Awards Dinner Video

Jenkins, Wahl Named 2024 Jenkins Medal Winners

Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins has won the 2024 Jenkins Medal for Best Sportswriting for her profile on tennis legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, "Bitter Rivals. Beloved Friends. Survivors." Grant Wahl has won the 2024 Jenkins Medal for Lifetime Achievement for his body of work at Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports and his independent site Futbol with Grant Wahl.

This is the eighth iteration of the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting. The awards are selected annually by a jury of working sports journalists in honor of the legendary Texas sportswriter and best-selling author, who defined the sportswriter’s craft for a generation. The winners were celebrated with a dinner in their honor on September 4, 2024 at the Headliners Club in Austin.

Sally Jenkins

Jenkins' award-winning article, published on July 3, 2023, offered a deep chronicle on Evert's and Navratilova's overlapping cancer battles in the context of their life-long relationship as elite competitors on the tennis court. In early 2022, Evert was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Later that year Navratilova was diagnosed with throat and breast cancer. The competitors, who had met in 80 matches (60 of them tournament finals) in their days jockeying for position as world Number One, stood firm together against the disease and got a deeper glimpse into the complexity of their relationship.

From CSCM Director Dr. Michael Butterworth:

"With this award, Sally Jenkins becomes the first writer to win both the Lifetime Achievement and Best Sportswriting medals. Her winning feature is something only Jenkins could have captured. It is an intimate portrayal of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, the tennis legends who defined their sport for a generation. Jenkins evokes the depths of the Evert-Navratilova rivalry and friendship in a way that resonates for readers well beyond the tennis court. It is an exceptional accomplishment, clearly deserving of this year's Best Sportswriting medal."

Grant Wahl

Wahl, who died from a ruptured aortic aneurysm on December 10, 2022 at age 49 while in Lusail, Qatar, covering the 2022 FIFA World Cup, is cited for his unparalleled work as an American sportswriter covering soccer, the world's most popular sport. In launching www.grantwahl.com in 2021, Wahl published in-depth magazine-style stories on men’s and women’s soccer in the U.S. and abroad, reporting on-location from the sport’s biggest events, including World Cups and World Cup qualifying. He covered soccer at Sports Illustrated for 25 years and and began working in television in 2012. In all, he covered 11 World Cups—six men’s, five women’s—and wrote two books: The Beckham Experiment (2009), the first soccer book to make the New York Times Best Seller list, and Masters of Modern Soccer (2018), about the craft of soccer position by position.

From Dr. Butterworth:

"It is with bittersweet feelings that we celebrate the career and life of Grant Wahl with the Lifetime Achievement medal. Wahl's sudden passing in 2022 has left a significant void in sports coverage, but the greater losses are the joy and humanity with which he approached his craft. It is fair to say that no one did more to bring the world's most popular sport to readers in the United States, helping to educate and engage a new generation of fans. More importantly, he approached his work with generosity and humility, seeking to include everyone in the conversation and to use sport as a way to better understand the world. Although we lament that his career was cut far too short, we are grateful for his contributions and congratulate his family on this recognition."

The co-chair of the 2024 Jenkins Medal jury is Michael MacCambridge. Members of the Best Sportswriting jury were Kevin Blackistone, Kirk Bohls, Christine Brennan, Bryan Curtis, Melanie Hauser, Peter King, Jackie MacMullen, Kevin Robbins, John A. Walsh and Alexander Wolff. The jury for Lifetime Achievement in Sportswriting was comprised of  Chuck Culpepper, Vahe Gregorian, Michael Hurd, Will Leitch, Elizabeth Merrill, Joe Posnanski, Steve Rushin, Wright Thompson, and Seth Wickersham. Jury co-chair Sally Jenkins, Dan Jenkins' daughter, recused herself from award deliberations this year.