Tyson Alger of Lookout Eugene-Springfield in Oregon won first place in the Division D short feature category of the 2025 Associated Press Sports Editors contest.
Alger’s winning entry took a fresh look at a nearly 100-year-old basketball arena, MacArthur Court, which played host to University of Oregon games before the teams moved into the more modern Matthew Knight Arena in 2011. Alger caught up with one of many grad students who now use the rickety building for office space; UO all-time leading scorer Ron Lee, who remembers all the grueling cardio work he and his teammates did there; and young players who were part of a two-week event that brought high school teams back to the old arena.
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.
Alger will receive a first-place plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frame-worthy certificates.
Sports editors submitted 72 entries in the Division D short feature 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. 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. Tyson Alger, Lookout Eugene-Springfield (5)
2. Lulu Kesin, Greenville News
T3. Shannon Mia Belt, The Daily Advertiser (1)
T3. Kyle Grabowski, MetroWest Daily News
5. Anna Snyder, Fayetteville Observer (N.C.)
T6. Jose Quintero, Victorville Daily Press
T6. Sara Tidwell, Athens Banner-Herald
8. Matt Trowbridge, Rockford Register Star
9. Jane Allison Havsy, Daily Record (Rockaway, N.J.)
10. Wyatt Wheeler, Springfield News-Leader (Mo.)
