Alabama Sports Writers Association awards

I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet ...

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) -- Christopher Walsh of The Tuscaloosa News received the Alabama Sports Writers Asso-ciation's highest writing award for the first time at the associa-tion's 36th annual convention Sunday in Huntsville.
Walsh, who was presented two awards, won the Herby Kirby Award for his story headlined ``Four Players From Druid High School Were Killed In The Famous Mar-shall Plane Crash In 1970, Por-trayed In The Movie, 'We Are Marshall.''' The story also won first place in the Best Football Feature Without A Deadline category.
The Tuscaloosa News won its first Herby Kirby Award, which is given in memory of longtime Birmingham Post-Herald sports writer Herby Kirby, who died in the press box after covering Notre Dame's 24-23 national football championship win over Ala-bama in the 1973 Sugar Bowl.
Mark Edwards of The Deca-tur Daily won the Bill Shelton Award as the ASWA member of the year. The award is named after the late Cullman Times sports editor.
The Birmingham News won the most awards with eight while the Press-Register of Mobile had four first-place finishes and The Huntsville Times had two. The Mont-gomery Advertiser, Times-Daily of Florence and the Ope-lika-Auburn News each had one first-place finish.
For The Birmingham News, Jon Solomon won three first-place awards including the Best Enterprise Story, Best Baseball Feature and Best General Sports Feature.
A list of winners for the 2006 ASWA writing contest:
Best Sports Story, Writing On A Deadline, Profes-sional Or College Event:
Runner-Up -- Tom Ensey, Montgomery Advertiser: Local Owner Fires Entire Indoor Football Team.
Winner -- Thomas Murphy, Press-Register: Alabama's Ath-letic Director Mal Moore An-nounced The Firing Of Coach Mike Shula.
Best Sports Story, Writing On A Deadline, Prep Or Other Amateur:
Runner-Up -- Bran Strick-land, The Anniston Star: Class 4A Girls Northeast Regional Final, Anniston 52-Saks 49.
Winner -- Mike Herndon, Press-Register: Davidson Stunned Second Ranked Le-Flore 58-56 In The 6A Boys Southwest Regionals.
Best Columnist:
Co-Winners -- Ray Melick, The Birmingham News; Kevin Scarbinsky, The Birmingham News.
Best Football Feature Without A Deadline:
Runner-Up -- Mark McCarter, The Huntsville Times: Special Calling, The Good Times Of Being A Part Of The Southeastern Confer-ence Officiating Crew.
Winner -- Christopher Walsh, The Tuscaloosa News: Four Players From Druid High School Were Killed In The Famous Marshall Plane Crash In 1970, Portrayed In The Movie ``We Are Marshall.''
Best Basketball Feature Without A Deadline:
Runner-Up -- Doug Segrest, The Birmingham News: Uni-versity of Alabama's Jermareo Davidson, A Month After A Car Accident That Claimed The Life Of His Best Friend And How He His Coping With His Own Life And Basketball.
Winner -- Mike Szvetitz, Opelika-Auburn News: Auburn University Head Basketball Coach Jeff Lebo Has A Very Special Relationship With His Father, Dave, Who Is An As-sistant On His Son's Staff. A Special For Father's Day.
Best Baseball Feature Without A Deadline:
Runner-Up -- Doug Segrest, The Birmingham News: Chi-cago White Sox Player Joe Crede's Special Thank You Gift To Coach Chris Cron Of The Birmingham Barons.
Winner -- Jon Solomon, The Birmingham News: Growing Number Of Injuries In Base-ball Pitchers.
Best Track and Field or Cross Country Feature Without A Deadline:
Co-Runner-Up -- Bruce McLellan, The Huntsville Times: Dean Karnazes, Once In A Lifetime Run. Running Marathons In Each State For 50 Consecutive Days For Karno Kids, A Non-Profit Or-ganization Founded By Kar-nazes.
Co-Runner-Up -- Solomon Crenshaw, Jr., The Birming-ham News: Sam Thompson, Running 50 Marathons In 50 States In 50 Days. Wants to Bring Attention To The Con-tinued Plight Of The Hurri-cane Ravaged Gulf Coast Re-gion.
Winner -- Bruce McLellan, The Huntsville Times: Robert Ramos Is Still Running Strong After Suffering A Heart Attack During The Cotton Row Course.
Best Tennis Feature Without A Deadline
Runner-Up -- Mark Edwards, Decatur Daily: Meleana McCutcheon A Young Tennis Ace.
Winner -- Bill Bryant, The Huntsville Times: Getting To The Net, How Five Different Tennis Players Come To Real-ize Their Joy Of Playing.
Best Golf Feature With-out A Deadline:
Runner-Up -- Gareth Clary, Press-Register: Lorena Ochoa Still Hasn't Reached Her Peak After Having Five Wins.
Winner -- Gregg DeWalt, Florence TimesDaily: Finan-cial Issues Facing Public Golf Courses
Best Swimming and Div-ing Feature Without A Deadline:
Runner-Up -- Christopher Walsh, The Tuscaloosa News: ``Laps For Life'' Is A Feature About A 13-Year-Old Swimmer Taking On Cystic Fibrosis.
Winner -- Doug Segrest, The Birmingham News: Diver Jen-nifer Chandler Won The Olympic Gold In 1976.
Best Auto Racing Feature Without A Deadline:
Runner-Up -- Mark McCarter, The Huntsville Times: Bill Lester, First Black Driver In NASCAR Nextel Cup In 20 Years Wants His Pres-ence Felt
Winner -- Mark Inabinett, Press-Register: Talladega Su-per Speedway With Its Need For Speed And The Rules Of Racing.
Best Outdoors Feature Without A Deadline:
Runner-Up -- David Rainer, Press-Register: Baldwin Coun-ties Conservation Enforcement Officers Enforce Illegal Hunt-ing At Night.
Winner -- Mike Bolton, The Birmingham News: A Myste-rious Bird That Eats Fruits And Berries, And Sometime Fermented Berries, Becomes A Falling Down Drunk.
Best General Sports Fea-ture Without A Deadline:
Runner-Up -- Tom Ensey, Montgomery Advertiser: Para-lyzed Troy Softball Player, Tara Blackwell, Not Giving Up.
Winner -- Jon Solomon, The Birmingham News: Parents Are Fighting For Their Home Schooled Children To Be Al-lowed To Play Sports In A Pub-lic School System.
Best Enterprise Story:
Runner-Up -- John Pruett, The Huntsville Times: Race Against Time.
Winner -- Jon Solomon, The Birmingham News: Recruiting Services.
Best Investigative Story:
Runner-Up -- Jon Solomon, Ray Melick and Doug Segrest, The Birmingham News: Sports and Scholastics
Winners -- Josh Moon, Montgomery Advertiser: Ala-bama State's Acadome Direc-tor Accused Of Fraud And Fired.
Headlines (based on four headlines):
Runner-Up -- Mark Heim, Press-Register: Byrd Caged, Prattville Sacks OB Seven Times, Shuts Down Foley; Whetting The Appetite, Four-Hour Rain Delay Gives Specta-tors Only A Taste Of The Mas-ters, But Sets Up Heaping Servings Today; Crimson With Embarrassment; A Matchett Job, St. Paul's Running Back Slice And Dices Parker De-fense For 251 Yards.
--Winner -- Mark Heim, Press-Register: Devils Go Down In Georgia; B-Ruined-Disaster Relief; Clinton Pops Up In Liars Contest -- Who Would Have Guessed It; Ha-waii Doesn't Lei Down For Alabama.
Best Sports Layout:
Runner-Up -- The Anniston Star.
Winner -- The Birmingham News.
Best Supplement or Spe-cial Edition:
Runner-Up -- The Huntsville Times.
Winner -- The Birmingham News.
Sweepstakes Award (Herby Kirby Memorial Award) Best Story From All Categories Above:
Winner -- Christopher Walsh, The Tuscaloosa News.

