Hoosier State Press Association - The Indiana Publisher - Better Newspaper Contest
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/96748
Division 5 Best Sports Event Coverage/Category 11 First place ���It was a great feeling��� Dustin Dopirak, The Herald-Times (Bloomington) Comments: Sports events don���t get much more dramatic than beating the No. 1 team in the nation by one point at the buzzer. This event coverage weaves the back story of the game���s overall significance in with play-by-play drama and personal accounts. The reporter puts the reader inside a rare moment of sports history. Great work. Second place Clean sweep: Yorktown dominates Thomas St. Myer, The Star Press (Muncie) Comments: Emotion best describes the feeling I get from reading this sports event story. The story ties the personal significance of the coach and players��� history in with the game itself. This complete view of the game ticks off the sports event award criteria of enterprise, clarity and thoroughness including reaction quotes, outlook for next year and inside the game numbers. The story makes a reader want to high-five the team. Third place Black Friday Pedro Velazco, Josh Sigler & Tim Bath, Kokomo Tribune Comments: In the seconds after the game, there was a dog pile. The reporter talked to one athlete asking, ���Where were you?��� He said, ���The bottom.��� A second athlete was asked. He said, ���The top ��� last one on, first one off.��� Great job bringing the reader into the after-game emotions of this sports event. Best Sports News or Feature Coverage/ Category 12 First place Tragedy and triumph Nathan Baird, Journal & Courier (Lafayette) Comments: Wasn���t a dry eye in the place when it was read. Great job being a story teller. Second place A bond that can���t be broken Jesse Temple, The Star Press (Muncie) Comments: None given. Third place In Dayton, she���s not just Tony���s mom Sam King, Journal & Courier (Lafayette) Comments: None given. Best Sports Commentary/Category 13 First place Andy Graham, The Herald-Times (Bloomington) Comments: Andy Graham���s writing manages to be informative, entertaining, clear and hard-hitting. His riveting piece on Joe Paterno (still living at the time) and the Penn State scandal (then fresh news) would stand up well beside anything written about the wrenching ordeal any place any time. Second place Jeff Washburn, Journal & Courier (Lafayette) Comments: Jeff Washburn���s columns are enhanced by growing up in the neighborhood and knowing the back alleys and abandoned lots. Crisp reporting is informed by local history to make his point. Let���s face it, most subscribers have been around a while; they appreciate perspective. Third place Nathan Baird, Journal & Courier (Lafayette) Comments: Nathan Baird���s columns tackle the sports pages messy laundry list of competitive-balance issues in high school programs, tosses them in the washer and hangs them in the sun for the readers to judge. The combination of fact and opinion make worthwhile reading. Best Editorial Cartoonist/Category 14 See Page 67 for all divisions. ���It was a great feeling��� Dustin Dopirak The Herald-Times (Bloomington) Within seconds of his picture- perfect, buzzer-beating 3-pointer���s contact with the net on Assembly Hall���s north goal, Christian Watford was swimming in an ocean of human catharsis. The Indiana student section didn���t so much storm the court after the Hoosiers stunned No. 1 Kentucky, 73-72, as swallow it whole. The mayhem built outward from the spot where Watford fell on the floor near the scorer���s table on the west sideline and kept getting bigger until fans covered every single wood panel on Branch McCracken Court at Assembly Hall from end to end. Fans were singing along with the pep band and lifting each other on their shoulders and trying to find players and coaches to whom to express their gratitude. Watford and several of his teammates escaped from beneath the crush of humanity only to bathe in its glow, standing atop the scorer���s table and gesturing to the crowd as if directing some joyful orchestra. ���It was a great feeling,��� Watford said. ���I haven���t felt anything like that. That���s probably the most memorable moment of my life. It���s the biggest shot, definitely, of my career.��� And it was the biggest thing, definitely, that���s happened to Indiana since the program was decimated following Kelvin Sampson���s 2008 recruiting scandal and the subsequent roster purge that left the Hoosiers with just two returning players in coach Tom Crean���s first season. IU fans suffered through seasons of pain and defeat since then, as the Hoosiers didn���t even come close to .500 in any of those seasons and went a combined 28-66. They drained the marrow from any and all brief moments of joy in that time. Last season, the student section somewhat reluctantly rushed the court for a win over an Illinois team that was ranked No. 20 at the time ��� a move that would���ve been considered unthinkable before 2008 but seemed justifiable at the time. On Saturday, they packed Assembly Hall with a capacity crowd of 17,472 hoping not just for an upset and a victory over a hated rival, but proof that Indiana was back. They got the most irrefutable evidence they could hope to receive in the month of December. For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.