UCCS sports information director recognized

Doug Fitzgerald, sports information director for athletics, recently received seven awards in the 2009-10 Fred S. Stabley Writing Contest sponsored by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

Fitzgerald earned second- and third-place national honors and five district awards.

"I had just figured out how to arrange the stuff on my wall," said Fitzgerald, who switched office spaces in late January. "Maybe I'll just put them in a binder."

The second-place national award was in the event coverage category for a Jan. 30, 2010, story headlined "UCCS grabs first-ever win at Kearney." His third-place national award was in the general feature category for a story about the new Gallogly Events Center that appeared in this past year's basketball game programs.

Both of those stories also took first place in District 7. Also taking first in the district but falling short of a national award was a story in the athlete profile category titled "Where in the World is Scott Sublousky?"

Taking second place in the district in the general feature category was another Fitzgerald entry called "Endangered Species" that outlined the difficulties faced by teams in the lone wolf role under the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference's former scheduling format. He duplicated the 1-2 finish in the event coverage category with "Feilmeier's 3-pointers Reward record Crowd as UCCS Beats Regis in Overtime."

CoSIDA District 7 is composed of all colleges and universities in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Alberta and Saskatchewan that have intercollegiate athletics.

Fitzgerald has earned more than 30 writing awards since being named the sports information director at UCCS in October 2000.

Unlike other contests and competitions in the world of collegiate sports, the Stabley writing contest is not broken down into divisions based on size or funding. Sports information directors and their assistants from NCAA Divisions I, II and II as well as those from NAIA schools and junior colleges compete together.

The annual CoSIDA Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest recognizes members of CoSIDA for excellence in feature writing, historical features, administrator/coach profiles and event coverage writing. Entries are judged on overall writing style, correct use of English, inventiveness, written presentation and the ease with which the reader acquires the information.