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• Past Recipients: Keith Jackson Eternal Flame | Jake Wade
CoSIDA continues its week-long salute to 2022 Special Awards winner by recognizing two national sports figures with two of its premier annual awards. Patti Phillips, CEO of Women Leaders in College Sports, will receive the Keith Jackson Eternal Flame Award. Multi-Hall of Famer sports journalist and author Dick Weiss will receive the Jake Wade Award (media honor).
The College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) organization continues its weeklong announcement of its 2022 Special Awards Wednesday by recognizing two distinguished award recipients, both national figures in the sports world.
Patti Phillips, Women Leaders in College Sports Chief Executive Officer since 2010 and an industry leader on women’s career advancement and leadership, is the 2022 recipient of the prestigious
Keith Jackson Eternal Flame Award.
The Jackson Award is presented to an individual who has made a lasting contribution to intercollegiate athletics, has demonstrated a long and consistent commitment to excellence, and has been a loyal supporter of CoSIDA and its mission.
Phillips has dedicated her 30-plus year career to coaching, mentoring, and empowering women at all levels across many industries.
Renowned, multi-Hall of Fame sports journalist and author
Dick Weiss is recipient of the
2022 Jake Wade Award (media award). In his five-decade career, the legendary sportswriter and columnist has covered college football and college and professional basketball for the
Philadelphia Daily News and the
New York Daily News. Known by his nickname “Hoops,” he currently writes for Blue Star Media.
The Jake Wade Award has been presented annually since 1958 to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution in the media to intercollegiate athletics.
Throughout her career as a coach, broadcaster and now national association leader, Phillips been a strong advocate for CoSIDA and its members. She also has been a featured speaker at numerous CoSIDA conventions on the topics of leadership, culture and teamwork.
“Patti Phillips is an extraordinary leader and a huge advocate for CoSIDA, aligning with CoSIDA’s mission to enhance the value and leadership potential of our members, particularly of our female professionals,” said CoSIDA President Cindy Potter. “She is so deserving to be recognized with one of our highest honors, the Keith Jackson Eternal Flame Award. We thank her for her unrelenting championing of career advancement opportunities for women in college athletics.”
Under Phillips, Women Leaders has seen triple-digit growth in membership, expanding its membership to include men and women from professional sports leagues and corporations, and this membership includes numerous athletic communications professionals.
“Patti Phillips is someone who values excellence and thrives on helping others achieve it,” noted Doug Vance, CoSIDA Executive Director. “Her consistent optimism and the energy with which she approaches life is contagious for all. She has been a great friend of CoSIDA and we are proud to have her as our 2022 Keith Jackson Eternal Flame Award winner.”
“I am truly honored to be recognized by CoSIDA as the Keith Jackson Eternal Flame Award recipient, and I am humbled to be in the same group as the previous esteemed recipients,” Phillips said. “Like Keith Jackson, my work, and that of Women Leaders in College Sports, is driven by a desire to deliver excellence in all that we do.”
Jake Wade Award recipient Dick Weiss is synonymous with college basketball and football, telling the stories of thousands of players and coaches for nearly five decades.
“In a job that demands long hours, irregular schedules and lots of travel, Dick Weiss stands tall as one of the finest writers/reporters in sports that has ever attacked a keyboard,” noted Vance. “He also qualifies as one of the nicest human beings on the planet. He fits every standard we look for in an award winner.”
Hall of Famer Weiss also has authored 12 books about college athletic personalities and has received recognition and honors for his storytelling from the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, Football Writers Association of America (FWAA), United State Basketball Writers Association (USBWA), Temple University, his alma mater, and the Big East Conference, among a host of other organizations.
“Dick Weiss is a legend in the sportswriting world and has spent over fifty years telling hundreds of stories of college basketball and football players, teams and coaches, while working with just as many athletic communications professionals along the way. CoSIDA is proud to recognize him with the Jake Wade Award,” Potter said.
“I'd like to thank everyone in CoSIDA associated with the Jack Wade Award for their consideration of me for this prestigious, meaningful award,” Weiss stated. “It was a tremendous surprise when I was notified of this honor. I admire the work that the college athletic media relations pros do to make our job easier.”
A closer look at the individuals honored today:
KEITH JACKSON ETERNAL FLAME AWARD
Patti Phillips – Women Leaders in College Sports (Chief Executive Officer)
Patti Phillips has served as the CEO of the Women Leaders in College Sports (formerly known as NACWAA) since 2010.
