Marshall University Athletics
WMUL's Adam Cavalier Wins Jim Nantz Award as Top Collegiate Radio Sportscaster
6/9/2009 12:00:00 AM | General
June 9, 2009
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. - Adam Cavalier of Montgomery, W.Va., a spring 2009 graduate of Marshall University's W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications and a four-year member of the WMUL-FM broadcast staff, received two prestigious national broadcasting awards this past weekend.
On Friday, June 5, Cavalier won the inaugural Jim Nantz Award as the nation's most outstanding collegiate radio sportscaster. He had qualified for the Nantz Award when the Sportscasters Talent Agency of America (STAA) ranked him as one of the top five outstanding collegiate radio sportscasters in the country.
"The Jim Nantz Award, to me, is recognition for me in a field in which I want to be associated for years to come," Cavalier said of the award named in honor of the four-time Sports Broadcaster of the Year from CBS Sports. "I want to be a play-by-play announcer, and for those skills to be acknowledged publicly on a national scale makes me want to do cartwheels."
On Saturday, June 6, Cavalier took second place and $4,000 in prize money in the National Radio Broadcast News Championship division of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program. He also won an additional $1,000 award for Best Use of Radio For News Coverage in the Hearst Awards. The Hearst Awards are considered by many to be the college version of the Pulitzer Prize.
"I've been working for the past two years to place this high in Hearst," Cavalier said. "The award is the culmination of a goal that started a long time ago and is what makes it truly special."
Other finalists for the Nantz Award were sports broadcasters Adam Amin from Valparaiso, Siddique Farooqi from Hofstra, Joel Godett from Syracuse, Jim MacKay from the University of Maine and Justin Shackil from Fordham. Each of the finalists has been recognized as a 2009 Sports Broadcasting STAA All-American.
"An argument can be made for any of these sports broadcasters to have won the award," said STAA CEO Jon Chelesnik. "What Adam does so well is to create great drama with his play-by-play. He isn't just describing the action. His sportscasting is telling a story. His court description and verbiage are also excellent. He is ready to hit the sports broadcasting job market running."
Ryan Epling, a Marshall University graduate student from Wayne, won an honorable mention in the STAA competition.
Both Cavalier and Epling have served on broadcast crews for many of Marshall University's athletic events in recent years. The Marshall University Department of Athletics has a strong relationship with the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Marshall has one of only a few athletic departments in the country that allows their student radio station to broadcast live play-by-play of all sporting events including football and men's basketball games.
"These awards demonstrate not only what I can do, but also the quality of student broadcasters that WMUL-FM, the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications and Marshall University produce," Cavalier said.
Cavalier is Marshall University's third national placer in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program in the past four years. Jennifer Baileys, now part of the "Fox In The Morning" team at WDRB-TV in Louisville, finished third in the television competition in 2006. 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 the Hearst Awards when he was informed by phone that he had won the Nantz Award.
"These two awards get fast tracked to the top of my resume," Cavalier said. "Getting both in the same weekend makes it that much more overwhelming. This has been a wonderful two-day span that I won't forget for a very long time."
The Hearst Championships are the culmination of the 2008-2009 Journalism Awards Program, which may be entered only by students enrolled in the 110 member colleges and universities of the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication with accredited undergraduate journalism programs.
From June 2 through 6, 24 finalists participated in the 49th annual Hearst Championships in San Francisco where they demonstrated their writing, photography, radio and television skills in rigorous on-the-spot assignments. The assignments were decided by media professionals who judged the finalists' work throughout the year and at the Championships. The winners were announced at the awards ceremony in San Francisco.
In early May, Cavalier received the Marvin Stone/Outstanding Contribution as a College Journalist Award from the W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Marshall University. He graduated from Marshall University in May with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
