The recipients of the 2025-26 PFWA Scholarships were announced to the membership at the 2026 PFWA Annual Meeting on Feb. 6 at the Super Bowl Media Center in San Francisco.
The PFWA’s Arthur Rooney Scholarship was shared by Ewan Dunlevy and Jones Kendall, the John Clayton Scholarship was awarded to Jason Bedard, and Malakai Jones was given a President’s Award scholarship.
The PFWA scholarship program is open to sons and daughters of PFWA members who are enrolled in their first year of college. The Rooney Scholarship is worth $6,000 total ($1,500 per year over four years), while the Clayton Scholarship is a one-time $1,000 award. The President’s Award scholarships, given at the discretion of the PFWA scholarship committee, are one-time $500 awards. The committee, chaired by former PFWA president and Newsday columnist Bob Glauber, includes Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk, Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic, Nicki Jhabvala of The Athletic, Eric Williams of FOX Sports and retired Associated Press NFL reporter Barry Wilner.
Dunlevy, son of Colts writer and author Nate Dunlevy, is a freshman at Purdue University. A National Honor Society member in his final two years of high school, Dunlevy was a four-year letterwinner for his school’s varsity baseball and tennis teams as well as a member of the Senior Math team who earned a weighted grade point average of 4.5 at Pike High School in Indianapolis.
Kendall, son of Josh Kendall, the Atlanta Falcons beat writer for The Athletic, compiled a 4.996 weighted GPA at Lexington (S.C.) High School. He was a four-year member of his school’s Students in Action organization that helped raise money for a local cancer charity. He also mentored middle and elementary school students, and he did volunteer shifts at a local organization serving families in need. He is a freshman band member at Liberty University.
Bedard, son of longtime New England Patriots reporter/columnist and founder of the Boston Sports Journal, Greg Bedard, earned the Clayton Scholarship. He was a two-year captain of
his high school baseball team and a first team Tri-Valley League all-star as a senior, and he was a four-year varsity defenseman on his hockey team. He participated for five years in a program to help disabled children learn to play baseball, raised money for cancer research in all four years of high school, and he helped out with the local food pantry. Bedard produced a 3.4 GPA at Medway (Mass.) High School, and he is in his freshman year at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
Jones, son of The Athletic NFL columnist Mike Jones, posted a 3.88 GPA and was a two-year member of the National Honor Society, including his senior year, when he was an NHS officer at Delmarva Christian (Del.) High School. He was also one of his school’s best all-around athletes as he played four years of baseball and three years of football. He also served as the school’s community group leader as a junior and senior. He is a freshman at Allegany College of Maryland.
The PFWA’s scholarship program is in its’ 39th year of existence, and the organization has awarded $246,500 to 56 deserving recipients through the end of the 2025-26 academic year. Information on the application process is available in the member area of the PFWA website – ProFootballWriters.org.
