BELTON, TX --- Temple Daily Telegram Assistant Sports Editor Eric Drennan has been voted 2008 winner of the American Southwest Conference Outstanding Media Service Award for his coverage of University of Mary Hardin-Baylor athletics, the ASC and NCAA Division III.
Drennan was presented with his award, the fifth handed out in the history of the ASC, by UMHB Vice-President for Athletics Ben Shipp at halftime of UMHB’s men’s basketball game against Hardin-Simmons University on Saturday (Jan. 31).
Drennan has covered Mary Hardin-Baylor football since 2004 and all UMHB sports since 2006 and he was honored for his coverage of UMHB and ASC athletics in 2007-08, highlighted by his extensive coverage of the ASC Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament. Other highlights of Drennan’s work over the past year include coverage of UMHB football’s back-to-back trips to the NCAA Division III National Semifinals, men’s basketball team’s first ASC championship and subsequent trip to the NCAA tournament and national tournament appearances by a total of four UMHB athletic programs.
“Eric has done a tremendous job of helping publicize and promote UMHB athletics and increasing local awareness of the ASC as a whole,” Shipp said. “We appreciate his efforts and his coverage and he is truly deserving of this honor.”
Drennan has been with the Temple Daily Telegram for six years and has served as the paper’s Assistant Sports Editor for the last three years. In addition to his UMHB athletic beat, Drennan also provides extensive coverage of local high school sports. He has won Associated Press awards in each of the past two years. Drennan is a graduate of Texas Tech University and also spent six years in Snyder, Texas, where he wrote for the Snyder Daily News and also did radio play-by-play for Snyder High School football, basketball and baseball games. Drennan and his wife, Kristi, have three sons, Alec, Samuel and Eli.
The ASC Outstanding Media Service Award has been presented annually since 2003 to recognize outstanding coverage of a member institution, the conference as a whole and NCAA Division III athletics. The award is voted on by ASC Sports Information Directors. Previous winners include: Charlie Chitwood (Radio/East Texas Baptist University), Al Pickett (Radio-Print/Hardin-Simmons University), Dallas Huston (Radio/Howard Payne University) and Randy Benson (Print/Louisiana College).
-Courtesy University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Sports Information Department