Our nonprofit is honored to announce award-winning journalists Jerry Carino and Keith Sargeant will once again co-chair the Marisa Tufaro Memorial Community Service and The Marisa Tufaro Foundation Greater Middlesex Conference Student-Athlete scholarship committees.
The Marisa Tufaro Foundation is grateful to all who are submitting scholarship applications. Deadline for applications is April 30. Scholarship recipients will be announced in late May and early June.
Since its inception, The Marisa Tufaro Foundation has awarded $36,500 in academic scholarships to 50 inspirational high school seniors. Jerry and Keith have co-chaired the foundation’s scholarship committees each of the past eight years.
Jerry received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in English from Seton Hall University.
A veteran reporter who has won numerous awards from the New Jersey Press Association for his news columns and sports writing, Jerry has covered college and high school athletics for USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey newspapers since 1996 and has authored news columns for the Asbury Park Press since 2014.
Jerry is also an adjunct professor of journalism and English at Kean University. He is a former adjunct professor at Rutgers and Seton Hall universities.
Jerry is best known throughout the Garden State as USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey’s men’s college basketball beat writer, having covered the Rutgers and Seton Hall programs for the past 19 years. He is also an Associated Press Top 25 poll voting member.
A native of Old Bridge and graduate of Madison Central High School, Jerry has experience as a scholarship chair, having previously served in that position for the New Jersey Sports Writers Association.
A journalist since his college days at Middlesex College and Kean University, Keith covered high school athletics, the Rutgers University football and basketball programs, and every sport imaginable for the Home News Tribune and USA Today Network New Jersey newspapers from 1997 until 2014.
From July 2014 through 2022, Keith covered Rutgers athletics for NJ Advance Media, the content company for NJ.com and The Star-Ledger. The dean of the Rutgers football beat, Keith covered thousands of games and big-picture topics surrounding the state university’s athletics program since 2000.
Keith transitioned in 2022 from sports to news, where he focused on government, public accountability, education and environmental issues. And in 2025, he returned to cover the New Jersey sports scene, reporting on big-picture college and high school topics for the enterprise team.
Keith was named NJ Advance Media Reporter of the Year in 2018. Since 2019, Keith has earned five Associated Press Sports Editor awards – including Top 10 in the APSE investigative and explanatory categories in 2023 and Top 10 in the investigative category in 2025 – and five New Jersey Press Association awards, including the Responsible Journalism First Amendment Art Weissman Memorial Award in 2025.
In addition, Keith is a two-time New Jersey Sportswriter of the Year award recipient (2021, 2025) from the National Sports Media Association. Earlier this year, he was honored by the New Jersey Association for Justice with a Gold Medal for Distinguished Journalism.
A Monmouth County resident with his wife, Melanie, daughters, Elizabeth and Penelope, and beloved rescue-pup Duncan, Keith is involved in several Bayshore community-service initiatives, including events involving recreation and the environment. He is also a certified baseball and field hockey official and is a volunteer for youth sports programs.
Click here to learn more about The Marisa Tufaro Foundation’s scholarship programs and to read feature stories about all our past recipients.