The Washington Post won first place in the 2022 Associated Press Sports Editors contest in the Division B Projects category for “Black Out,”a series on the NFL’s failure to equitably promote Black coaches to top jobs.
APSE contest winners and top-10 finishers will be honored at the 2023 APSE Summer Conference banquet at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas on July 12. Click here to register for the conference, which begins on July 9 and will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of APSE.
The New York Times was second for its project on what scares Winter Olympians the most, and Sean D. Hamill of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was third for his article on how Art Rooney Sr. secretly ran one of the city’s largest racket operations.
The Washington Post will receive a plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frameable certificates.
Sports editors from A Division submitted 27 Projects entries, which could include up to 10 articles each.
Contest chair Naila-Jean Meyers and fellow APSE officers Jorge Rojas, Dan Spears and Ed Reed prepared the entries. The contest is open to APSE members. Click here to join.
Contest results: Sections, digital, video | Writing and photography
In February, judges at the APSE Winter Conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., and remote judges around the country selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10. Entries were given 10 points for a first-place vote, nine points for second and so on down to one point for a 10th-place vote. The final 10 were given to a second judging group, which ranked the entries 1-10 in the same fashion.
The top 10 is listed below with voting results and links to the winning entries.
- The Washington Post, Staff: How the NFL blocks Black coaches 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 52 points (3 first-place votes)
- The New York Times, Staff: Winter Olympics fear 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 50 points (1 first-place vote)
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sean D. Hamill: Art Rooney Sr.’s secret life in the rackets 1, 41 points (2 first-place votes)
- The Athletic, Staff. NBA at 75. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 40 points
- The USA Today, Tom Schad, Mike Freeman, Nancy Armour and Staff: Black coaches in the NFL 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 35 points
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis), Staff: Title IX in Minnesota. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 30 points
- The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mike Jensen, Gina Mizell, Olivia Reiner, Jonathan Tannenwald, Maria McIlwain: Title IX in Philadelphia 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 23 points
- ESPN, Heather Dinich, Adam Rittenberg: How helmet decals tell the story of Ohio State and Michigan 1, 22 points
- Los Angeles Times, David Wharton, Mark E. Potts, Kent Nishimura, Li Anne Liew, Alison Sneag: Meet the Savannah Bananas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 21 points
- The Dallas Morning News, Staff: The future of Texas high school Football 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 16 points