��� Tragedy and triumph Nathan Baird Journal & Courier (Lafayette) Pinned beneath hundreds of pounds of steel and pressed into the frozen ground by a slab of spinning rubber, Joe Anthrop kept fighting. An otherwise ordinary January afternoon had become, perhaps, his last, after a bizarre chain of events left the West Lafayette man trapped beneath the wheel of his pickup truck. As hours rolled by and his body temperature dropped, Anthrop slowly decided that he perhaps had just one hope for survival. Lying beneath that truck in the same yard where he���d watched his nephews play sports year-round, where he���d pitched them batting practice and hit pop-ups, Joe hoped to soon see his nephew, Daniel. Tomorrow, when Joe watches Danny and his Central Catholic teammates play for a third straight undefeated Class A state championship against Scecina at Lucas Oil Stadium, he���ll do so knowing how close he came to never seeing any of his nephews play again. ���So I���m down there all this time,��� said Joe, who needs a wheelchair, for now, due to the accident, ���and I���m thinking, who���s going to come home first?��� Gerry and Rose Anthrop raised three children on a farm in northern Tippecanoe County. Their oldest, Joe, was born with a lower left leg and right hand that were not fully developed. The artificial leg he began wearing before his third birthday broke several times over the years as Joe participated in the same childhood activities as his siblings and cousins. Even his ���good��� right leg lacked one of the lower bones. Nevertheless, Joe earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in history from Purdue University, became the first physically handicapped person to earn a master���s degree in physical education at Purdue ��� after first being denied admittance because of his disability ��� and spent his career at the post office. And though Joe was born with physical limitations, the athletic gifts displayed in the next generation of the Anthrop family were inherent in him as well. While coaching softball teams at Lyboult Park, he stood at home plate and hit fly balls into a bucket in the outfield. He played some adult softball, and tennis, developed a reputation as a lethal ���horse��� player and For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.��� Indiana���s football history Andy Graham The Herald-Times (Bloomington) Memo to media: For any of you who consider Indiana University football purely a laughing matter, don���t expect Kevin Wilson to laugh along with you. IU football may seem a natural punch line to you, but if Wilson is within earshot, expect a verbal uppercut in return. Dominic Zaccagnini (also known as Zakk Tyler) and Jack Trudeau ��� co-hosts of ���The Zakk and Jack Show,��� a nationally syndicated Fox Sports Radio program based out of WNDE in Indianapolis ��� could attest to that after Thursday morning. It���s legitimate and necessary to ask coaches tough questions. That���s not what happened Thursday, when a pot shot generated a broadside. Wilson was on hold, listening in on the phone, as Zaccagnini and Trudeau introduced their upcoming interview segment with the new Hoosier coach. The Indiana fight song played softly in the background as Trudeau, a former Colts and mid-1980s Illinois quarterback, said this: ���Of course, when I played Indiana, we didn���t hear this song very often. I don���t remember them even scoring against us. Hah! Hah! Hah!��� Uh-oh. The actual segment started this way: Zakk: ���Coach ... How are you doing?��� Wilson: ���Not as well as you guys. You got a lot of jokes going there.��� Zakk: ���Your voice sounds like you been yelling. Are we yelling at the players, already?��� Wilson: ���No, I���ve been yelling at media guys. They don���t have a clue.��� (Uncomfortable laughter from Zakk and Jack.) Jack: ���You���re not referring to us, coach, are you?��� Wilson: ���Well, you know, talking about fight songs, I remember putting 61 (points) on the Illini back when I was at Northwestern. They kind of stunk at the time, too. Anyhow, I���ve got some things to do, guys. What do you guys need?��� Cringe-worthy as those exchanges were, things actually went downhill from there. Wilson was prickly. No question. He could have handled things more deftly, For complete story, see www.hspafoundation.org. Click on ���Contests.��� Page 53