 

Kudos, obviously, to Walsh. The Marshall story he wrote was truly fantastic ... Good to see so many SportsJournalists.com peeps in there as well, and interesting to see how some SportsJournalists.commers *aren't* in there.

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For an award-winning story, that is a long, boring, awful headline

 

Pretty sure the main hed was "They were Marshall"

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YOU DISSIN RYAN SONNER!?!?!?!?

 

And someone complained that Georgia had a lot of categories. Seems like there were a comparable amount in Bammy ...

 

Is there a link anywhere to Walsh's Marshall story?

 

some good people and good writers honored ...

Anybody know who judged?

And geez, did anything win that wasn't the disease/missing limb/death/overcome-all-odds/readita1000times/cliche of the week story?

 

Here is the link to Walsh's story ...

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061217/NEWS/612170377&SearchID=73283967841032

And it was published Dec. 17, while Walsh and his colleagues were a tad busy distinguishing themselves with their accurate reporting of Alabama's football coaching search.

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Glad to see "Julio" DeWalt and Mike Herndon win. They are two of the good guys in this business and they also work there asses off. I'm surprised Melick and Scarbinsky tied for best columnist, couldn't they have picked one?

 

My God! I wish I would have won something from the category of "Best sports story by a reporter not living in Alabama." Then, maybe someone else could have won for "Best weather-related sports story done by a reporter in one of the states bordering Bama."
Damn that's a lot of categories.

 

A few yes, but I don't think excessive. Look at some of the other state awards.