2011 Virgil Sweet Awards

DISTRICT I

            Mark Smith, Crown Point

            Mark Smith has covered high school sports in Northwest Indiana for the past 25 years, including the past nine years for USA-365.com and for the Crown Point Star from 1995-2011.

Smith worked for the Prep Report television show from 1986-98. He also was a writer for the Chicago Heights Star for nine years and has worked for the WWJY Scoreboard Show and U.S. Cable games of the week.

Smith is well known to Region sports fans as a call-in sports talk program host of “Speaking of Sports” on the former WWJY in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  He has also co-hosted “The Prep Football Report” and “Roundball Review” for many years on WYIN-Channel 56. Known for his insightful analysis and observations of the finer points of the game, Smith brings the listener straight to the action, describing the often fast-paced action of high school basketball in Northwest Indiana.

DISTRICT II

            Mike Beas, Carmel

            Mike Beas has covered Indiana high school sports for more than a quarter of a century.

            A native a Kokomo and a 1980 graduate of Northwestern High School, Beas attended Ball State University and has been a full-time freelance writer for a variety of publications for the past three years, including a Senior Feature Writer for VYPE High School Sports Magazine.

            Beas began his career in 1984 and joined the staff of The Indianapolis Star in 1985. During 14 years with The Star, he covered numerous basketball events, including the 1990 boys basketball State Finals when a national record crowd of more than 41,000 people packed the RCA Dome, the 1995 Ben Davis-Indianapolis Washington boys basketball regional, Kokomo’s girls basketball team capturing back-to-back crowns in 1992 and 1993 and walking into historic gymnasiums such as Anderson’s Wigwam, Washington’s Hatchet House, the Muncie Fieldhouse and Loogootee’s gymnasium. He also played a memorable game of one-on-one with Glenn Robinson of Gary Roosevelt while working on a profile of the future Mr. Basketball in 1991.

Beas moved on to serve as Sports Editor of the Anderson Herald-Bulletin from 2001-08 and was honored as CNHI’s National Sportswriter of the Year in 2004 and 2005.  He also was presented the IHSAA Media Award in March 2009 and was recognized with the Corky Lamm Award as Indiana’s Sportswriter of the Year in April 2009 by the Indiana Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association.  In all, Beas estimates he has visited more than 200 Indiana high schools to cover a live event or profile a deserving coach or student-athlete.

 Beas lives in Carmel and is the father to two daughters, Maya, 11, and Macy, 4. 

DISTRICT III

            Charles Denbo, Orleans

            Charles Denbo served the youth of Indiana as a high school boys basketball coach for 35 years, including 27 at Orleans High School. He amassed 402 wins during his career and was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2004.

            A 1953 graduate of French Lick High School, where he earned nine varsity letters, Denbo went onto the University of Indianapolis (then Indiana Central), graduated summa cum laude and helped the Greyhounds to the 1956 NAIA District 21 championship.

Denbo began his coaching career in 1960 at Vallonia. After two seasons there, he spent four seasons at Brownstown Central and two more at Crothersville before taking over at Orleans. He won 110 games at his first three stops, then added 292 more during his tenure with the Bulldogs. His teams won nine conference titles and claimed three sectional championships during his career.

Denbo previously was honored with the HBCA Distinguished Service Award in 2001, the Governor’s Distinguished Hoosier Award in 2003 and was selected to receive the Charles Maas Award from the Indiana Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association in 2010.