graphic below courtesy of Diane Nordstrom, University of Wisconsin
Upon the unanimous recommendation of the CoSIDA Special Awards Committee, the CoSIDA Board of Directors approved re-naming the annual Trailblazer Award for its first recipient, Mary Jo Haverbeck.
Haverbeck, who passed away Jan. 6, 2014, was the former associate sports information director at Penn State University from 1974-1999 and a long-time advocate for women sports and women in the profession. The Trailblazer Award is given annually to an individual who is a pioneer in the profession and who has mentored and helped improve the level of ethnic and gender diversity within CoSIDA.
The Trailblazer Award has been given annually since 2001. The 2014 honoree is Edward Hill, Jr. of Howard University.
The special awards committee said in its recommendation, “There has been no greater trailblazer to promote gender equity and diversity in our profession than former Penn State associate sports information director Mary Jo Haverbeck. The tributes that poured in following her death confirmed her national status as a pioneer, visionary, mentor, legend and friend of CoSIDA.”
The committee continued, “Her legacy is in the people, particularly the women in CoSIDA and media profession that she inspired, many of
whom said they never would have entered or stayed in the profession without her counsel. More than that, she could envision a future where women sports were accepted in the same way as men's sports. ‘MJ’ was not just a Penn State icon, she was a national treasure.”
In its recommendation to the board, the special awards committee stated this hope that the Trailblazer award will forever be tied to the legacy Haverbeck left CoSIDA as a person who had high ideals, was a pioneer in the field of sports information, and who has mentored and helped improve the level of ethnic and gender diversity within CoSIDA.
Haverbeck was recognized by her peers many times. Besides the Trailblazer she was the first woman to receive the (CoSIDA) Arch Ward Award and be inducted into the Hall of Fame (1995). She earned the CoSIDA 25-year and Lifetime Achievement Awards, as well as Best in Nation Publishing Awards, Best in Nation Internet Writing Award, Excellence in Broadcasting Award (Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters), and Sports Fans of America Association web site recognition.
On March 18, the Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) announced that Haverbeck is the winner of the 2014 WBCA Mel Greenberg Media Award. Named after Mel Greenberg, the Philadelphia Inquirer sportswriter who founded the Associated Press Top 25 women's basketball poll, the WBCA's Mel Greenberg Media Award is presented annually to a member of the media or a communications professional who has best displayed a commitment to women's basketball. Please see that information
HERE.
The Delaware native was a school teacher, a BBC broadcast journalist in London, a press manager for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and was a member of the NCAA Women’s Final Four Communications Committee from 1992 to 2008. She continued writing for a variety of publications after her retirement, and maintained a resource website, “Cup of Coffee” which had links to national publications and journalists for women’s basketball.
The CoSIDA Board of Directors approved the new title of the award would change to the Mary Jo Haverbeck Trailblazer Award for the 2014 awards ceremony which will take place June 11 at the CoSIDA convention in Orlando, Fla.