Nonprofit takes Giant Step in recognition

Award honors veterans aid group

Friday, April 30, 2010

Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo Ed Nicholson, Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing president, was recently selected as a Giant Steps Award winner with the National Consortium for Academics and Sports. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Ed Nicholson, president of Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, was shocked when he received a call from the National Consortium for Academics and Sports to tell him he had been selected as a Giant Steps Award winner.

The Giant Steps Award is part of National Student-Athlete Day, a program created by the NCAS designed to honor high school and college student-athletes who have excelled in the classroom and on the playing field while making contributions to their schools and communities, according to a press release announcing this year's six winners.

The awards recognize people who give back to the community through athletics.

Nicholson was nominated as a civic leader. Other categories for the award include student-athletes, athletics administrators, coaches, community or academic organizations, and a parent, teacher or school.

Susan Katz, director of NCAS Southeast Region, relayed the news to Nicholson. "When I talked to him on the phone, he was so incredibly surprised and humbled by it," she said.

A member of the NCAS saw Nicholson's story on ESPN last year and submitted his name as a nominee.

"We, as the NCAS, we are looking at him going, ‘Oh my gosh, this man started this incredible thing that's blown up to over 90 sites around the country,'" she said.

The organization collected 50 or 60 nominations from all over the country before sending the information to a national voting committee made up of people from the National Collegiate Athletic Association along with college presidents and others, Katz said.

Nicholson, a retired U.S. Navy captain and former commander of the Indian Head naval base, started Project Healing Waters in 2005 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

During his own stay at Walter Reed in 2004, he saw firsthand recovering soldiers and wounded warriors.

"It brings it home directly," he said. "You can read it in the newspapers, you can see pictures, but when you're in a hospital ward and actually see the soldiers that have been maimed, wounded … with their families, with their children, it's a very moving experience. It makes you want to reach out and do something to help them to recover and re-adjust."

Shortly thereafter, in 2007, PHWFF became an official nonprofit organization and since has expanded to almost 90 different locations. The program provides fly fishing, casting, tying and rod building classes at no cost to wounded and injured warriors.

Nicholson was very flattered to receive the award, he said.

"At the same time, I'm humbled because I know that the program has grown across the country, not so much because of me, but because of all of the hundreds of volunteers that have stepped up to help these veterans," he said.

Project Healing Waters is preparing for its fourth annual two-fly tournament fundraiser in Syria, Va., on May 2 to benefit PHWFF.

To learn more

For more information on Project Healing Waters, go to www.projecthealingwaters.org.