Saturday 1 August the 2015 Sport young writers 'Basil Sellers Award' will be announced at the annual Press Service International young writer conference.
After 25 weeks of markings by a group of five Sport panellists which concluded last Friday 10 July, the points have been sent to statistician John Grocott who is engaged in the tallying process as this article is published.
The Sport Panellists who spent 25 weeks doing the hard yakka of reading their articles deserve the accolades of the awards program which was initiated in 2013.
2013 Sport Basil Sellers Award – Annemarie de Villiers
2014 Sport Basil Sellers Award – Brad Mills, Wesley Tronson, Annemarie de Villiers
The 2015 Panellists for the Sport Basil Sellers Award
Peter Nelson - Canberra
David Burr - Tweed Heads
Simon Farrer - Melbourne
Tim Wilson - Canada
Andrew Bennett - Tweed Heads
Proclivities
The first thing to note are the number of Cycles in these 25 weeks. Each Cycle consists of 5 weeks. Therefore there have been 5 complete Cycles over these 25 weeks, and it represents 5 articles by each Australian young writer.
What needs to be understood in the first instance, is that the only Australian young writers in the hunt for these awards are those who have written five articles. Should any young writer not complete all 5 articles, clearly their points tally will be seriously truncated. There is an old adage that 95% of success is turning up!
Another consideration is what each Panellist proclivities are. Peter Nelson si the chaplain at the Australian Institute of Sport, David Burr is a barrister, Simon Farrer a retired senior government official, Tim Wilson is in the corporate sector and Andrew Bennett is the General Manager Sales of Channel 10 northern NSW and a former NSW Junior Cricketer of the Year.
These five Sport Panellists have their own criteria for allocating their Points but whatever they determine over these 25 weeks provides the 2015 winner. Sport is huge in Australia and New Zealand and this is represented by the Panellists sporting interest.
Who is in the running
Moreover under the Press Service International award rules a young writer must be at the annual conference, as anyone who can't be bothered turning up is not rewarded.
Last year the Points were so close, three of the five were in first place. This year Sport writer Annemarie de Villiers dropped out due to final year studies and New Zealand young writer from Christchurch Tim Newman filled the gap.
The five sport young writers are
Josh Hinds - Gold Coast
Jeremy Dover - Melbourne
Tim Newman - Christchurch NZ
David Goodwin - Melbourne
Wesley Tronson - Gold Coast
Josh Hinds is an experienced international sport writer, Jeremy Dover covers range of sports and not just the big codes, Tim Newman New Zealand sport, David Goodwin tackles cricket and the AFL and Wesley Tronson the EPL soccer from the UK.
These sport articles cover such a breadth of sports – they take one's breath quite away. They have a very good readership and are sought after.
In less than two weeks we'll find out who the Panellists have marked as the 2015 young writer winners.
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html
