This scholarship awards $2,500 to an undergraduate student of Asian American Pacific Islander descent pursuing sports journalism as a career. Applicants will be judged on academic and journalistic achievement, financial need, a strong commitment to a sports journalism career and dedication to AAJA’s mission.
This year’s scholarship will mark the 10th anniversary of the Sports Task Force / Al Young Sports Journalism Scholarship.
- Recipients must be an active AAJA member (join here)
- Applicants must be an undergraduate student enrolled full-time with at least 12 credit units each semester at a junior college or university located in the United States
- Applicants must be of Asian American and/or Pacific Islander descent
- Applicants must be currently taking or planning to take journalism courses and/or pursuing sports journalism as a career
- Applicants must have a minimum 3.0 GPA
- The winner must use the scholarship funds to directly support or advance their education. Potential expenses include tuition, room and board, textbooks or other course equipment or materials. The recipient must follow up with the Sports Task Force within 60 days of receipt of the scholarship to identify how they spent the fund
- The selected scholarship recipient must commit to a minimum of five hours of volunteer work for the AAJA Sports Task Force, preferably before and at the next annual AAJA Convention
- Resume
- School Transcript
- Journalistic work samples
- Contact information for two references
- Essay (up to 1,000 words)
Explain why you want this scholarship, why you want to pursue sports journalism/media and how the financial support of this scholarship would help your long-term career goals. The essay should also address the following questions:
1. What role or responsibility do journalists of color have in a modern press box?
2. What importance does your ethnic or racial identity serve in the way you plan to cover sports as a professional journalist?
3. What makes you stand out from the vast number of other students pursuing sports journalism as a career?
4. What are your strengths and what areas do you still need to improve upon as a journalist?
5. What issues – if any – regarding AAPIs in sports today do you feel need to be addressed?
Al Young is an award-winning journalist who blazed many trails for Asian American sports journalists. Young was the nation’s first Asian American sportswriter at a metro daily newspaper and the first to cover the NFL. He also wrote the first weekly column in the country, focusing on athletes, personalities and trends in women’s sports.
Young’s four-decade long career includes positions as a writer and editor at the Boston Globe, USA Today, the New York Daily News, the New Haven (CT) Register and Bridgeport (CT) Post-Telegram.
In 2010, AAJA named Young an “Asian American Pioneer in U.S. journalism.” He is a past president of AAJA’s Washington, D.C. chapter. Following his retirement from the Boston Globe and newspapers in 2013, he was Advisor to “The QC Voice,” the student newspaper at Quincy (MA) College and taught Journalism at Emerson College in Boston. He remains a freelance writer and a media consultant.
The Asian American Journalists Association’s Sports Task Force is pleased to offer several scholarship and fellowship opportunities for enrolled college students and young professionals to support their pursuit of careers in sports journalism and media. The selected fellowship winners must commit to a minimum of five hours of volunteer work for the AAJA Sports Task Force.
The AAJA Sports Task Force elevates the voices of Asian Americans in sports and encourages future Asian American sports journalists through mentorship and scholarship opportunities.
To join AAJA’s Sports Task Force or to find out more about the group, please check the “Sports Task Force” box when becoming an AAJA member at aaja.org/join.

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