Marshall University Athletics
McGill wins National Sports Media Association award
1/11/2021 4:41:00 PM | General, Big Green Scholarship Foundation
Cotton, Voice of the Thundering Herd, will also be honored at banquet
Jan. 11, 2021
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Chuck McGill, Marshall's Assistant Athletic Director for Fan/Donor Engagement and Communications, has been named the 2020 West Virginia Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association.
This is McGill's eighth consecutive win and ninth overall. He has the second-most Sportswriter of the Year awards in state history, and the longest active streak nationally of any sportscaster or sportswriter.
The 40-year-old McGill has won the state's Sportswriter of the Year award five consecutive times since he was hired by Marshall to create written content for the school's official athletics website, HerdZone.com, and the department's official athletics publication, Thundering Herd Illustrated. Since his hiring in July of 2016, McGill has also added to his responsibilities, including oversight of HerdVision, the athletic department's digital network. HerdVision produces more than 100 live events annually, including home games for football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball, softball, men's soccer, women's soccer and volleyball.
McGill will be honored this June in Winston-Salem, North Carolina – headquarters for NSMA. Also being honored will be Voice of the Thundering Herd Steve Cotton, the 2019 West Virginia Sportscaster of the Year winner, and WSAZ's Keith Morehouse, who took the same honor in 2020. Winners from both 2019 and 2020 will be included in this summer's banquet after the cancellation of the event last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The NSMA will also honor a record seven individuals as Hall of Fame inductees: sportscasters Bill King, Jim Nantz and Dick Stockton, and sportswriters Larry Merchant, William Nack, William C. Rhoden and Rick Telander.
In addition, NSMA members have voted Mike "Doc" Emrick as the 2020 National Sportscaster of the Year, and Nicole Auerbach as the National Sportswriter of the Year. Emrick retired in the fall after calling the Stanley Cup Finals for NBC Sports. Auerbach, who is a national college football writer for The Athletic, is the youngest national award winner at 31 years old.
Cotton has won a state record 14 times. He won his first Sportscaster of the Year award in 1998 when the organization was then known as the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, or NSSA. Morehouse has won the state's top honor six times, which is third-most all-time.
McGill, a state native, returned to West Virginia in 2009 as a sportswriter for the Charleston Daily Mail, primarily covering Marshall football and men's basketball. He then served as the sports editor of the Daily Mail and the Charleston Gazette-Mail until leaving newspapers for a job on Marshall Athletic Director Mike Hamrick's senior staff. McGill has been a finalist for the state's Sportswriter of the Year award 11 consecutive years.
Cotton has been the primary MU athletics radio play-by-play man since 1996, and called his 1,000th game (football and men's basketball) on Jan. 5, 2020. He also took home the state's sportscaster prize in 2001, 2003-06, 2008-10, 2014 and 2016-17.
The NSMA began handing out awards in 1959. The first West Virginia winners were Jack Fleming, who at the time worked for WAJR in Morgantown, and Dick Hudson, the longtime sports editor of the Charleston Daily Mail.
