Michael Clubb of the South Bend Tribune in Indiana won first place in the 2025 Associated Press Sports Editors contest in the Division C action photo category.
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.
Clubb will receive a first-place plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frame-worthy certificates.
Sports editors submitted 52 entries in the Division C action photo 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. For what is believed to be the first time, photo categories were judged solely by photographers and photo editors. The photographers and photo editors determined 10 finalists and sent them along in March and April to a second set of judges, who ranked the entries from Nos. 1 to 10 in the same fashion.
The top 10 are listed here.
The contest is open to APSE members each year. Click here to join.
To see a gallery of these photos, click here.
1. Michael Clubb, South Bend Tribune
2. David Tucker, Daytona Beach News-Journal
3. Darin Oswald, Idaho Statesman
4. Amanda McCoy, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
5. Yannick Peterhans, The Record (Bergen, N.J.)
6. Naji Saker, JohnCanzano.com
7. Tim Healy, JohnCanzano.com
8. Jesse Bruner, Topeka Capital-Journal
9. Travis Heying, Wichita Eagle
10. Paul Gillespie, Capital Gazette
