Given that another finalist has admitted he is underage, we have another new face in our final 16.

Despite NorthSider's request that we not remove him and the fact that we'd love to keep him in, the age-limit issue is something we simply can not bend on.

Obviously these age-limit sagas are far from an ideal situation, and we're doing our best to address them on a case-by-case basis. We're glad that we're able to address these now instead of having a repeat of the issue in NGS1 when a finalist was revealed to be underage after he was eliminated, but obviously some of the fixes haven't done enough to get out in front of potential trouble spots and we're working on more safeguards going forward.

We appreciate everyone's patience and still anticipate a great battle for the Next Great Sportswriter.

-Tom

Here is the first assignment for our finalists:

Write about an individual athlete

Which athlete to choose? It's totally up to the finalists. You can choose any professional athlete, amateur athlete or even an under-the-radar athlete few have heard of. The job will be to make it a compelling read regardless of which athlete you choose.

Why so vague? The initial assignments are intentionally open-ended to give the finalists the freedom to take them in whichever direction they think will work best. In later rounds, the topics will be more specific and some will have a specific basketball theme.

The format? Also completely up to the finalists: a feature, analysis, an opinion piece ... a little bit of everything? It's all up to the authors.

Deadline? Pieces must be posted on finalists' own blog no later than 9 a.m. PT/Noon ET this Friday.

Length? If you want a guideline, maybe shoot for about 750-800 words. But that's not a hard requirement at all. 500 words might work well, as could 1,200. But for someone who really isn't sure what to aim for, 750-800 words should  be sufficient.

Couple other quick answers:

What's the purpose of this assignment? The assignments are meant to provide some common ground for comparison purposes. This way, all of the finalists will have something that has a similar theme, even if they take very different approaches to it.

Can the finalists write additional pieces? Most definitely. The finalists can write as much as they want, but the assignments ensure they will at least all have one comparable piece on which to base votes from round to round.

What do the judges do now? We will be evaluating the finalists' work on the first assignment and providing some comments and votes later this week. Our combined vote will count for half of this week's final total, and the users' combined votes will count for the other half.

Good luck to our 16 finalists.

-Tom

Given that one of the finalists has admitted he is underage and asked to be removed from the competition, we have another new face in our final 16.

Dudski - http://blogs.foxsports.com/dudski

Note: In case you're unable to view the comments on this post. Click here

Just a quick note to our finalists about the age-verification process.

You've all been sent an email to the address you signed up with regarding the steps you need to take for us to verify your age and keep you active in the competition.

So please check your email and take the few simple steps we're requiring.

Thanks again, and your first assignment will be posted tomorrow (Tuesday).

-Tom

Drum roll please ...

The 16 finalists for the second installment of the Next Great Sportswriter are ...

absolutebest: http://blogs.foxsports.com/absolutebest

DrMidnight: http://blogs.foxsports.com/DrMidnight

Dudski: http://blogs.foxsports.com/dudski

edhardiman: http://blogs.foxsports.com/edhardiman

Elizabeth_Bennet: http://blogs.foxsports.com/Elizabeth_Bennet

Gbrent: http://blogs.foxsports.com/Gbrent

HiPlainsDrifter: http://blogs.foxsports.com/HiPlainsDrifter

JWatters: http://blogs.foxsports.com/Jwatters

joshhoskins55: http://blogs.foxsports.com/joshhoskins55

MooreSports: http://blogs.foxsports.com/MooreSports

nappytemple: http://blogs.foxsports.com/nappytemple

tombradyquinn: http://blogs.foxsports.com/tombradyquinn

rivjo: http://blogs.foxsports.com/rivjo

ShooterB: http://blogs.foxsports.com/ShooterB

tjw118: http://blogs.foxsports.com/tjw118

xea76: http://blogs.foxsports.com/xea76

Congratulations to all of the finalists, and thanks to everyone for participating.

Thanks to the high level of competition, the final decisions were even more difficult this time around than they were in NGS1.