The university’s football program was awarded the Dateline Award by the American Advertising Federation’s Fort Worth chapter at a luncheon Thursday.

The award pays tribute to positive media attention brought to Fort Worth by the Horned Frogs’ performance in the 2009 season, according to the AAF-Fort Worth Web site.

Jason Byrne, director of athletics marketing, said the award was a reflection of TCU football’s impact on Fort Worth.

“The success of last season was a culmination of the hard work by our student athletes and the overwhelming support from the community,” Byrne said.

Jason Parker, president of AAF-Fort Worth, said the award is meant to recognize a person, organization or event from Fort Worth highlighted in the national media in the previous year.

Parker said the award is usually awarded once annually, but in some years there are multiple winners and in others it is overlooked if nothing noteworthy happened. He said he thinks it recognizes the recipient’s contribution to Fort Worth’s national economic impact.

Parker said the football program was chosen through a series of nominations by both members and non-members of AAF-Fort Worth each year. The nominations are then reviewed, and usually “the cream rises to the top pretty quickly,” he said. AAF-Fort Worth then has the media review the nominations and give their input.

“It’s more about the community than it is us, and we want everybody’s perspective,” Parker said.

The luncheon Thursday featured a brief highlight reel of the 2009 season, and then the award was presented to Scott Kull, associate athletics director for external operations. Athletics Director Chris Del Conte was originally supposed to receive the award, but he was out of town.

Past recipients of the Dateline Award include the Colonial Golf Tournament, Iron Chef champion Tim Love and the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl.

AAF-Fort Worth is a group of volunteer marketing and advertising industry professionals in existence for 100 years and began regionally as the Advertising Men’s Club. The name was changed when it partnered with AAF at the national level.

“The main purpose of the organization is to promote good advertising and marketing ethics, and give voice to our marketing/advertising community at the local and legislative levels,” Parker said.