The ceremony also honours team of the year, unsung hero, junior sportsman and woman and lifetime achievement.
He has clearly been an unsung hero of Devon's past - until now.
It is up to each Unsung Hero to put together a proposal for how the money might best be spent.
Mr Williams is now in contention for the UK Unsung Hero award made at Liverpool's Echo Arena on Sunday 14 December.
Interestingly, one prominent homosexual group leader has described Messina as an "unsung hero" in the campaign to repeal the 1993 law.
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Jim was nominated for this year's Unsung Hero award by Lisa Palombo who is a PE teacher at St Maurice's High School.
Modern pentathlete Heather Fell has lent her support to the BBC Sports Unsung Hero 2009, becoming the award's ambassador for BBC South West.
Amazingly within 30 seconds, Armagh were level with Paul McGrane, so often the unsung hero, coming up trumps again to fire over an equaliser.
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Once any bursary has been awarded, the Unsung Hero will need to establish an appropriate audit trail to show how the money has been spent.
And amateur sport was rewarded with the Welsh Sports Unsung Hero accolade, won by rugby and boxing volunteer Cliff Williams from Pontyclun in Rhondda Cynon Taf.
Largely forgotten for decades in the shadows of inventors like Thomas Edison, Tesla has emerged in recent years as a sort of unsung hero among the science-minded.
"Cozza's one of those guys who is just an unsung hero, a little bit like (ex-England flanker) Richard Hill was for so long, " Tindall told BBC Sport.
The bursaries, which are supported by Robinsons, are intended to benefit and further the work each Unsung Hero has been doing to help sport in their community.
The judging panel included former World and Commonwealth champion Liz McColgan, who was the Scottish ambassador for the Unsung Hero award along with BBC Radio Scotland's Sports Weekly programme.
And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe, the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best -- the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.
He and Lisa will now make the trip to the BBC's annual Sports Personality of the Year awards at the NEC in Birmingham next month as Scotland's representative in the national Unsung Hero award.
The panel will also follow up on the success or otherwise of the bursaries, and each Unsung Hero will be asked to report back both on how the money has been spent and the difference it has made.
The 26-year-old from Tavistock, who won an Olympic silver medal in 2008, said her journey to the top of the sport would not have been possible without the help of her former swimming coach Archie Brew, who she sees as her own unsung hero.
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