Rose to help Enquirer honor top prep athletes, coaches
Enquirer Media is celebrating the spirit of high school sports in Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky through creation of the Greater Cincinnati High School Sports Awards for 2015-16.
Members of the Enquirer All-Star teams chosen for the fall, winter and spring sports seasons will be invited to attend with their families and friends an awards dinner Thursday, June 23, at Duke Energy Convention Center. The speaker will be Pete Rose, the all-time baseball hits leader and longtime Cincinnati Reds star.
Click here for Cincinnati Sports Awards tickets
The reason for the new awards is simple: High school athletics are central to life in our public, private and Catholic schools and in our communities. Whether it be Friday night at the football field or a Tuesday night in the gym for a girls basketball matchup, interscholastic sports promote achievement in our young people and passion among students, parents and alumni.
Cincinnati Enquirer's Athletes of the Week
"High school sports are such an important part of our region and of family life everywhere," Enquirer Editor Peter Bhatia said. "We are thrilled to have the opportunity to bring together and honor athletes and their families from throughout the area. It will be a great night."
As in past years, The Enquirer will publish its popular High School All-Stars sections – one for winter star athletes on May 15 and the spring All-Stars section on July 17.
Fall All-Stars 2015 - Ohio football
The All-Stars are chosen by coaches’ associations and Enquirer staff covering 29 different sports played by boys and girls.
The Greater Cincinnati Sports Awards event will run from 6:30 to 9 p.m. and feature dinner, an awards ceremony and a special one-on-one discussion between nationally acclaimed columnist Paul Daugherty and Reds legend Pete Rose. Rose will enter the Reds Hall of Fame the weekend after the sports awards.
In addition to the many hundreds of Enquirer All-Stars being honored, the Sports Awards ceremony will feature seven top awards. Three of them are annual traditions for The Enquirer – Male and Female Athletes of the Year and Coach of the Year. The new awards will be Heart and Desire, Courage, Best Comeback and Best Moment.
Athletes will get in for free. The cost for their guests will be $50, which includes dinner.
Look for notices in The Enquirer, at Cincinnati.com and on our Facebook pages (Facebook.com/Enquirer and Facebook.com/EnquirerPreps) for more details – and follow our Facebook pages and the Twitter hashtag #cincysportsawards – for a variety of contests and features based on the excitement of high school sports and what they mean for players and fans alike.
Enquirer Media publishes both The Enquirer and Cincinnati.com, presenting the most thorough coverage of boys and girls high school sports in the region. Results and game accounts are posted as quickly as possible at Cincinnati.com, and thorough stories and features published regularly there and in the print Enquirer.
This school year, in conjunction with the upcoming awards, sports editors and reporters began two new features for high school sports fans:
- Athlete of the Week: The journalists covering high school sports choose these each week. Going forward, you’ll see information about the Greater Cincinnati Sports Awards each time we publish new Athletes of the Week.
- Preps 360 weekly video: Our sportswriters chat on video each week about high school sports highlights. Adam Baum, Rick Broering, Nick Robbe and Scott Springer look back at last week's games and take a look ahead to key matchups. See an example here.
The Greater Cincinnati Sports Awards will be promoted between now and June online, in print and especially on social media. Look for info in places such as Facebook, where we’ll foster discussion and conduct reader polls on high school athletes and high school spirit, and also in places such as Snapchat, where we’ll produce stories about top athletes and loyal fans.