Answers

You need to remember that the Ivies are all D-1 schools. This means that they recruit for sports and can offer preferential admissions to recruited athletes. For these schools, being a star in a sport where they are looking for a specific kind of player can be tremendously valuable. There are a number of top tier schools that are not D-1 (Caltech, MIT, UChicago are the 3 in the Top 10 that don't recruit). Keep in mind that if the award is not really impressive (e.g. some award for having a high GPA and playing varsity), then it probably makes little, if any, impact.

I think Harvard has more D-1 sports than any other school. You can go to the site at http://www.gocrimson.com/ and see all the sports they recruit for. Winning awards will help you big time if you're trying to get recruited. If you get recruited, getting in is a lot easier because you apply Early and the coach puts in a good word for you. Athletes tend to have lower SAT scores than the class as a whole at Ivies.

Unless you're featured in USA Today or something, I really doubt any top tier school will care about awards like that. They will care about it as much as they care about the local Rotary Club's scholarship award.

Awards like that or being MVP of the team or even better, the league as a whole can boost your application. Anything that helps you stand out from the thousands of people you are competing with!