ORLANDO, Fla. — Xavier University of Louisiana's Ed Cassiere received four awards Tuesday in the NAIA's 2018-19 Dr. W. Jack Bell Writing Contest.
     Cassiere, XULA's assistant athletics director for communications, was honored during the NAIA-SIDA Convention, a one-day event and part of the 2019 College Sports Information Directors of America Convention.
     All three of Cassiere's game recaps were cited. He placed fourth for his story about the Gold Rush's 78-76 basketball victory against Virgin Islands Dec. 19, fifth for coverage of the Gold Nuggets' 105-71 basketball victory against Tougaloo Jan. 7, and a tie for seventh for the tennis teams' split of dual matches at West Florida April 20.
     In feature stories, Cassiere placed seventh for his profile of Gold Rush basketball standout William Loyd.
     Individuals were limited to three entries in each of the three categories of the contest. Cassiere was the only person this year to earn writing awards for all three entries in a category.
     Cassiere has earned 91 awards all-time in state, regional and national contests for sportswriting and sports information work. He won 29 NAIA awards the past 11 years.
     Cassiere in July will begin his 14th year at XULA and his 28th as a fulltime college sports publicist. He was assistant sports information director at Louisiana-Lafayette in 1986-87 and SID at the University of New Orleans from 1987-2000. He was a student assistant at his alma mater, the University of Missouri, during the 1970s.