Athletics

Student sports journalist earns scholarship in national contest

Junior Garrett Ross was one of six students nationally selected as a 2015 Murray Scholar. Credit: Trey Miller / Penn State. Creative Commons

For the fifth time since 2007, a Penn State sports journalism student has earned a $5,000 scholarship in a competition conducted by the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation.

Junior Garrett Ross was one of six students from around the country to be named a 2015 Murray Scholar after representatives from 31 colleges and universities provided a submission. The story had to fit guidelines and a follow prompt, which was to write about a figure in their school’s sports history who was an “unsung hero.”

Ross argued in his piece that former Penn State athletic director Dave Joyner, who was tasked with replacing the legendary Joe Paterno, did a great job with hiring Bill O’Brien and then James Franklin to lead the football program.

This summer, Ross was named the managing editor of The Daily Collegian, the student-run campus newspaper, and will hold that position until the end of the 2015-16 academic year. Prior to that, he served as a sports staff writer for men’s volleyball, women’s volleyball, men’s basketball and football, while also serving as copy desk chief of the Collegian in the spring of 2015.

“This award means the world, it really does,” said Ross. “Obviously, to be associated with Jim Murray, a phenomenal sports writer in the industry, but also to be associated with Josh Moyer and Emily Kaplan and all of the other Penn State winners -- those are some people that I have looked up to in my young writing career here at Penn State. To be mentioned in those names is quite an honor. What I told my parents, the scholarship money is fantastic and much appreciated, but to be recognized for my writing is just as good.”

Moyer, who became Penn State's first Murray Scholar in 2007, works as the Penn State football beat writer for ESPN. Mark Viera, a 2008 selection, has worked at The Washington Post and The New York Times, and is an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. Shane McGregor, a 2011 winner, was a member of the football team and earned degrees in journalism and English. He is a freelance writer. Emily Kaplan, a 2012 winner, is a staff writer for Sports Illustrated’s “The MMQB.”

“We’re thrilled that Garrett has become Penn State’s fifth Murray Scholar,” said John Affleck, the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society and director of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism, housed in the College of Communications. “I am, however, not surprised. Garrett’s topic was both provocative and thoughtfully laid out. It was a good example of the kind of work he can do, and we are very proud of him.”

The submissions were reviewed by a national panel of judges that included Seth Davis, Sports Illustrated, SI.com and CBS College Basketball Analyst; Johnette Howard, columnist at ESPN.com and ESPNNewYork.com; Jim McCabe, senior writer at Golfweek; Bill Plaschke, sports columnist, Los Angeles Times; and Charean Williams, sports writer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Scholarship winners will be honored at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, California, on Oct. 24. There, the foundation will also recognize ESPN.com’s J.A. Adande with the Sports Journalist of the Year Award; L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge with the John Murray Memorial Foundation Ambassadors Award; and Triple Crown-winning jockey Victor Espinoza with the Athlete of the Year Award. It will also present the Great Ones Award, with the honoree to be announced.

The foundation was established in 1999 to perpetuate the legacy of Murray, the late sports columnist for The Los Angeles Times from 1961 until his death in 1998. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1990. Murray received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for meritorious contributions to baseball writing in 1987. He was named "America's Best Sportswriter" by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association 14 times, and went into the association's Hall of Fame in 1978.

Murray graduated from Trinity College Hartford, Connecticut, in 1943. He worked for several newspapers and was one of the founders of Sports Illustrated.

Penn State was added to the foundation’s scholarship program in 2006. The Curley Center -- established in 2003 as the first academic endeavor of its kind in U.S. higher education -- explores issues and trends in sports journalism through instruction, outreach, programming and research. The center was named in 2006 for John Curley, the retired president, CEO and chairman of the Gannett Co. Inc. and the first editor of USA Today. Curley also served as a founding co-director of the center.

Last Updated June 2, 2021