Bolanle Dahunsi Wins VSU’s Jim Murray Memorial Foundation Sports Writing Contest

VALDOSTA — Bolanle Dahunsi won first place in Valdosta State University’s 2018 Jim Murray Sports Writing Contest. She will now go on to compete against top collegiate journalists from across the country for a chance to win one of five $5,000 national scholarships.

The Jim Murray Sports Writing Contest is funded by the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation, which was established in 1999 by Linda McCoy-Murray to perpetuate the legacy of Los Angeles Times Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist Jim Murray through a national essay competition for collegiate journalism students. The applicants are required to write a story in Murray’s style, which is remembered for its humor, hyperbole, and one-liners.

Dahunsi’s winning article focuses on how domestic violence in professional sports like the National Basketball Association and National Football League reflects poorly on masculinity.

“I chose that topic because I enjoy writing about how gender roles and sexuality in society are portrayed in the media, literature, workforce, etc.,” she shared. “Whenever I am given a topic, I try my hardest to relate it to gender and sexual identity.”  

Dahunsi is a member of VSU’s National Council of Negro Women and serves as a senator in the Student Government Association. The Northwest Georgia chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women awarded her a scholarship in 2017.

Dahunsi expects to graduate in May 2020 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. She hopes to continue her education at the graduate level, including a master’s degree and doctorate, and pursue a career as a literature teacher in a high school or college, as well as a possible service career as a member of a community board of education. She is the daughter of Juanita Thomas Dahunsi and Joseph Dahunsi of Marietta, Georgia.