By Glen Crevier
Herb Stutz and Joe Sullivan were honored Sunday during the opening meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors summer conference in Las Vegas with the Jack Berninger Award for service to APSE.
Stutz, who passed away in April 2020 at the age of 90, was a longtime sports editor, a former APSE president and for many years was APSE’s conference coordinator. He is the 2021 recipient of the award.
Sullivan retired as sports editor of the Boston Globe in 2018. He is a longtime APSE member who was active on both the local and national levels, led many workshops at APSE conferences and who is well known for his mentorships with young journalists, many of whose careers he helped launch. Sullivan was the 2020 winner of the award but is being honored this year because of the cancellation of last summer’s conference due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Stutz is also well known to many APSE convention-goers as the event coordinator, teaming for many years with Ed Storin, the former Miami Herald sports editor and the 1992 Red Smith Award winner. They were commonly known in APSE circles as Ed and Herb. Storin won the Berninger Award in 2019.
“We were a team in organizing and directing about 15 conventions,” Storin said. “We were so close that some of the members got us mixed up and often called Herb Ed and me Herb. It was a great relationship.”
Stutz began his newspaper career in 1953 at his hometown Newark News following his discharge from the U.S. Army, and that began a 41-year journey in the business. Along the way, Stutz also worked at the Philadelphia Bulletin, the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch and the Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition.”Herb was a welcoming, friendly, encouraging presence in APSE and quietly efficient in handling the many duties of convention coordinator. He was a good listener whose advice was worth seeking and following,” said Bill Eichenberger, APSE’s executive director. “He made us all better.”
Sullivan joined the Globe in 1994 after stops at the Trenton Times, the Paterson News, the Morristown Daily Record, and Asbury Park Press, where he was the sports editor before moving to the Globe.
He became the newspaper’s sports editor in 2004, months before the Red Sox ended their famed World Series drought. As editor, Sullivan oversaw eight titles among Boston’s four main professional franchises and headed countless projects and special sections.
“I don’t think Joe ever missed a (Northeast) regional meeting, no matter how far away it was,” said Greg Brownell, sports editor of the Glen Falls (N.Y.) Post-Star and a longtime APSE member and former third vice-president. “There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to help the region or an individual member.
“Joe was there to help anyone, anytime. If you were in Boston, his door was open. So many of us are better sports editors, and better journalists, because of Joe.”
Said Eichenberger: “I never quite understood why Joe never chose to run for an APSE national office. It’s probably because he was too busy working for the organization at the regional and local levels. I can’t think of another member whose positive influence on the organization was as widespread.”
The award is named for Jack Berninger, former sports editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch who served as APSE’s executive director for a decade before retiring in 2017.
