Paul Mahlan Award

The name on the award may be familiar.  Paul Mahlan was an Original 6 owner of the CFCL.  He ran the Penguins/Bunyans from 1984-1987.  In 2000, well here's the description of the award and why we started it in 2000.

Paul Mahlan Award

The Paul Mahlan Award was established in 2000 to honor of one of the charter members of the CFCL. Each year the award goes to the team that overcomes the most adversity during the season; the team that, through injuries, was expected to do poorly, but somehow managed to come back and finish the season strong. The team doesn't necessarily need to win the title, but just show that they didn't give up. It should go to the team whose owner made moves to overcome the injuries, retirements and/or trades to the American League.

The Executive Committee determines the winner of this award each year.

The award is named for one of the CFCL's original owners. During the 2000 season, Paul was paralyzed in a diving accident, but impressed everyone with his determination and never-say-die attitude. The following is from Rich Bentel's original proposal for the award:

Given what Paul is facing, it might be a reminder for us all that even though our team may be languishing in the 2nd division, we should still work to do as well as possible. Seeing the challenges that lie ahead for Paul, there can't be justification for taking the second half of the year off because one didn't feel like researching a recent call-up, or make a trade to improve for next year, or replace a player on the active list that has recently retired.

So for eleven years we tried to identify an owner who never gave up; who kept working to build either for this year or next; who consistently made moves to keep his team productive.  The challenge was that there was inherently something different about the Paul Mahlan Award from the GM of the Year Award and the CFCL Champion.  But to fairly identify the differences and recognize the proper owner was getting to be more and more difficult each year.

So following the 2010 season, the decision was made to discontinue handing out the Paul Mahlan Award.  This was in no way reflective on Paul, it was more that we didn't want to take the award lightly and not just pick someone to pick them.  We wanted the award to be meaningful and the concern of not being able to keep up with the standard the award was intended encouraged us to stop even though we continue to be impressed with Paul's focus on life and accomplishing the next day's goals.

Here is a list of the eleven winners:

2000		David Mahlan		David's Copperfields
2001		Matt Grage		Matt's Hard Hats
2002		Rich Bentel		Dem Rebels
2003		Eric Lamb John Lemon		Eric's Lambchops
2004		Steve Olson		Steve's Stones
2005		David Holian		David's Ruffins
		Matt Grage		Hot Sludge Sundae
2006		Kenn Ruby		Kenndoza Line
2007		Kenn Ruby		Kenndoza Line
2008		Bob Boryca		Mo's Red Hots

 2009    Kenn Ruby         Kenndoza Line
 2010    Mike Coulter     Candy Colored Clowns
             Bob Boryca        Mo's Red Hots