Rob Young
SPORTS WRITING NON-DEADLINE
Greenville Daily Reflector

The generation of writers before Rob Young reported on a sports world that was almost universally male. Theirs was an era of sports-page chauvinism that is doomed.

In his Best of Cox-winning article, Rob Young profiled a middle school student who was the only girl on the football team. She was benefiting from the competition and personal growth that youth sports afford, the same as the boys.

Young's feature had an eye-catching lead:

"The term 'lineman' became obsolete at E.B. Aycock Middle School this year."

Young ended by saying that Rachel Bish probably would forgo more football when she moved up to high school. Was that still her intention?

"We'll find out this fall," Young said. "I think she plans to swim competitively, but not play football."

How have women's sports changed coverage in sports departments?

"A lot," Young said. "Even at the community college I cover, where there is a successful baseball program, they also have women's volleyball and their next sport will be women's softball."

The Greenville Daily Reflector has made a big impact in the Best of Cox since the newspaper group expanded its publishing empire into East Carolina five years ago. One big area of impact has been in Sports. The Daily Reflector has won four Best of Cox awards in that circulation-building field. They've gone to Jason O. Boyd, Mike Grizzard, Alan Wooten and now Rob Young.

"Rob approaches sports the way a good feature writer approaches a topic, with a good eye for detail and a flair for the unusual," said Al Clark, executive editor of the Daily Reflector.

"He also loves to write."