Other finalists for the month of April in order of how the NSSA voters ranked them included: Matt Kemp (baseball), Kevin Durant (basketball), Claude Giroux (hockey), Josh Hamilton (baseball), Stephen Strasburg (baseball), Jonathan Quick (hockey), Greg Biffle (auto racing), Lee Westwood (golf) and Ai Miyazato (golf).

Bubba Watson’s selection as the Hickok Belt Award winner for April, not only recognizes him as “the best of the best” in professional sports for the month, it also marks another milestone in the return of the award given to the top professional athlete across all sports.  As a monthly recipient Watson becomes the fourth of twelve finalists for the overall annual award, joining previous monthly award winners including Eli Manning, Jeremy Lin, and Lindsey Vonn.  Winners as selected by the NSSA will be announced each month throughout 2012. The overall winner will then be announced in early 2013, as the Hickok Belt Award, the crown jewel of sports, will be presented for the first time in over 36 years.

The Hickok Belt Award was originally presented annually from 1950 – 1976.  Past recipients include a list of the 20^th century’s elite athletes including the likes of Muhammad Ali, Arnold Palmer, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Jim Brown and others that defined their sports. To learn more about the rich history of the Hickok Belt Award and keep up with all the news surrounding the award in 2012, please visit www.HickokBelt.com.

News Media: For more information, contact Larry Kleehammer at 585-944-3996 or via e-mail at larry@hickokbelt.com

Tom Penders

The lineup is set for the NSSA’s Coaches and Media: Relations & Relationships issues forum that will take place on the opening night of NSSA’s 53rd Annual Awards Weekend, June 9th.  Tom Penders, who coached seven college basketball programs, will serve on the panel, along with Ohio State radio play-by-play announcer Paul Keels (2011 Ohio Sportscaster of the Year) , Los Angeles Times sportswriter Chris Dufresne (2011 California Sportswriter of the Year) and Wake Forest University media relations director Steve Shutt.  NSSA National Board member and five-time NSSA Georgia Sportscaster of the Year Wes Durham (Atlanta Falcons’ and Georgia Tech radio play-by-play announcer) will serve as moderator.

Penders served as head coach at Tufts, Columbia, Fordham, Rhode Island, Texas, George Washington and Houston, before retiring after the 2009-2010 season.  His teams won 648 games, including five conference regular season or tournament championships and appeared in 11 NCAA tournaments.  Penders also served as a college basketball analyst for ESPN and Westwood One.

This year’s forum will explore the issues coaches and media face, dealing with each other in an increasingly competitive and ever-changing news environment.

In 2011, the subject was Women in Sports Media.  Panelists were:  Lesley Visser of CBS Sports, Oregon Sportscaster of the Year Katy Brown, Kentucky Sportscaster of the Year Mary Jo Perino and Oklahoman sportswriter Jenni Carlson.

Morgan Fogarty

Morgan Fogarty of FOX Charlotte (WCCB-TV) is the winner of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting Award.  NATA will present Fogarty with a $500 check and also pay her expenses for the 53rd Annual NSSA Awards Weekend in Salisbury, NC, where she will accept her Award on June 10th.

Fogarty’s winning entry detailed concussion treatment in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC) Schools. You can watch it here.

Fogarty co-anchors the Emmy-award winning FOX News @ Ten with Israel Balderas. Unlike most TV news anchors, she and Izzy also contribute daily reports to the newscast, ranging from hard news pieces to human interest stories.

Morgan joined the FOX Charlotte team in February 2005 as the News Anchor for FOX News Rising.  After a year of waking up way too early, she was named weekend co-anchor and weekday reporter for FOX News @ Ten.  Then, she co-hosted FOX News Edge with radio personality Brotha’ Fred for 4 years, the market’s premiere info-tainment TV broadcast.

Before moving to Charlotte, Morgan was a “one man band” reporter at WHAG in Hagerstown, Maryland. That means she shot, wrote and edited her own reports.  She was then promoted to anchor and producer of the noon and 5 PM newscasts. She graduated from Penn State (University Park) with a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism.

Morgan has won numerous awards throughout her career including several from the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas. In 2010, she earned 1st Place for her series called “Pit Bull Problems.”  The same year, she earned 2nd place in the North Carolina TV Reporter of the Year division. In 2009, Morgan won 1st place in the health/medicine division for a story about so-called “Chicken Pox Parties.” Charlotte area viewers also regularly vote her “favorite anchor,” “best TV anchor” and more in local publications.

Even though she was born a Yankee, Morgan considers Charlotte home and can’t imagine leaving. During football season, Morgan spends many Sundays at Bank of America Stadium, cheering on the Carolina Panthers either from the stands or from a live broadcast location.

Morgan is dedicated to animal welfare issues and gives her time to various rescue groups in the Charlotte area. She and her husband share their home with three furkids: Winston and Etta (French bulldogs) and Maddox (a Doberman Pinscher).

Previous winners of the NATA Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting Award are:

2001:    Jim Jeannotte (WMUR-TV)

2002:    Arnie Stapleton (Associated Press)

2003:    Rick Reilly (Sports Illustrated)

2004:    Scott Fowler (Charlotte Observer)

2005:    Karen Crouse (Palm Beach Post)

2006:    Gary Mihoces (USA Today)

2007:    Ron Morris (The State Newspaper)

2008:    Jane Allison Havsy (Daily Record)

2009:    Bill Battle (Washington Missourian)

2010:    Brandon George (Dallas Morning News)

2011:    Brandon George (Dallas Morning News)

2012:    Morgan Fogarty (Fox Charlotte)

About NATA:

The National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) is the professional membership association for certified athletic trainers and others who support the athletic training profession. Founded in 1950, the NATA has grown to more than 30,000 members worldwide today. The majority of certified athletic trainers choose to be members of the NATA – to support their profession, and to receive a broad array of membership benefits.

