Jesse Temple
DALLAS (FWAA) -- Jesse Temple, formerly of The Athletic, has been named the winner of the FWAA's Steve Ellis Beat Writer of the Year Award for the 2024 season, the association announced on Thursday. Temple now covers Wisconsin for Badger Connect.
The FWAA has named a Beat Writer of the Year since 2011 in honor of Ellis, long-time Tallahassee Democrat sports writer who passed away in 2009. Democrat sports editor Jim Henry once wrote of Ellis: "Nobody covered Florida State athletics with the passion and ferocity that Ellis did for 30 years."
The FWAA announces the recipient of the award after a committee reviews the nominations from the previous football season.
"This is without a doubt the most meaningful honor of my career," Temple said. "My FWAA membership began 14 years ago when I started as a college beat reporter in Wisconsin, so I have seen the quality of work my colleagues here have produced. To earn this kind of distinction alongside so many tremendous beat reporters who have come before me is a thrill."
Said FWAA Executive Director Steve Richardson: "Jesse Temple merely blankets the Wisconsin beat. He has lived Wisconsin football for years and could someday apply for historian status. He has shown great versatility in covering one of the Big Ten’s up and down teams, which in recent years is having more downs.”
Said one of the judges: “The beat writer had a very difficult season to cover because basically the team's fortunes dipped and Fickell's job security for the long-term came into question going into the 2025 season as the team failed to make a bowl game for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. The beat writer did an excellent job explaining the problems. The fact he was able to get former athletic director and head football coach Barry Alvarez on record commenting on some of the team's shortcomings was a major plus. The game story and column entry reflected those frustrations from various voices."
Another judge added: "The beat writer demonstrated his versatility by doing an intricate story on recruiting weekends under Luke Fickell with the help of an open records request. There also was a piece on a previous big intersectional game between Wisconsin and Alabama in 1928. Alabama made a trip to Wisconsin again during the 2024 season under similar circumstances. The piece on the 1928 game was researched and provided a nice historical piece to set up the 2024 game."
Previous winners of the FWAA's Beat Writer Award: Doug Lesmerises of the Cleveland Plain Dealer; Mark Blaudschun of the Boston Globe and Steve Wieberg of USA Today; Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News; Tim May of the Columbus Dispatch; Chris Dufresne of the Los Angeles Times; Jason Kersey of The Oklahoman; Mike Griffith of SEC Country; Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com and Chris Vannini of The Athletic; Brett McMurphy of Stadium Network; Ross Dellenger of Sports Illustrated; Dave Matter of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle; Angelique Chengelis of the Detroit News and Scott Dochterman of The Athletic; Chris Lowe of ESPN.com and Travis Brown of the Bryan-College Station Eagle.
Temple, 41, has covered the Badgers since the age of 27, but he is on his fifth outlet in Madison, Badger Connect. Previously covering Wisconsin at The Athletic from 2018 through April 2025, Temple was informed last spring he no longer would cover just Wisconsin, but be a roving beat writer and cover several college teams that could garner national interest. He decided he wanted to remain in Madison and continue to cover the Badgers full-time.
"I am doing a lot of what I was doing at The Athletic, but adding coverage of a few more Wisconsin sports and hosting videos with players," Temple said. "The objective is for Wisconsin fans to subscribe to support their favorite teams. And I couldn't be happier to keep doing what I love.
"I have devoted 14 years to becoming an authority on Wisconsin and I didn't want to give that up. At a certain point along the way, I realized the importance of recognizing a good thing. ... Wisconsin has a passionate fan base and Madison is an amazing city. I enjoy the relationships I've developed with people here and have been granted access over the years to tell the types of stories that matter to fans. My wife, Jamie, and I have a 5-year-old son, Jonah (he attended his first Badgers basketball game in the fall of 2024) and was riveted. I didn't see a need to start over somewhere."
Temple actually played college basketball at Knox College, a Division III school in Galesburg, Ill., where he majored in English Literature, with a minor in journalism (because there was no major in journalism at the school). But he was Sports Editor of The Knox Student his senior year and had journalism in his blood. He worked part-time at the Galesburg Register-Mail, covering junior-college basketball and fielding phone calls in the newspaper office.
"I knew that I would have a hard time competing with other candidates for quality sports writing jobs and decided to earn a master's degree in journalism from the University of Kansas," said Temple, originally from nearby Overland Park, Kan. "I was able to earn amazing real-world experience as a part-time sports reporter for the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World for nearly two years."
After earning his master's degree at Kansas in 2009, a summer internship with MLB.com followed (covering the Chicago White Sox) that served as a springboard to his first full-time job at the Muncie (Ind.) Star-Press. In two years covering preps in Muncie, he received five writing awards from the Hoosier State Press Association and was a top-10 finalist for explanatory writing from APSE. Finally, he wound up in Madison, taking the first of five journalism jobs covering the Badgers with FOX Sports Wisconsin, then ESPN.com, then Land of 10 (Cox Media), then The Athletic for seven years before his current job.
He has had the highs of covering the Badgers in three Rose Bowls and an Orange Bowl and men's basketball back-to-back Final Four runs. But many of the low moments have come in recent years when football coach Paul Chryst was fired after losing to Illinois, 34-10, in the 2022 season. Fickell's first season in 2023 was punctuated by a road loss to a three-win Indiana team and a home loss to Northwestern when Wisconsin was booed off the field at halftime while losing by three touchdowns. Last year's 5-7 finish under Fickell was another disappointment.
"I think my career demonstrates some of the challenges associated with sports journalism and really journalism in general because of how difficult it has been to stay at one outlet and in one market," Temple said. "It has required hard work and perseverance because all four previous outlets I have worked for covering Wisconsin either no longer cover Wisconsin or no longer exist."
Through it all, Temple has won awards and established himself as the go-to guy for Wisconsin sports. He has twice been named as a top-10 beat writer in the largest circulation category by APSE for his Wisconsin coverage. He has earned seven FWAA writing awards and two USBWA writing awards and had a book published in 2016 on Wisconsin sports.
And, if he takes a step back and looks at the sports journalism profession as a whole, how does he rate the difficulty of attaining the success he wants doing a job he obviously enjoys?
"In some ways, the job is harder. And in some ways, it's easier. There is more competition for interest given the proliferation of outlets or fan blogs. Schools and athletes can also better control the message through their own social media channels and might not necessarily require assistance from the media. There is also the stress of having to constantly be 'on' because of how quickly news can arrive and spread in the Internet age.
"What I find interesting is some of the freedom that working for online-only publications can provide," Temple added. "When I worked for a newspaper in Muncie, the story had to be in by a certain time, so it could go to print and show up on people's doorsteps the next morning. That sometimes meant sacrificing quality because of time constraints. All five outlets I have worked for on the Wisconsin beat have been online-only enterprises. I have the space to tell the story I want, yet there is still the immediacy of being able to publish when it is ready."
Founded in 1941, the Football Writers Association of America consists of 1,300 men and women who cover college football. The membership includes journalists, broadcasters and publicists, as well as key executives in all the areas that involve the game. The FWAA works to govern areas that include game-day operations, major awards and its annual All-America team. For more information about the FWAA and its award programs, contact Steve Richardson at tiger@fwaa.com.
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