Adam Cavalier of Montgomery, a spring 2009 graduate of MarshallUniversity's W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and MassCommunications and a four-year member of the WMUL-FM broadcaststaff, received two prestigious national broadcasting awardsrecently.
On June 5, Cavalier won the inaugural Jim Nantz Award as thenation's most outstanding collegiate radio sportscaster. He hadqualified for the Nantz Award when the Sportscasters Talent Agencyof America ranked him as one of the top five outstanding collegiateradio sportscasters in the country.
'The Jim Nantz Award, to me, is recognition for me in a field inwhich I want to be associated for years to come,' Cavalier said ofthe award named in honor of the four-time Sports Broadcaster of theYear from CBS Sports. 'I want to be a play-by-play announcer, andfor those skills to be acknowledged publicly on a national scalemakes me want to do cartwheels.'
On June 6, Cavalier took second place and $4,000 in prize moneyin the National Radio Broadcast News Championship division of theWilliam Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program. Healso won an additional $1,000 award for Best Use of Radio For NewsCoverage in the Hearst Awards. The Hearst Awards are considered bymany to be the college version of the Pulitzer Prize.
'I've been working for the past two years to place this high inHearst,' Cavalier said. 'The award is the culmination of a goal thatstarted a long time ago and is what makes it truly special.'
Other finalists for the Nantz Award were sports broadcasters AdamAmin from Valparaiso, Siddique Farooqi from Hofstra, Joel Godettfrom Syracuse, Jim MacKay from the University of Maine and JustinShackil from Fordham. Each of the finalists has been recognized as a2009 Sports Broadcasting STAA All-American.
'An argument can be made for any of these sports broadcasters tohave won the award,' said STAA CEO Jon Chelesnik. 'What Adam does sowell is to create great drama with his play-by-play. He isn't justdescribing the action. His sportscasting is telling a story. Hiscourt description and verbiage are also excellent. He is ready tohit the sports broadcasting job market running.'
Ryan Epling, a Marshall University graduate student from Wayne,won an honorable mention in the STAA competition.
'These awards demonstrate not only what I can do, but also thequality of student broadcasters that WMUL-FM, the W. Page PittSchool of Journalism and Mass Communications and Marshall Universityproduce,' Cavalier said.
Cavalier is Marshall University's third national placer in theHearst Journalism Awards Program in the past four years. JenniferBaileys, now part of the 'Fox In The Morning' team at WDRB-TV inLouisville, Ky., finished third in the television competition in2006. Paul Gessler, now a reporter and sports anchor at WSAZ,finished second in the television competition in 2007.
Cavalier was in San Francisco working on his assignment for theHearst Awards when he was informed by phone that he had won theNantz Award.
'These two awards get fast tracked to the top of my resume,'Cavalier said. 'Getting both in the same weekend makes it that muchmore overwhelming. This has been a wonderful two-day span that Iwon't forget for a very long time.'
The Hearst Championships are the culmination of the 2008-2009Journalism Awards Program, which may be entered only by studentsenrolled in the 110-member colleges and universities of theAssociation of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication withaccredited undergraduate journalism programs.
From June 2 through June 6, 24 finalists participated in the 49thannual Hearst Championships in San Francisco where they demonstratedtheir writing, photography, radio and television skills in rigorouson-the-spot assignments. The assignments were decided by mediaprofessionals who judged the finalists' work throughout the year andat the championships. The winners were announced at the awardsceremony in San Francisco.
In early May, Cavalier received the Marvin Stone/OutstandingContribution as a College Journalist Award from the W. Page PittSchool of Journalism and Mass Communications at Marshall University.He graduated from Marshall University in May with a perfect 4.0grade point average.