By joining forces as a group, NATA members can accomplish more for the athletic training profession than they can individually.

The NATA national office currently has more than 40 full-time staff members who work to support NATA’smission.

Here’s the description of the book:  

A Life of Dreams is the first complete biography of Fred McFerrin Russell, one of the all-time stars sports journalism. This biography details how the Vanderbilt man started with the Nashville Banner in the late 1920s, ascended to Sports Editor and remained with this paper loyally for 69 years. He led the daily charge against the better-funded Tennessean, and it was a fierce rivalry for decades until the Banner folded in 1998. Russell’s early success led to a position with the nationally recognized Saturday Evening Post, and from 19491962, he was the annual voice of college football with his immensely popular “Pigskin Preview.” He built long-lasting relationships with coaches, players, and other writers in the business, and Russell wrote with a style that reflected his personality: fair, informative, and always with a sense of humor. He was a storyteller, whether it was athletes such as Bobby Jones or Red Grange; or coaches such as Red Sanders or Paul “Bear” Bryant, one of his closest friends. Outliving almost all of his contemporaries, Russell rubbed elbows with some of the greats of the twentieth century, with men such as Sparky Anderson, George Steinbrenner, Archie Manning, Vince Dooley, and Lou Holtz.One of the unique elements of this biography is the Russell legacy and the connection that exists between Russell’s past and the sportswriters of today and the future. Two years after Grantland Rice died in 1954, Russell helped to organize the Grantland Rice Scholarship, a four-year sportswriting scholarship awarded to an entering freshman at Vanderbilt University.

About the author:  

Andrew Derr is Vanderbilt University’s 1992 recipient of the Fred Russell-Grantland Rice Scholarship for Sports Journalism. He has been a part-time free-lance journalist since graduating in 1996 and he lives in Maryland with his wife of 14 years (Molly) and four children: Michael (14), Hannah (8), Isabella (4) and Lukas (2). His full-time career is with Deloitte Consulting and since 2005, Derr’s labor of love has been completing the first biography of Fred Russell.

By Priyanka Vohra (NSSA Syracuse University student chapter co-president) – 

Bill Roth (Syracuse '87) speaks to students at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications

“I obviously fly for work a lot so I often think to myself, as broadcasters, we can learn a lot from airline pilots,” said Bill Roth, Virginia Tech’s ‘Voice of the Hokies.’

“You know, before every flight, pilots go through a checklist. They make sure their flaps are right, and the fuel level and weight is correct. Well, before we go on the air it’s nice to go through a mental check list of your own to prepare for your broadcast. Reminders to yourself of some things you might want to get done for each broadcast. Maybe it’s talk slower during the game, or develop more story lines, or give the time and score more often.”

“As for your delivery, we can learn from pilots too. It’s all about comforting your audience for a smooth ride. As a passenger, you never would want to hear  a nervous, shaky pilot announce ‘Well, um…folks …um…we’re going to try to make it to Cleveland today’ over the intercom. The same goes for your broadcast. Be confident on the air. Be a comfortable listen.  Be warm and friendly, and make your audience feel comfortable listening to you, just like that guy in the flight deck does before takeoff,” Roth said.

Roth spoke on Thursday April 26 to an audience full of Syracuse students his old professors at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

Syracuse University students listen to presentation by 9-time NSSA Virginia Sportscaster of the Year Bill Roth, at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications

The nine-time NSSA Virginia Sportscaster of the Year winner covered a range of topics pertaining to future broadcasters. He stressed the importance of being egoless and adjusting to an irregular schedule, where holidays and weekends aren’t days off.

“Who likes having free weekends and spending time with family during the holidays?” Roth asked.  “One of the biggest sacrifices we all make is giving up time with our friends and families, and missing weddings or holidays because of a game, or because we are flying to a game.”

“And being egoless is really important. Everyone in this room is smart. You’re in Newhouse so I know you’re smart and talented. You guys are the best. But when you get out of here, and graduate, work really hard, stay humble and leave your ego at the door,” said Roth.

The event was followed by a brief question and answer session where people asked Roth about the personal choices in his career and about how his time at the Newhouse School helped shape his path as a sportscaster. Roth answered by saying that  he’s never had a 9 to 5 job and feels like he’s never actually “worked” a day in his life.

 Roth was raised in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. He studied broadcast journalism at the Newhouse School where he covered SU sports for the campus radio station WAER. After graduating in 1987, he did some work with ESPN covering various sports but soon started working for at Virginia Tech.

The longtime sportscaster closed by emphasizing the sanctity of the Newhouse connection by saying, “We’re proud of Newhouse because of you guys. The better you are, the prouder we are.”

Michael Rosenberg

2010 NSSA Michigan Sportswriter of the Year Michael Rosenberg posted on Facebook earlier that he is leaving the Detroit Free Press to work at Sports Illustrated.  Here’s the post:

“I am leaving the Free Press to be a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. It’s very, very hard to leave all my Freep pals, but the opportunity was too good to pass up. I’ll be writing columns and features for SI, across all platforms. We will continue to live in Michigan.”

Earlier this month, 2011 NSSA National Sportswriter of the Year Joe Posnanski announced he was leaving SI.  Where one NSSA winner leaves, another is there to fill the void.

Jim Nantz, At 2010 NSSA Awards Banquet

Before he became CBS Sports star Jim Nantz, he was local tv sports guy Jim Nantz.  Here’s a story from his days as sports director at Salt Lake City’s KSL-TV, interviewing Utah Jazz players in a Jacuzzi. (Courtesy: KSL-TV)