and final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The long video category is for video five minutes or longer.
The top five honorees are listed below with links to Twitter pages, APSE member websites and the winning entries.
- Rodney White, Des Moines Register, 26 points, 3 first-place votes
He was 24 and already devastated by symptoms of CTE. Watch Zac Easter’s story
- Justin Sellers, Clarion-Ledger, 23 points, 3 first-place votes
First Fight: Amateur boxer trains for his chance in the ring
- Dan Zampogna, Dave Jones and Salim Makhlouf, Patriot News/PennLive.com, 18 points
Saquon Barkley: The making of a superstar
- Brent Axe, Lauren Long, Christa Lemczak and Ellen Blalock, Syracuse Media Group, 15 points
1987 Syracuse Football: Stories from an undefeated season
- Albert Cesare, Montgomery Advertiser, 9 points
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