Times Sports Section Is Ranked in Top 10 in Sports Editors Contest

The Los Angeles Times sports section was one of only three large-circulation papers to be ranked in the top 10 in the country in all three section categories of the Associated Press Sports Editors national contest.

The Times was listed as one of the country’s 10 best in daily sections, Sunday sections and special sections. The contest does not list specific order of finish for the top 10 papers. The other two papers accorded honors in all three section categories were the Boston Globe and the Dallas Morning News.

The Times’ received its award in the special section category for its July 28th section, “Olympics ‘84, A Year Later.” That section was designed and produced by Jim Rhode, Times sports news and makeup editor.

The APSE contest, which is handled with preliminary judging by sports editors and final judging by a panel of managing editors, divides competition into papers with circulation of under 50,000, between 50,000 and 175,000 and over 175,000.

In addition to its three section awards, The Times’ Kenneth Reich took first place in the large-paper enterprise reporting category for his post-Olympic reporting on the inner workings of the L.A. Olympic Committee. His work on that subject has been made into a recently published book entitled “Making It Happen, Peter Ueberroth and the 1984 Olympics.”

Other Times sportswriters placing in the contest included Randy Harvey, who finished fourth in feature writing for his story on Eddie Sutton, the new Kentucky basketball coach; the reporting team of Sam McManis, Grahame L. Jones, Steve Springer and Mike Littwin, who finished fifth in investigative reporting for their series on Marques Johnson of the Clippers, his drug problems while a member of the Milwaukee Bucks and his trade to the Clippers, and Jim Murray, who received an honorable mention in column writing.