Supconnect Awards: Selection Criteria & Process

Some notes of clarification on the selection criteria and process for the Supconnect Awards are in order, especially after so much unnecessary chatter about some of the nominees for the 2nd Annual Sup Woman Award.

Some of the previous winners, from left: Gregg and Gavere, Joe Bark, Candice Appleby, Chuck Patterson, Zane Schweitzer.

SAN DIEGO, California – For clarification, the Supconnect Awards was never purely a popularity contest, neither in its first annual nor in its second. There have always been four criteria as part of the selection process: ambassadorship, grassroots involvement, athletic performance, and, yes, popularity. And each one of these plays a very important role to ensure that the bearer of the world’s first and original SUP Awards (that is, the Supconnect Awards) has what it takes to earn it. Luckily, the pool of well-deserving nominees is incredibly vast and our job is excruciatingly difficult when it comes to picking a winner. The truth is: many of them deserve to win but sadly we can only pick one.

Read Articles on Some Previous Winners

Let’s take a look first at the criteria and then the process. Popularity does not carry the most weight. Its purpose is to bring to light athletes that may not already be in the spotlight and yet do a phenomenal job in their communities and beyond. As knowledgeable as you think we at Supconnect are about the sport of stand up paddling, we are not omniscient. Due to this obvious character flaw, we rely on our global audience to tell us about the movers and shakers in their communities. And by doing that, great contributors to the sport, who might not be media darlings or frequent the channels of fame, can get some recognition for all the sup stoke they are generating. But some of these local heroes may not be on par with the enormous contributions made by the more well known athletes. In this case, popularity gets you noticed but does not earn you the Supconnect Awards. Now if their accomplishments do match up, then popularity will give the world a wild card winner. In a nutshell: popularity is instrumental but not final in our selection process.

Selection Criteria

Now onto the process. Feedback weighs heavily on our decision, for we want the winners to reflect by and large the spirit of the stand up paddle community. And we draw our feedback from numerous sources. Obviously, we go to the audience but that’s not all. We also ask every nominee to tell us whom he or she would vote for if they were not a nominee. Then we consult with several industry members, including even our own, Andre Niemeyer, who is the most ubiquitous media persona in the industry. Once all of that is taken in, the top 10 nominees move to the final list, from which the winner is ultimately chosen. We’ve conducted these steps in various different ways, always changing to enhance user experience. Here is a summary of the current process.

Selection Process

Remember: By the end of the day, it’s all about sharing the sup stoke. This sport has positively changed the lives of so many and we want more and more people to experience the wonderful benefits of the sport and its welcoming and cheerful community.

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