Chris Easterling honored for Competitive Balance in Ohio series

Award-winning Massillon Independent sports editor Chris Easterling continues to add to his list of accolades

Easterling recently won a first-place in the Ohio Associated Press Media Editors contest for stories written in 2021. He earned his win in Best Sports Enterprise of Division I for his “Competitive Balance in Ohio” series, which published last summer.

A judge wrote about Eaterling’s series: “This is an important issue to explore. This is absolutely everything a sports enterprise should be: a great umbrella idea, broken down into smaller stories and then well-researched and well-written. This hits all of those notes and does a great job exploring all angles of the issue to really give readers an in-depth look at the issue.”

For links to the full series, scroll below.

Easterling’s “Competitive Balance in Ohio” series also is finalist for the 2021 Best of Gannett awards in Best Sports Writing in Division IV. The winners of those awards will be announced Thursday, April 21.

Easterling began writing for the Independent in 1994 and has been its sports editor since June 2006. He is one of the lead high school sports writers in Northern Ohio for the USA TODAY Network, leading our coverage in football, wrestling and recruiting. He also takes a lead role in stories regarding OHSAA issues and how they impact our area, such as the series on competitive balance and a recent story on the upcoming OHSAA NIL referendum.

Chris Easterling’s “Competitive Balance in Ohio” series

Part 1:Competitive balance in Ohio high school sports: ‘Unfair advantages,’ the quest to find an answer

Part 2:Competitive balance in Ohio sports: How private schools attract athletes to their programs

Part 3:Competitive balance in Ohio sports: Open enrollment and whether the grass is greener elsewhere

Part 4:Competitive balance in Ohio sports: Recruiting, the ‘trigger word’ of high school athletics