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Blake Baumgartner, ESPN Staff Writer
Wilson Alexander of The Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was named the winner of the 2023 Edward Aschoff Rising Star Award, the Football Writers Association of America announced Monday.
Alexander is the fourth person to win the annual honor named for Aschoff, an ESPN college football reporter who died on Dec. 24, 2019 — his 34th birthday — from Stage 4 non-Hodgkin lymphoma that had spread to his lungs.
“I unfortunately never met Ed, but I always admired his work,” Alexander said in a statement released by the FWAA. “His passion and care for other people came through in his stories, and whenever I saw him on television, there was an obvious joy in his reporting. I feel deeply honored to receive an award named in his honor and follow three winners who I look up to in the industry.”
Alexander joins Sports Illustrated’s Richard Johnson (2022) and The Athletic’s Grace Raynor (2021) and David Ubben (2020) as Aschoff Award winners. Raynor and Ubben cover Clemson and Tennessee, respectively.
Alexander, 27, graduated from Georgia in 2018, holding a Grady Sports Media Program certificate, and began his work as the LSU beat writer at The Advocate a year later.
“I’ve wanted to be in sports media since I watched ‘College GameDay’ for the first time when I was 10 years old,” Alexander said. “It felt natural coming from a family of storytellers, and I took to writing in college.”
Prior to arriving in Baton Rouge, Alexander worked at the Macon Telegraph (2017-18) in Georgia and the Clarion-Ledger (2018-19) in Mississippi. He also served a five-month stint as an editor at the Red and Black Publishing Company, where he led a 30-person staff.
“Later in my career, I am interested in leading a sports media department like the one we had at Georgia,” Alexander said. “I would like to help students break into the profession the way my teachers helped me.”