Murray was a Pulitzer Prize-Winning Sports Writer and Trinity Graduate
HARTFORD, Conn. – Denise Poventud ’10, of East Hartford, has been awarded a $5,000 scholarship by the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, established in honor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning sports writer and 1943 Trinity College graduate.
Five winners were selected as the result of a nationwide essay competition. The other students attend the University of Maryland, St. Bonaventure University, the University of Kansas and Arizona State University. Altogether, there were applicants from 28 colleges and universities.
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Denise Poventud ’10 |
Poventud is a creative writing major, who aspires to teach, write, and travel upon graduation. She said she was motivated to enter the competition because her “professors believed in her” and she felt that she “had something to say about journalism.” Her essay focused on how the sports media relates to black athletes. “The media in the world of sports are very powerful,” she said.
Linda McCoy-Murray, president and founder of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, created the scholarship fund to perpetuate her late husband’s memory and his love for and dedication to journalism. The foundation is based in La Quinta, CA. Murray, who died in 1998, began his career at The New Haven Register after graduating from Trinity. After a stint at the now defunct Los Angeles Examiner, he joined Time magazine.
In 1954, Murray helped found Sports Illustrated. Later, he joined The Los Angeles Times, where he won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1990, and won the National Sportswriter of the Year Award an extraordinary 14 times. His body of outstanding work landed him in the writer’s wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. in 1988.
Each Murray Scholar receives a $5,000 journalism scholarship based on student eligibility and a written essay. The 2009 panel of judges included Sam Farmer of The Los Angeles Times; Bob Ford of The Philadelphia Inquirer; Nancy Gay of FanHouse.com NFL, AOL Time Warner; Tom Keegan of The Lawrence Journal World; and Jay Privman of The Daily Racing Form.
Grants from the McCormick Foundation, the St. Louis Rams, NFL Charities, Linda McCoy-Murray, and private donations helped finance this year’s scholarships.
For more information about the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, please visit the JMMF website at: www.jimmurrayfoundation.org or call 760-771-8972.