Blake Sandlin, a journalism major and former editor-in-chief of The Murray State News, won a fifth-place Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker Award for Sports Feature Story of the Year.
The award, which is often regarded as the “Pulitzer Prize” in collegiate journalism, was given out at the National College Media Convention Nov. 2 in Washington D.C.
Sandlin’s story “Making Morant: Ja Morant’s ascent from small town kid to big stage star,” can be read here. The story chronicles Morant’s small town life in Dalzell, South Carolina, the hours spent perfecting his game with his father, Tee, how he would perform Michael Jackson songs to entertain his family at a young age and the story behind how the former Racer was accidentally discovered by a Murray State assistant coach.
Sandlin interviewed several of Ja’s family members and former basketball coaches to be able to write about the personal side of the No. 2 overall NBA draft pick, a side many people don’t often see.
“Ja Morant is arguably one of the best basketball players to ever come out of Murray State, which brought national media attention to our small regional university here in western Kentucky,” Stephanie Anderson,The Murray State News adviser, said. “Blake did an outstanding job capturing the true story of Ja Morant, something many news organizations were unable to do. I am incredibly proud of him and believe he truly deserved to win this award.”
Sandlin is currently working full-time as a sports reporter at WPSD Local 6, the NBC affiliate in Paducah, Kentucky, as well as finishing his journalism degree at Murray State. He will graduate in May 2020.
“It was surreal to see how well my story performed at ACP this year,” Sandlin said. “Reading the other pieces from the nine other finalists, there were some really thorough and compelling feature stories from students at heralded journalism schools, so to be able to represent a smaller school in Murray State gave me a lot of pride.”
With Morant currently playing for the Memphis Grizzlies, just three hours down the road, Sandlin is still able to cover the small-town standout, but this time on the nation’s biggest stage.
