(Each image below is clickable to see it full sized.)
Embedded Files
Intro image ahead of announcing the winners of the 2023 James Collins Scholar-Athlete Award.
One of the WPIAL’s longest active initiatives is its scholarship program, which began in 1992 as a way to recognize exceptional graduating student-athletes within the league. Named in honor of longtime WPIAL administrator James Collins after his death in 2016, the WPIAL James Collins Scholar-Athlete Award is given to 20 student-athletes (10 male, 10 female) each year, with each recipient receiving a $1,000 scholarship for their postgraduate studies. My responsibilities were to oversee the process with the voting committee, promote the initiative internally during the nomination period, and recognize the award winners.
After a first-year applicant total of 142 in 2022, I sought to modernize the nomination process and recognize all nominees – not just the winners – in hopes of getting more member schools to participate. Since its inception, the nomination process had been one that forced schools to email forms directly or send them in the mail to the league office, which would then be followed with a forward of those materials to the voting committee. The award recipients would be announced with a simple PDF posted on the league website, along with the total number of nominees for that year.
Intro image ahead of announcing the nominees of the 2025 James Collins Scholar-Athlete Award.
Screenshot of the first page of the 2025 James Collins Scholar-Athlete Award nomination form.
To simplify the nomination process, I created a Google Form with all information transferred from the previous forms and included attachment spaces for where it called for them, and an automated email response sent to myself, the committee, and the email address that submitted the nomination. To recognize all the nominees, I first created an alphabetical list of every nominee, their school, and the sports they played and added it to the press release announcement, then the next year I gave the nominees their own announcement a day earlier with the same list information posted on the WPIAL social media platforms, and most recently in 2025, I created individual graphics for each nominee, posted them on the WPIAL platforms, and distributed them to the schools to share on their end.
During the four years I oversaw the WPIAL James Collins Scholar-Athlete Award program, there was a total of 608 student-athletes nominated, with the 2023 total of 162 serving as a 21-year high and the program’s second most nominees since at least 2000. The four-year total of 608 from 2022 to 2025 is the most applicants the program has had over four consecutive years.
Examples of social media graphics recognizing the winners and nominees of the 2025 James Collins Scholar-Athlete Award. This was the first year that all nominees received their own individual graphic.
Examples of social media graphics recognizing the winners of the 2023 and 2024 James Collins Scholar-Athlete Award.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse