The award is given for contributions to journalism and named for the late Marshall College sports activities info director and broadcaster Gene Morehouse, who died within the 1970 airplane crash that claimed the lives of 75 Marshall soccer gamers, coaches, employees and followers. The award has been given since 1971 with a listing of recipients on the wvswa.org web site.
Antonik will probably be honored on the 78th annual Victory Awards Dinner on Might 4 on the Bridgeport Conference Middle.
“Though I used to be solely two when the Marshall airplane crashed,” Antonik mentioned, “I’m nicely conscious of Gene Morehouse and the significance of the Morehouse title in West Virginia sports activities journalism. I’m additionally a giant admirer of his son Keith’s work in Huntington, so to be related to the Morehouse title in any method or type is past flattering. It is an amazing honor to obtain the Morehouse Award and I’m actually grateful to all those that would take into account me for it.”
A local of New Martinsville, and Magnolia Excessive Faculty graduate, he acquired a BSJ diploma in journalism plus a grasp’s diploma in sport administration from WVU.
He at the moment is answerable for editorial oversight, reporting and have writing for the WVU Division of Intercollegiate Athletics web site, WVUsports.com.
Antonik is a member of the WVU sports activities Corridor of Fame committee and all-time workforce committees for males’s basketball and soccer and is continuously consulted on WVU sports activities historical past. He serves as co-host on the Mountaineer Sports activities Community’s soccer pre- and post-game exhibits and contributed to different dwell broadcasts, together with residence girls’s basketball video games.
Antonik joined the WVU employees in 1991 after working one yr as a graduate assistant and two years as a scholar assistant within the Sports activities Communications Workplace. From 1991-98, Antonik served as affiliate sports activities info director, serving to coordinate the publicity efforts for WVU’s 19 varsity sports activities, in addition to working with the Mountaineer soccer and males’s basketball packages. He earned a number of CoSida writing citations throughout his tenure as affiliate sports activities info director, together with a “Finest within the Nation” award for his work on the 1992 girls’s basketball media information. Along with publicity duties, he additionally directed WVU’s neighborhood relations program.
In 1999, he turned Director of Digital Media with the duty of selling WVU’s 17 intercollegiate sports activities by the world broad net. Antonik was concerned in all sides of the division’s net providers program, together with editorial oversight, web site design and content material improvement.
He has authored 4 books on Mountaineer sports activities: West Virginia College Soccer Vault, The Historical past of the Mountaineers; Roll Out the Carpet. 101 Seasons of WVU Basketball; The Yard Brawl on the WVU-Pitt soccer rivalry, which was a 2012 Foreword Ebook of the Yr finalist within the sports activities class; and his most up-to-date effort, Saturday Snapshots: West Virginia College Soccer, printed in 2015.
In 2008, he acquired the “Lifetime Achievement Award” from Magnolia Excessive Faculty. and in 2010, he was the recipient of the Paul B. (Buck) Martin, introduced by the WVU Alumni Affiliation to a person who has helped to protect and preserve WVU’s traditions.
He is a previous member of CoSida, the W. Va. Sports activities Writers Affiliation and Nationwide Collegiate Baseball Writers Affiliation.
A resident of Morgantown, he and spouse Melinda have two kids, daughter Sydney and son Jack.
