SABR Negro Leagues Committee awards $1,000 scholarships in 2019 essay contest
SABR’s Negro Leagues Research Committee was pleased to award $1,000 scholarships to two high school seniors in its 11th annual Thomas R. Garrett Scholarship essay contest in 2019.
Ian Cohen, a graduate of Wantagh High School in Wantagh, New York, was awarded the Tweed Webb Scholarship. He plans to study Sports Business at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business. He has been playing baseball since the age of 3 and he says he has always been inspired by the Negro Leagues every time he has visited the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. “It’s always hard to do something you love, especially in the spotlight, when you have so much hate coming at you,” he wrote. In high school, he competed on the swimming and diving team and also played JV football.
Joseph Young, a home-school graduate from Clermont, Florida, was awarded the Jimmie Crutchfield Scholarship. He plans to study studio art at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. He says baseball has been an active part of his life ever since his father first took him to a spring training game as a young child. “To be able to research the culturally rich heritage of Jimmie Crutchfield and the Negro Leagues was an honor and a pleasure,” he wrote.
The contest was open to high school seniors and carrying a minimum GPA of 2.5 at the end of their junior year. Students had to write a 1,200-word essay answering a question related to one of the Negro League figures who are the namesakes of the scholarships.
SABR’s annual Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference is the only symposium dedicated exclusively to the examination of black baseball history. Learn more at SABR.org/malloy.
Originally published: October 21, 2019. Last Updated: October 21, 2019.