Kenny Jacoby, Jim Sergent, Jennifer Borresen, Ramon Padilla and Alberto Cuadra of USA TODAY Sports won first place in the Division A projects category of the 2025 Associated Press Sports Editors contest.
USA TODAY Sports’ winning entry was for a series of stories that explained how the Dallas Stars not only became intimately involved in running youth hockey in North Texas; they spent decades turning what was once seen as a community good into a lucrative arm of their for-profit enterprise.
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.
USA TODAY Sports will receive a first-place plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frame-worthy certificates.
Sports editors submitted 20 entries in the Division A projects category. Each entry was permitted to contain up to five pieces, along with supplementary optional content for judges to consider. 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, reading 90 total pieces in the category, in addition to supplemental material. 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. Kenny Jacoby, Jim Sergent, Jennifer Borresen, Ramon Padilla, Alberto Cuadra, USA TODAY Sports (2) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
2. Carson Kessler, Gabby Herzig, Nathan Fenno, Charlie Eccleshare, Alex Andrejev; The Athletic (1) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
3. Steve Politi, Patrick Lanni; NJ Advance Media (Newark) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
4. Jeff Seidel, Ryan Garza, Brian Kauffman, Brian McNamara; Detroit Free Press 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
5. Paula Lavigne, Mark Fainaru-Wada, Shwetha Surendran, Liz Merrill; ESPN.com (3) 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
6. Lochlahn March, Alex Coffey, Matt Breen, Mike Sielski, Scott Lauber; The Philadelphia Inquirer 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
7. Bailey Johnson, Barry Svrluga, William Neff, Peter W. Stevenson, Brianna Schroer; The Washington Post 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
8. Gordon Wittenmyer, Jason Williams and Jeff Suess; The Cincinnati Enquirer 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
T9. Staff, The Denver Post 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
T9. Chip Scoggins, Jim Paulsen, MaryJo Webster, The Minnesota Star Tribune 1 | 2 | 3
