EAST STROUDSBURG - Kent Cherrington, the current Athletics Communications and Operations Coordinator at Babson College, received the Pete Nevins Award for Distinguished Achievement at the 2023 Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference-Sports Information Directors (ECAC-SIDA) Workshop on Thursday evening.
The award honors the memory of Pete Nevins, East Stroudsburg University's sports information director for 33 years (1969-2002), who passed away in January 2007, and is presented to an individual in recognition of their advancement of the field of athletic communications and advocacy for intercollegiate athletics.
"I am extremely honored to receive the Pete Nevins Award from my peers," said Cherrington. "To see the names of people before me who have received this prestigious award from an organization that means so much to me, and now to join that group, I am very humbled."
"I think I am among a dwindling number of people in this profession who used to know Pete or ever hear him speak. I remember that whenever Pete was speaking, you wanted to listen. One of the legends in what was then known as Sports Information, he always had so much great advice for his colleagues. Pete was a big proponent for trying to have a work-life balance, which still applies today. He liked to share the story that he made sure to be home every night for dinner, even if he had to return to the office after the meal (Note: he worked in an era before laptops made working from home an option)."
"He was the kind of guy you never forget after you meet him and listen to him speak. Pete passed away during my tenure as president of ECAC-SIDA in 2007, and the board felt strongly that Pete had made such an impact on our profession that the Pete Nevins Award was established."
Cherrington is the 16th recipient of the award, following Rick Leddy of the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), who was honored in 2022.
He is a past president of EAST-COMM/ECAC-SIDA (2006-07) and is the recipient of the 2010 Irving T. Marsh Award. A 2020 inductee into the College Sports Communicators/CoSIDA Hall of Fame, Cherrington got his start in sports information at the University of New Hampshire as an undergraduate, where he was a member of the Wildcats swimming and diving program. From there he was named assistant SID at Miami (Ohio) University in 1984.
Cherrington returned to the Granite State in 1994 to begin a 23-year stint as the sports information Director at Plymouth State. In 2018 he was named Director of Athletic Communications at Lasell University, and in November 2021 moved into his current role at Babson.
Nevins, who was inducted into the ESU Athletic Hall of Fame in October 2007, was decorated with every major award from CoSIDA and ECAC-SIDA during his illustrious career.
The other award recipients at Wednesday's virtual workshop were Kevin Primm, Farmingdale State (Bill Esposito Memorial Award), Wayne Norman, UConn-WILI (Monahan and Wallace Media Award), Jeff Rubin, LEARFIELD/SIDEARM Sports (Bob Kenworthy Award), Bill Morgal, Shippensburg (Irving T. Marsh University Award), and Jason Southard, University of the Virgin Islands (Irving T. Marsh College Award).
He was the second-ever recipient of the Warren Berg Award as the nation's outstanding college division SID, earned the Irving T. Marsh Award in 1986, and was inducted to the CoSIDA Hall of Fame the following year. He also received the Bob Kenworthy Good Person Award from ECAC-SIDA in 2006, which honors a person who shows an exceptional amount of respect for the profession, their fellow SID's, the media and the community.
Nevins was the SID at the University of Bridgeport from 1963-69 and was a sportswriter at the Bridgeport Post-Telegram in Connecticut before coming to East Stroudsburg. He was the beloved husband of Gail Nevins.
