Who is The State Journal-Register's preseason boys soccer player of the year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the SJ-R preseason boys soccer poll is and who runs it

The State Journal-Register, the Springfield, Illinois newspaper behind sj-r.com, puts one preseason question to its readers each soccer season: which boys soccer player merits the player of the year tag before a ball is kicked. The form is a straightforward public vote carried by Crowdsignal's poll.fm host, and the confirmed 2025 edition sat at poll.fm/15939664. The paper owns the programme outright; Crowdsignal merely supplies the voting machinery.

The shape is deliberately narrow. Instead of a multi-category readers' contest, one question carries a list of high school boys soccer nominees, each tagged with the Illinois community the player represents. Rochester, Chatham, Carlinville, Riverton and North Mac all fed names into the 2025 edition, a roster that maps onto the paper's central Illinois coverage. Since the nominees are minors, this reference page describes the field by town and school community, never by name.

For a supporter that shape matters. One question means the whole campaign aims at a single submission point, and the paper fixes the nominee list before voting opens. No write-in box existed on the 2025 edition, so the contest is settled entirely among the players The State Journal-Register chose to list.

The dated facts: 2023 and 2025 runs, an August window

Two runs of this programme are confirmed: 2023 and 2025. Both landed in August, which suits a preseason question asked before the Illinois high school soccer season begins. The 2025 ballot carries a closed marker in its title, so the latest window has ended and submissions to poll.fm/15939664 no longer register anything.

The recurrence pattern points to 2026. The paper has announced no open or close dates for that run, and no nominee roster either. Window dates, any category structure beyond the single preseason question, and any per-supporter rule are all absent from the ballot page; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

Such gaps are normal for a newspaper poll of this size. The State Journal-Register posts the question, the names and a voting control, then lets the window run. What a backer can bank on is the August anchor: both confirmed runs fell in that month, so planning for the 2026 edition belongs to the stretch before the high school season starts. Anything finer, including whether a nomination round precedes voting, waits for the live ballot.

How a supporter votes in the preseason soccer poll

Crowdsignal ballots rarely come simpler than this one. A backer loads the poll.fm page, reads the high school nominee list, marks the option beside a player's name, and presses the voting control near the form's lower edge. Crowdsignal then returns a confirmation view. The 2025 edition offered no write-in box, so the choice stayed within the names The State Journal-Register listed.

Two practical points follow. First, one question means no category navigation and no second round to plan for; every ounce of effort lands on a single submission. Second, the paper prints no rule on how many return trips one supporter may make during the August window, so anyone counting on daily returns should read whatever the live 2026 ballot states first.

Timing outweighs technique. A preseason poll runs in a compressed stretch before the season, and the 2025 edition has already shut. Support arriving early, spread through the nominee's own community in Rochester, Chatham or Jacksonville, accumulates across more days than a final-hours surge. The literal action never varies: load the ballot, mark a name, submit.

How this ballot sits beside its Illinois neighbours

Illinois carries a cluster of publisher-run fan votes, and this one stands apart in three ways. It belongs to The State Journal-Register of Springfield, so its nominees come from the paper's own central Illinois coverage rather than a statewide or Chicago-area roster. It is a preseason single-question poll, not a weekly series, so no round-by-round calendar exists. And the subject is boys soccer, which few of its neighbours cover.

The closest structural cousins are the weekly athlete ballots: the Herald-News Joliet Athlete of the Week and the Herald & Review Illinois Player of the Week, both resetting on a rolling basis, plus the Daily Chronicle DeKalb County Athlete of the Week up toward the Chicago exurbs. Those run all season; this poll makes its whole mark in August.

The other neighbours are the SI year-end awards: the Illinois SI Boys Basketball Player of the Year, the Illinois SI Football Class 1A Player of the Year and the Illinois SI Football Class 4A Player of the Year. Those close a season; the SJ-R poll opens one. A nominee chasing year-end recognition treats the preseason ballot as the fall's first visibility, not its last.

Strengthening support in a short preseason window

Because this ballot asks one question in August, a support campaign must be built around the nominee's own community rather than a season of reminders. The likeliest submitters are teammates, classmates, family and local club soccer families in the towns the nominee list already names. Passing the poll.fm link directly, with a note that the window shuts before the season starts, converts better than a generic plea.

The organizer's printed position on outside help is thin: The State Journal-Register publishes no rule on voting software or bulk submissions for this poll. Silence is not permission, and a ballot showing irregular activity risks having its result questioned. Outreach where each selection comes from a real person in the Rochester, Chatham or Jacksonville communities the paper covers never needs a defence. For a fuller playbook on mobilising supporters around a public vote, see our page on rallying more supporter votes, and for what paid packages mean in general terms, the award votes page explains the category without promising any outcome.