Members of The Daily staff were honored 19 times at this weekend’s 21st annual Illinois College Press Association convention.

The Daily swept the design categories and won a number of sports honors, totaling 10 more awards than last year.

Overall, The Daily took third among the six daily newspapers. The Daily Illini of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign took first, and The Daily Egyptian of Southern Illinois University–Carbondale took second overall.

Editor in chief Matt Donnelly said he wasn’t too concerned with The Daily’s middle-of-the-pack performance in the overall category, noting that the “judges don’t know the impact our stories have on campus.” Besides, he said, the oversized cookies served up at the luncheon more than made the conference worthwhile.

The ICPA awards offer 27 categories in which The Daily’s editorial content was entered. The Daily competes among 36 college publications statewide.

The Daily took first place in five categories, including all three design categories — front, sports and feature page. It also took first-place honors for best special supplement for the 2002 Chicagoland by El guide, as well as best sports feature for a story by Andrea Cohen.

Managing editor Emily Badger took second in the sports news category for an Nov. 19 analysis on the lawsuits surrounding the death of Northwestern football player Rashidi Wheeler. The article also was named the first-place sports story last week in the Hearst Foundation awards for college students.

“Our goal every year is to win more awards at this convention than Randy Walker’s football team wins games,” said Dan Murtaugh, sports editor for The Daily. “So this year was a success.”

NU’s football team won three games in 2002, compared with six ICPA awards to Daily Sports.

“Next year,” Donnelly said, “we hope to go to Alamo Bowl.”