Birnbaum, Heagney & Weinrib Awarded Russell-Rice TRA Scholarship

September 11, 2012 - Adam Birnbaum, Nathaniel Heagney and Ben Weinrib will enter the freshman class at Vanderbilt University as the 2012 co-recipients of the 54th Fred Russell-Grantland Rice TRA Scholarship for sports writing, it was announced by the Thoroughbred Racing Associations (TRA) Tuesday.

Birnbaum, a graduate of Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Fla., Heagney, a graduate of St. Louis University High School in St. Louis, Mo. and Weinrib, a graduate of Providence Day School in Charlotte, N.C., were selected from a near record 179 applicants for this year’s scholarship in the amount of $20,000 per year for four years each at Vanderbilt.

Named in honor of two legendary sports writing alumni of Vanderbilt, the scholarship has an extraordinary record of producing prominent and successful writers and television personalities, including Roy Blount, Jr., Bill Livingston, Skip Bayless, John (Joe Bob Briggs) Bloom, David Sheinin, Tyler Kepner, Lee Jenkins, and Daniel Wolken.

Birnbaum was heavily involved in his school’s newspaper, The Circuit, serving as sports editor and editor-in-chief for the online version. In addition to being named first place Sports Columnist in the South Florida Sun Sentinel high school journalism awards, he has worked as a sports writer for Sports Link Magazine and was also Head Coach in the YMCA basketball program.

He has a passion for all aspects of sports and hopes to focus his education on sports management.

Heagney served as the editor and writer for the school publication, The Prep News, along with being the editor of Sisyphus, the school’s literary magazine. He was a National Merit Semifinalist and won “Best Story” at the high school journalism institute at Indiana University. He has also contributed to heardthisblog.com, a Fox Sports basketball recruiting blog.

He will be an Economics major at Vanderbilt and will continue sports writing during his time at Vanderbilt.

Weinrib has written for his school newspaper, The Charger, for three years and served as its sports editor during his junior and senior years. He also served as editor for The Charger and another school publication, Charging Backwards. He started his own blog, The Knuckle Blog, as a freshman and has freelanced for the Charlotte Observer. His most ambitious project is an annual major league baseball preview, started when he was in seventh grade, as a comprehensive analysis of the upcoming season. The most recent issue totaled 105 pages of stats and ratings for the entire league.

He plans on majoring in Economics and/or Psychology and plans to become a sports writer.

The scholarship winners, selected by a panel chaired by Oaklawn Park President Charles J. Cella, have distinguished themselves not just in sports writing and broadcasting, but in other fields as well.

The four-year scholarship is co-sponsored by Vanderbilt University and the TRA and is awarded to an outstanding high school senior with special interest and potential in the field of sports writing. The TRA represents 48 member racing associations conducting Thoroughbred racing at 41 racetracks in North America.

The scholarship honors Vanderbilt alumni Grantland Rice and Fred Russell, two of the greatest sports writers of all time. Initially, the scholarship was created in 1956 to honor Grantland Rice, the dean of American sports writing, who died in 1954. The scholarship received a funding endowment from Mr. Cella on behalf of the TRA in 1986, and its name was amended to include the late Fred Russell, the famed Nashville Banner sports columnist for 69 years and a mentor to many of the scholarship winners.

Prior winners of the scholarship were: