AL SCHOENFIELD MEDIA AWARD

Sharon Robb is a born and raised Florida “cracker” who has spent 30 years as a sports writer covering many sports. Though she may have been wet behind the ears when she started she became a master of her written word for the wet sports she loves so much - the aquatic sports.

Her first “assignment” was covering sports as a writer for the school newspaper.   NISCA president Glenn Kaye was the coach and her Nova High School was one of the best in the State of Florida as well as the Eastern United States.  During her junior and senior years, she worked as an intern for the Fort Lauderdale  News Sun-Sentinel where the first coach she interviewed was Hall of Fame Coach Jack Nelson and the first swimmer was Ann Marshall.  Ann later qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team, Jack as an U.S. Olympic Team Head Coach.

Upon high school graduation, Sharon went to Broward Community College near Fort Lauderdale graduating with an AA degree.  She went to work immediately for the Hollywood (FL) Sun Tattler.  Although she took class work at Florida Atlantic University and the University of Miami, she knew that she wanted to work full-time for a newspaper.  After 10 years, covering all sports at the Sun Tattler, she was hired at the Sun-Sentinel and has been with the Fort Lauderdale paper for 18 years. She covered just about everything there is to cover including features on the Miami Dolphins, New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves.  Youth sports were a big part of Sharon’s articles. 

It was in 1985 that she finally rediscovered her niche when the opening of Mission Bay in Boca Raton, Florida, brought her back to swimming.  With the help of Hall of Fame coaches Mark Schubert and Ron O’Brien, and with Michael Lohberg, she was able to write feature articles on swimming and diving which led to the opportunity to cover the Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea.  She has traveled the globe covering swimming and the Olympics with stops in Perth, Australia, East Berlin, Russia, Korea, South America and even outer Mongolia.

Although her beat has expanded over the years to include boxing, women’s sports, fitness sports and activities, triathlons, soccer, baseball and football, and a host more, it is the aquatic sports disciplines that Sharon loves the most - swimming, diving, synchronized swimming and water polo.  She has written articles for “Splash,” “Swimming World,” “USA Swimming Newsletter” and “The World of Swimming” FINA publication.  She has interviewed countless numbers of both aquatic heroes and aspiring young beginners.  She knows from 18 years experience as a writer for the Sun-Sentinel, that athletes in aquatics work as hard if not harder than the athletes of “professional” sports who always get the daily headlines.  It is Sharon’s hope that sports editors around the world will believe in this message too and print more exposure of the aquatic sports.  Sharon will always be there to promote our aquatic disciplines and the personalities involved. 

After 30 years on the “beat,” “swimming” has become her first love.