Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch won first place in the Associated Press Sports Editors 2020 contest in Category B Beat Writing.
Goold will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2021 APSE Summer Conference Banquet at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas on Aug. 18.
Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman finished second and Alexandra Andrejev of The Charlotte Observer was third.
A Beat Writing entry is a series of articles by a single author (can be more than one on the Breaking News entry only) that shows authoritative, newsy and innovative coverage of a beat.
Sports editors in Category B submitted 46 entries. The contest is open to APSE members.
Contest chair and First Vice President Gary Potosky and fellow APSE officers — President Lisa Wilson, Second Vice President Jorge Rojas and Third Vice President Steve Hemphill prepared the entries.
Because this year’s in-person APSE Winter Conference was canceled due to the pandemic, all judging was remote during three weeks in February. Each category had a set of judges examine all entries, choose a Top 10 as a group (in some cases, the ranking includes fewer or more than 10 entries), and each of those judges ranked the finalists individually. A second set of judges in each category then also ranked those finalists.
The winner and final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The winner in each category will receive a plaque at the summer conference. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frameable certificates.
The top 10 is listed below with links to the winning entries, and voting results.
1. Derrick Goold, St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 44 points, 3 first-place votes
2. Joe Mussatto, The Oklahoman 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 42 points, 1 first-place vote
3. Alexandra Andrejev, Charlotte Observer 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 41 points, 1 first-place vote
4. Adam Sparks, The Tennessean 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 40 points
5. Blake Toppmeyer, Knoxville News Sentinel 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 31 points
T6. J. Michael, , Indianapolis Star 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 30 points, 1 first-place vote
T6. Chris Tomasson, St. Paul Pioneer Press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 30 points
T8. Brian Davis, Austin American-Statesman 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 26 points
T8. Kerry Crowley, Bay Area News Group 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 26 points
10. Julie Jag, The Salt Lake Tribune 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 20 points
