The Eastern Athletic Communications Association (EAST-COMM) Executive Board today announced its 2023 award winners.  A total of five individuals were recognized and will be honored at the 2023 EAST-COMM Awards Banquet on the evening of Thursday, June 22 during the organization's annual workshop in Springfield, Mass. at the Sheraton Springfield Monarch Place.  For more information and to register for the workshop, click here.
 
Kevin Primm from Farmingdale State College is this year's recipient of the Bill Esposito Memorial Award.  The 2023 recipient of the Bob Kenworthy Award is Jeff Rubin from SIDEARMS Sports.
 
Bill Morgal of Shippensburg University and Jason Southard of the University of the Virgin Islands are this year's winners of the Irving T. Marsh Award.  Kent Cherrington, the long-time sports information director at Plymouth State University and current Athletics Communications and Operations Coordinator at Babson College, is this year's Pete Nevins Award for Distinguished Achievement winner.
 
The 2023 EAST-COMM Monahan and Wallace Media Award winner is Wayne Norman, the voice of UConn football and men's basketball.
 
2023 Bill Esposito Memorial Award – Kevin Primm (Farmingdale State College)
 
The Bill Esposito Memorial Award is presented each year to a graduating senior that worked in athletic communications and plans to pursue a career in athletics.
 
Primm is currently a senior Sport Management major at Farmingdale State College and is a three-year member of the baseball team. He started working in the sports information office this academic year as an intern for his major.  During his internship, Primm went above and beyond working several different areas within the office as he learned on the fly and quickly adapting to new challenges while willing to jump in when needed. He took on the primary inputting statistical duties for soccer and volleyball and went on to serve the same role for basketball and lacrosse.  Primm is set to graduate in May and has interest in pursuing the field of sports information.
 
2023 Bob Kenworthy Award Winner – Jeff Rubin (SIDEARM SPORTS)
 
Named in honor of long-time Gettysburg College sports information director Bob Kenworthy, the Kenworthy Award is presented to an exceptional person who through their actions shows the same respect for the profession, SID's, the media and community as Bob Kenworthy did during his long and successful career.
 
Rubin is the founder and CEO of SIDEARM Sports, a company he founded in 2001.  In addition, he is a Professor of Practice at Syracuse University's iSchool.  SIDEARM Sports works with over 900 college athletic programs across the United States and Canada from all three divisions. 
 
Rubin also sits on Syracuse University Athletics Director John Wildhack's external affairs committee, is active with the Jim & Juli Boeheim Foundation, and has served on boards within CNY. 
 
2023 Irving T. Marsh Award Winner – Bill Morgal (Shippensburg University)
 
The Irving T. Marsh Service Bureau Award is presented annually to one or two athletic communications professionals who, in the opinion of the membership and the Executive Board, has exhibited excellence in the field of athletic communications.
 
Morgal is in his 15^th year as the sports information director at Shippensburg University and serves as the primary contact for cross country, indoor track & field, swimming and outdoor track & field and is a secondary contact for the remaining Raider sports.  His Shippensburg tenure officially began as the interim sports information director for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 academic years.  The 2022-23 academic year marks Morgal's 19^th year overall at Shippensburg dating back to his start as an undergraduate work-study employee in 2004 and including a stint as a graduate assistant in 2007-08.
 
At Shippensburg, Morgal is a member of the communications & marketing office.  He assists the office with photography and other duties as assigned while also serving as an associate editor of the Shippensburg University Magazine and the committee chair of the Shippensburg University Athletics Hall of Fame. 
 
In June 2014, Morgal received the inaugural Division II Excellence in Communications Award by the USTFCCCA for coverage of the SU track & field teams and work that provided exposure to track & field athletes through the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.  During his tenure as the interim sports information director, Morgal was named the 2009-10 'Raider of the Year' for support of Shippensburg Athletics.
 
