Video Interview with Terry Pluto
AUSTINTOWN, Ohio – Terry Pluto of The Plain Dealer/Cleveland.com is the 11th recipient of the Ohio Athletic Conference Bill Nichols Media Award.
The Bill Nichols Award was created to recognize a member of the media or sports information director who has demonstrated an understanding and passion for amateur athletics, while covering the students and programs of NCAA Division III and the Ohio Athletic Conference.
For more than 30 years, Bill Nichols worked at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He served as an adjunct lecturer at Baldwin-Wallace University and John Carroll University, as well as several other institutions.
Pluto is a graduate of Benedictine High School in Cleveland and received a degree in secondary education from Cleveland State University, with a major in Social Studies and a minor in English. Pluto left the Akron Beacon Journal for The Plain Dealer in September 2007. Pluto contributed to the paper becoming a three-time Ohio Associated Press Award winner for Best Daily Sports Section (2007, 2010, 2011). Pluto has garnered honors from the Associated Press Sports Editors as the nation's top sports columnist for medium-sized newspapers. He is a nine-time winner of the Ohio Sports Writer of the Year award and has received more than 50 state and local writing awards.
In 2005 he was inducted into the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame.
Pluto has author of more than 30 books, including The Curse of Rocky Colavito (selected by the New York Times as one of the five notable sports books of 1989), and Loose Balls, which was ranked number 13 on Sports Illustrated's list of the top 100 sports books of all time.
Promoting the Division III institutions in Ohio always remains a priority to Pluto and the Ohio Athletic Conference is honored to recognize him.
OAC Bill Nichols Award
- 2020 - Terry Pluto (Cleveland Plain Dealer /Cleveland.com)
- 2019 - Mark Znidar (Columbus Dispatch/Press Pro Magazine )
- 2018 - Chris Wenzler (John Carroll)
- 2017 - Tom Usher (Lima News)
- 2016 - Ed Syguda (Otterbein)
- 2015 - Harry Paidas (Mount Union)
- 2014 - John Wharff (Marietta)
- 2013 - David Glasier (Lake County News-Herald)
- 2012 - Joe Tait (Mount Union)
- 2011 - Bill Robinson (Marietta Times)
- 2010 - Ron Miller (The Daily Jeffersonian)
