Jordan Kaye and Tracy Glantz of The State in Columbia, South Carolina, won first place in the Division C projects category of the 2025 Associated Press Sports Editors contest.
Kaye and Glantz’s winning entry was a series of stories about Demetris Summers, a legendary local running back from Lexington, South Carolina, who played two seasons for the Gamecocks from 2003-04 but was kicked off the team in 2005 and later spent three seasons with the CFL’s Calgary Stampeders, winning the Grey Cup. By age 33, Summers was a convicted drug dealer. Kaye and Glantz caught up with Summers at 42 and got the fallen star to open up about his past and his hopes for the future.
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.
The State will receive a first-place plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frame-worthy certificates.
Sports editors submitted 22 entries in the Division C projects category. Each entry was permitted to contain up to five pieces, along with supplementary optional content for judges to consider. 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, reading 87 total pieces in the category, in addition to supplemental material. The committee 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. Jordan Kaye and Tracy Glantz, The State (Columbia, S.C.) (5) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
2. Adam Sparks, Knoxville News Sentinel (1) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
3. Drew Hill, The Daily Memphian 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
4. Shaun Goodwin, Idaho Statesman 1 | 2 | 3
5. Amie Just, Lincoln Journal Star 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
6. Michael Niziolek, The Herald-Times (Bloomington, Ind.) 1 | 2 | 3
7. Derek Pyda, Brendan Howe and Jake Merda Adams, Butler (Pa.) Eagle 1 | 2 | 3
8. Jason Munz, The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.) 1 | 2 | 3
9. Staff, Capital Gazette (Annapolis, Md.) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
10. John Canzano, JohnCanzano.com 1 | 2 | 3
