John Dell, Andrew Dye, Ed Hardin, Ethan Joyce and Joe Sirera of the Winston-Salem Journal won first place in the 2021 Associated Press Sports Editors contest in the Division C Event Coverage category for their comprehensive reporting on North Carolina men’s basketball coach Roy Williams’ retirement. Event Coverage is a new category in the APSE contest.
They will be presented a first-place plaque at the 2022 APSE Summer Conference banquet at The Alexander Hotel in Indianapolis on June 18. Click here to register for the conference.
John Reid, Garry Smits and Mark Woods for The Florida Times-Union finished second, and Alex Martin, Dustin Levy, Greg Hardwig and Izubee Charles of The News-Press took third.
Sports editors in Division C submitted 24 entries in Event Coverage.
Contest chair Jorge Rojas and fellow APSE officers Gary Potosky, Naila-Jean Meyers and Ed Reed prepared the entries. The contest is open to APSE members.
In February, judges at the APSE Winter Conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., selected a top 10, with each judge ranking the entries in order from 1 to 10 on a separate ballot. 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 final rankings are determined by tallying the ballots.
The winner in each category will receive a plaque at the summer conference. The second- through 10th-place finishers will receive frameable certificates.
The top 10 is listed below with voting results and links to the winning entries.
1. Winston-Salem Journal – John Dell, Andrew Dye, Ed Hardin, Ethan Joyce and Joe Sirera 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 52 points (2 first-place votes)
2. The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville) – John Reid, Garry Smits and Mark Woods 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 42 points (1 first-place vote)
3. The News-Press (Fort Myers, Fla.) – Alex Martin, Dustin Levy, Greg Hardwig, Izubee Charles 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 39 points (1 first-place vote)
4. Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Miss.) – Nick Suss 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 38 points (1 first-place vote)
5. The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Wash.) – Jim Meehan, John Blanchette, Theo Lawson, Vince Grippi, Justin Reed 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 33 points
6. Pensacola News Journal – Eric J. Wallace 1, 2, 3, 31 points
7. The Beaver County Times (Aliquippa, Pa.) – Parth Upadhyaya 1, 2, 3, 4, 27 points
8. BamaCentral – Christopher Walsh, Joey Blackwell, Tyler Martin 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 25 points
9. The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.) – Joey LoMonaco, Steve DeShazo, Mike Morones, Pete Cihelka, Taft Coghill 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 24 points
10. The Daily Memphian – Geoff Calkins, Steven Johnson, John Varlas 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 19 points (1 first-place vote)