With her positive, infectious energy and drive inspiring others and a passion for excellence as she works to raise the profile of women in sports, Phillips herself rose to her current position from a small-college basketball coach.
Under her leadership, the Women Leaders organization has undergone a tremendous transformation and is renown as the premier leadership association for women in the sports industry. The Women Leaders programming, institutes, podcasts and convention programming are all focused on cultural shifts and advancement of women in athletics and in the business world.
In addition to triple-digit growth in membership, the association underwent a name change and branding enhancement. During her tenure, the Women Leaders national convention has grown by 250 percent and welcomes authors, national experts and national figures to address the attendees on issues of leadership transformation, diversity, equity and inclusion, motivation, and issues in the workplace.
Phillips also introduced, and leads, the Women Leaders Performance Institute, a leadership development program for all business industries as seen through the lens of sports.
Phillips currently serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Foundation of Greater Kansas City, and as past president for the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. She has a TEDx Talk on the subject of potential, and also hosts the Women Leaders Podcast.
Among her numerous honor and accolades, Phillips is a member of three Hall of Fames. In 2015, she was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame; in 2011, she was enshrined into her alma mater’s Hall of Fame, the Baker University, and her high school hall of fame (O’Hara High School).
In 2020, Phillips was selected as a
Sports Business Journal Game Changer and was named a Kansas City Women Who Mean Business honoree.
She received the NCAA’s Champions of Diversity Award in 2015, and the Petey National Leadership Award in 2017.
Prior to her work at Women Leaders, Phillips served as the Executive Director of WIN for KC (Women Intersport Network for Kansas City) from 1999-2010, She also served as the CHAMPS/Life Skills program coordinator at the NCAA between 1997-1999. She joined the NCAA after a coaching career which saw her and prior to that was the head women’s basketball and volleyball coach at Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas.
Keith Jackson Eternal Flame Award
Presented to an individual who, or an organization which, has made a
lasting contribution to intercollegiate athletics, has demonstrated a long and consistent commitment to excellence and has been a loyal supporter of CoSIDA and its mission.
Voted on by the CoSIDA Board only when worthy candidates are nominated.
JAKE WADE AWARD
Dick Weiss – Blue Star Media
Hall of Fame sportswriter and columnist
Dick Weiss has covered college football and college and professional basketball for the
Philadelphia Daily News, the
New York Daily News and now for Blue Star Media, and has attended and covered 49 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Final Four championships and nearly 40 national football championship games. He also has been a voter in the weekly Associated Press Division I men’s basketball poll for over four decades.
For the last eight years, Weiss has traveled the world reporting and storytelling for Blue Star Media, covering domestic and international basketball competitions involving United State junior and senior teams and works as a freelance sports columnist.
He has also co-written 12 books with the likes of Rick Pitino, John Calipari and Dick Vitale and authored a tribute book on Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.
Weiss has also done work for CNN, the Big Ten Network, the American Conference, Basketball Times, and George Raveling’s Coaching for Success Academy and is a regular guest on sports radio shows across the country.
Among his impressive list of honors, in 1998 Weiss was the youngest recipient of the prestigious Curt Gowdy Award for media excellence, given by the Naismith Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.
Honored with the Bert McGrane Award from the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) and the College Football Hall of Fame, the highest honor given to a college football writer, Weiss is also a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Philadelphia Big 5 Hall of Fame and the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.
A past president of the United States Basketball Writers Association (1994), he was inducted into the USBWA Hall of Fame in 1997. In 2004, he served as the president of the FWAA.
He has also received the BIG EAST Conference media award and the NIT media award, and was hnored with the Jesse Abrahamson award from the Penn Relays and a Journalism Hall of Fame award from his alma mater, Temple University.
Weiss served as a lead college sportswriter for the
Philadelphia Daily News for 20 years (1973-93), writing about college sports and the NBA. Weiss’ true love for the game of basketball began during his days in Philadelphia where he covered Big 5 college hoops at the iconic and historic Palestra Arena. He is credited with coining the phrase “The Palestra: Cathedral of Basketball.”
Weiss then served as the national college columnist for the
New York Daily News for 21 years (1993-2014).
Jake Wade Award
Presented annually to an individual who has made an
outstanding contribution in the media to the field of intercollegiate athletics. Voted on by the Special Awards Committee.
Nominee must be a member of the media.
Honoree information complied by CoSIDA Special Awards Committee Chairman Jeff Hodges (University of North Alabama) and Barb Kowal, CoSIDA Director of Professional Development and External Affairs.