Morgal graduated cum laude from Shippensburg in December 2006 with a bachelor's degree in communications/journalism and a concentration in print media while minoring in English and earned his master's degree in communications studies from Shippensburg in May 2010.
 
2023 Irving T. Marsh Award Winner – Jason Southard (University of the Virgin Islands)
 
Southard, a veteran in the field of Athletic Communications, is currently serving as the Interim Sports Information Director at the University of the Virgin Islands for the 2022-23 academic year.  He spent the last 27 years at the United States Coast Guard Academy serving as the Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations since 2018.
 
Southard is a Past President of Eastern College Athletic Conference Sports Information Directors Association (ECAC-SIDA) and has been a part of the media relations staff at several NCAA Championship events including numerous NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Regionals and three NCAA Division I Women's Final Fours as well as the 2008 Major League Baseball All-Star game at Yankee Stadium.
 
Southard has also worked 11 NCAA Division I Men's Final Fours as a member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) convention staff handling public relations for events throughout the week such as the Reese's College All-Star Game and the Allstate/NABC Good Works Team Special Olympics Clinic.  He is a fixture at several Connecticut sports events and just completed his 20^th season as a member of the game day media relations staff for the Connecticut Sun of the WNBA, being with the team since they moved the franchise to Mohegan Sun.
 
2023 Pete Nevins Award for Distinguished Achievement – Kent Cherrington (Babson College)
 
The Pete Nevins Award is a prestigious honor that is not voted on by the executive board each year, but rather is voted on by the former winners of the Nevins Award. It is awarded only in years that the former winners deem a worthy candidate has been nominated.  It was established in honor of longtime East Stroudsburg sports information director Pete Nevins.
 
Cherrington is currently the Athletics Communications and Operations Coordinator at Babson College, a role he has been in since November 2021.  An experienced communications professional with more than three decades of experience, Cherrington came to Babson after serving as the Lasell University Director of Athletics Communications since 2018.
 
Cherrington was the long-time sports information director at Plymouth State University from 1994-2017.  He handled all publicity, statistics, and press releases for the Panthers' 24 Division III programs, assisted with home event management responsibilities, and was the department's Hall of Fame committee chair.  Along with his day-to-day duties, Cherrington was one of the first to create a comprehensive intercollegiate website in 1997, and Plymouth State was one of the first institutions to embrace intercollegiate athletics web streaming in 2010.
 
Cherrington has been a member of CoSIDA since 1984 and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2020.  He also served as ECAC-SIDA President in 2006-07 and was presented with the organization's Irving T. Marsh Award in 2010 for his contributions to the sports information profession. 
 
Monahan and Wallace Media Award – Wayne Norman
 
The Monahan and Wallace Media Award is bestowed upon an individual or organization in either print or electronic media "for outstanding coverage of eastern intercollegiate athletics." The award is named after longtime sportswriters Bob Monahan of the Boston Globe and Bill Wallace of the New York Times, both former winners of the award.
 
Wayne Norman is a staple on the Connecticut airwaves as his daily morning radio program at WILI in Willimantic, Conn. has been on the air since 1971, making him the longest tenured morning show host in Connecticut.  Norman's daily show has a great deal of coverage of college sports, including both UConn and Division III Eastern Connecticut State University.
 
Norman has also been the color analyst for UConn basketball and football broadcasts since 1979 on a network of stations that includes WILI.  He worked with Joe D'Ambrosio to call UConn's 2014, 2011, 2004 and 1999 NCAA Men's Basketball National Championships, and broadcast from the 2009 Final Four in Detroit. He is also the play-by-play voice of WILI's broadcasts of Eastern Connecticut State baseball, winners of four NCAA national championships. 
 
In October 2018, Norman was inducted into the 16-member Connecticut Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame and in January 2020 he was named Connecticut Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sports Media Association.  Norman is also a published author, with the March 2005 release of "Hoop Tales: UConn Huskies Men's Basketball," which tells stories from the last fifty years of Husky Hoops.