Vahe Gregorian of The Kansas City Star won first place in the 2022 Associated Press Sports Editors contest in the Division B Short Feature category for “How Chiefs’ Justin Watson was driven and shaped by older brother Tommy.”
APSE contest winners 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.
Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman finished second, and Andrew Carter of The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C., took third.
Gregorian will receive a plaque. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frameable certificates.
Sports editors in Division B submitted 58 Short Feature entries, which were 1,500 words or less.
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.
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.
- Vahe Gregorian, The Kansas City Star , 49 points (2 first-place votes0
- Jenni Carlson, The Oklahoman, 48 points (2 first-place votes)
- Andrew Carter, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.), 45 points (1 first-place vote)
- Gentry Estes, The Tennessean, 44 points
- Julie Jag, The Salt Lake Tribune, 39 points (1 first-place vote)
- (tie) Charlie Goldsmith, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 25 points
6. (tie) Adam Sparks, Knoxville News Sentinel, 25 points
8. Brooks Holton, Courier Journal (Louisville) 22 points
9. Edward Lee, The Baltimore Sun 17 points
10. Ryan O’Halloran, The Buffalo News 16 points
