Joel Bulkley
End of the year awards honored broadcasters and sports writers.
North Carolina Sportscaster of the Year was Mike Maniscalco, Carolina Hurricane play-by-play voice on FanDuel Sports. Canes hockey analyst Skipp Tracy shared the honor in 2024 with Anish Shroff of Carolina Panthers radio.
N.C. Sportswriter of the Year was Aaron Beard of the Associated Press, Raleigh. Luke DeCock of the N&O won in 2024 and Brendan Marks of the Athletic in 2023. Marks, who covered North Carolina, Duke and ACC hoops for the New York Times, now is a national college basketball writer for the paper.
Nationally, Sportswriter of the Year was Ross Dellinger of Yahoo Sports. Ken Rosenthal, baseball writer for The Athletic, won in 2024. Sportscaster 2025 honoree was Sean McDonough, ESPN/ABC football play-by-play. Ian Eagle of CBS won the previous year.
The Woody Durham Voice of College Sports award winner was Ray Goss of Duquesne.
The awards were made by the National Sports Media Association (NSMA) of Winston-Salem after voting by members, and will be presented next summer in Greensboro..
UNC sports statistician and history teacher Fred Kieger of Chapel Hill was awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of the state’s highest honors, by the governor.
“We’re #1,” the ESPN docu on the 1993 Tar Heel national men’s basketball championship and Dean Smith’s first debuted on the ACC Network after the UNC/Wake game. Highlights included home video shot by the late Eric Montross. I missed it due to game conflicts but hope it will be repeated soon and often.
Carolina Sportsman, a monthly mag from Alabama, shifted to digital-only last year. Now it has a digital cousin called Carolina Fish & Hunt. The same writers are in both, but it’s mostly pictures.
Can’t say that I’m not enjoying watching the SEC squirm about their poor football bowl and playoff records this season. Led by the unexpected Miami success, the ACC is much improved. And ACC men’s hoops also are moving up with five teams (Duke, UNC, SMU, Louisville, Virginia) in the top 25 to start the new year. ACC women haven’t been as fortunate.
If you’re thinking of heading to baseball spring training, keep the dates of the World Baseball Classic (March 3-17 in Florida) in mind. Regular season starts 3/31.
Here’s a surprise. The NFL dominated the top 100 TV audiences for 2025. The highest non-NFL shows included joint address to Congress (8), World Series Game 7 (25), Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade (30). The Super Bowl topped the list.
Former ESPN Sports Center anchor Elle Duncan is the first sports anchor at Netflix.
WRAL’s docu “Coaching Carolina: The Belichick Way” added little. UNC folks didn’t talk to them so it’s another series that adds no new football information. An explanation about why the Transfer Portal players were a bust might have been helpful.
If you use regular mail to pay your bills, be aware that USPS now says they will no longer postmark letters when they first arrive at a regional center. With this new policy (effective Dec. 24) you would likely be subject to late fees for time sensitive payments that arrive late even though they were mailed on time. For many years postmarks were considered a quasi-legal time stamp. Postage now costs 78 cents for a letter or card.
Credit to Carolina Panther fans for being loud and proud at BOA Stadium for the NFL wildcard game in Charlotte.