Applications Now Being Accepted for FWAA’s Volney Meece Award
Orlando _ The application window for the Volney Meece Award is now open, and the Football Writers
Association of America has expanded the groups of college students who are eligible to win it.
The $1,000 multi-year scholarship is given annually by the FWAA to help a deserving college
student defray the cost of a higher education.
This year marks an important transition year for the award. The FWAA is expanding the
eligibility qualifications beyond the ones that were in place for the first 25 years of it. Starting this
year, the FWAA will accept applications from:
FWAA members’ sons and daughters who are in college now, who may not have applied before or may want to re-apply
FWAA student members (not the sons or daughters of FWAA members), who are in college and still are working on
degrees. Example: a freshman or sophomore who has more years left in college and may even be considering graduate school
Children of College Sports Communicators (formerly CoSIDA) who are entering college
or are in their early college years. The CSC members do not have to be current FWAA members.
The FWAA awards the scholarship annually to a deserving student. It is a multi-year
scholarship. For someone to win the award in their senior year of high school, the scholarship is
worth up to $4,000.
Since the scholarship’s creation in 1997, the FWAA has distributed more than $100,000 to
deserving students.
The scholarship is named for the late Volney Meece, who was the FWAA’s President in 1971
and served as its Executive Director for 22 years. He was a well-known and highly regarded
sportswriter and columnist at the Oklahoma City Times and at The Oklahoman. He retired in
1991 and passed away in 1995 at age 70.
For a link to an application, please email FWAA Past President Alan Schmadtke at schmad09@gmail.com. The
application deadline is Dec. 15, 2023. The winner will be announced in January 2024 at the
FWAA’s annual meeting.
Please note that part of the application process is gathering updated high school or college
transcripts, and that process can take a few weeks. In other words, don’t wait until December to
start.