Many Kudos To Matt Calkins

We certainly aren’t perfect as a Sports section, but we’ve always tried our darnedest to provide our readers with some good writing. Which is what makes this week’s honors for Matt Calkins so rewarding.

Matt cleaned up in the annual Associated Press Sports editors contest, which is the most prestigious of contests for us lowly newspaper sportswriters. Competing in the 30,000-to-75,000 circulation category, Matt took Top 10 honors in the following categories:

— Sports columns, for a variety of selections;

— Beat reporting, for a selection of features and news stories about the Trail Blazers;

— Sports feature, for a story about wheelchair athlete Craig Blanchette and his longtime addiction to pornography;

Many a talented and successful sportswriter goes an entire career without a single Top 10 award from APSE, and Matt picked up three in one week. Awesome!

But it might get even better. The top 10 in each category will be narrowed down to the top five plus honorable mention in the coming weeks. Best of luck to Matt.