Massachusetts High School Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Massachusetts High School Player of the Year on High School on SI?

The Massachusetts High School Player of the Year is an annual, sport-by-sport fan-vote recognition programme operated by High School on SI — Sports Illustrated's dedicated prep sports vertical, which absorbed SBLive Sports and now publishes at si.com/high-school/massachusetts. Each poll crowns a single player per sport per season as the top performer in Massachusetts high school athletics based on the community's own vote.

• The programme is free to vote in — no SI subscription, no account, and no per-vote restriction. Fans may vote as often as they choose until the deadline.
• Polls are sport-specific and seasonal: separate POY votes run for football (late fall), basketball (late winter/spring), baseball and softball (late spring), and other MIAA-sanctioned sports.
• SI's Massachusetts editors select the nominee shortlist based on season statistics, awards, and performance reports from coaches and local media.
• All 380+ MIAA member schools across Massachusetts are eligible regardless of MIAA Division (1 through 8) or district.
• The 2024 Massachusetts Football Player of the Year was Tyler Adamo of Lynnfield High School, who won with 51.55% of more than 20,000 votes cast — one of the largest Massachusetts POY vote totals on record.
• Boston Globe All-Scholastics is a separate, entirely editorial honour with no fan vote; the SI/SBLive POY is distinct because the result is determined solely by fan participation.

Which Massachusetts schools and conferences appear in these POY polls?

Every MIAA-member school in Massachusetts is eligible for a Player of the Year nomination regardless of size, division, or geography. The pool spans eight MIAA districts — from the Cape Ann League on the North Shore to the Mayflower Athletic Conference on the South Shore, and from Western Mass conferences like the Western Mass Athletic Council to eastern suburban leagues like the Dual County League and Bay State Conference.

The Catholic Conference schools — Xaverian Brothers, Catholic Memorial, St. John's Prep, and Bishop Feehan — carry some of the most organised alumni and booster networks in the state, and their athletes regularly appear on POY ballots across multiple sports. Lynnfield's 2024 football POY win (Tyler Adamo, 20,485 votes) is a case study in how a well-mobilised community from a smaller Northeastern Conference school can outpoll larger programmes when the school's network activates efficiently.

How does Massachusetts POY voting work on High School on SI?

Each Massachusetts POY poll lives inside a dedicated article on si.com/high-school/massachusetts. High School on SI publishes the ballot as a readable article with embedded voting — the poll widget sits alongside the nominees' statistics and season summaries. Voting is open to any reader, anywhere in the world, at no cost. For a broader explanation of how online fan polls operate, see our guide to online contest voting.

There is no per-vote cap on the Massachusetts POY polls. The 2024 Football POY drew over 20,000 total votes, with the winner (Tyler Adamo, Lynnfield) finishing above 10,000 individual votes. Unlike hourly-capped newspaper polls, the SI format rewards sustained, large-network mobilisation — a supporter can return and vote multiple times across the full window without waiting for a cooldown.

The voting window for each sport runs from the time the article is published (typically within one to two weeks of the final game of that sport's regular season or state tournament) until 11:59 p.m. Eastern on the date specified in the article. That date is displayed prominently on the poll page itself — always confirm it there, as different sports and different seasons carry different deadlines.

How to find the active Massachusetts POY poll

Navigate to si.com/high-school/massachusetts and look for an article with "Vote" or "Player of the Year" in the headline. The Massachusetts editors also publish the ballot link across the SI high school social media channels and in the Massachusetts-specific newsletter. Search terms like "vote massachusetts football player of the year 2025" typically surface the current poll as the top result during its active window.

How is the Massachusetts Player of the Year winner chosen?

The outcome is determined entirely by fan vote total — the nominee with the most votes when the deadline passes becomes the published Player of the Year. High School on SI's Massachusetts editors exercise editorial control only over the nomination stage. Once the ballot is published, the vote count alone decides the winner.

1. Editor nomination: the SI Massachusetts team reviews season statistics, state championship results, regional award lists, and coach nominations to build a shortlist, typically four to eight athletes per sport.
2. Poll publishes: the article goes live at si.com/high-school/massachusetts, usually in the final weeks of the sport's season or shortly after the MIAA state tournament concludes.
3. Open voting: any reader — in Massachusetts or anywhere else — can vote for any nominee on the ballot as many times as they choose before the 11:59 p.m. Eastern deadline.
4. Winner announced: after the poll closes, SI publishes a follow-up article naming the winner, including the final vote totals and a feature on the athlete's season. That article becomes a permanent, searchable record on SI's platform.

Because the result is entirely fan-determined, the contest rewards organisational mobilisation as much as raw athletic performance. Tyler Adamo's 2024 football victory illustrates this: his stats (127-of-179 passing, 2,113 yards, 33 TDs, 304 rushing yards) put him on the ballot on merit; the Lynnfield community's mobilisation gave him 51.55% of more than 20,000 votes, well ahead of nominees from larger programmes.

Recent Massachusetts High School Player of the Year winners

The table below records confirmed Massachusetts POY results from High School on SI fan-vote polls. The 2025 baseball POY poll was actively collecting votes as of mid-2026 (deadline 30 June 2025 per published article). Earlier sports-specific records are drawn from SI's published results articles and are publicly verifiable at si.com/high-school/massachusetts.

Note: High School on SI runs multiple award tiers beyond the headline annual POY — including class-specific polls (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior of the year) and in-season weekly spotlights. The flagship annual Player of the Year by sport is the most-shared and most-voted of these. Boston Globe All-Scholastics, the Gatorade Massachusetts Player of the Year (Aidan Williams, football, 2024–25), and the MaxPreps Massachusetts Basketball Player of the Year (Brody Bumila, Bishop Feehan, 2025–26) are entirely separate, editorially-selected honours with no fan vote component.

How do you build votes for a Massachusetts Player of the Year nomination?

The SI Massachusetts POY format has no per-vote cap, which changes the mobilisation math compared to hourly-capped newspaper polls. Total vote volume matters more than device count — a single supporter can vote dozens of times from the same device across a multi-day window. The practical ceiling on organic votes is the size and engagement level of the athlete's real community. For a complete tactical framework covering all types of online fan polls, see our full how-to guide.

The Lynnfield model is instructive: Tyler Adamo's 2024 win was built on a Northeastern Conference school whose entire community — student body, alumni, parents, youth travel baseball families — voted consistently across a multi-day window. Larger schools with more students do not automatically win POY polls; the determining factor is what percentage of the community actually follows through and votes.

What are the rules, and can you buy votes for the Massachusetts POY?

The Massachusetts High School Player of the Year is an editorial fan-engagement poll. It operates within the general terms of use of si.com and the High School on SI platform. The programme has no formal prize, no cash component, and no Massachusetts prize-promotion law framework — it is a recognition award decided by fan interest.

There is a meaningful practical difference between two categories of activity on no-cap polls:

• Automated bot injection — high-frequency programmatic requests that do not originate from real human browser sessions. These produce anomalous traffic signatures that SI's backend can flag, and counts can be removed.
• Paid outreach to real voters — reaching additional real people who choose to vote from their own devices and browsers. Structurally this is identical to a booster club email reaching 500 more families: real people, real devices, genuine interest. The 2024 MA Football POY drew 20,485 votes; even the largest organic school networks rarely reach that level without coordinated outreach.

Whether paid outreach satisfies the spirit of the award is a judgement each family and booster organisation must make after reading the current poll article. The practical risk — on a no-prize recognition poll — is reputational if the win is seen as primarily engineered rather than earned. Weigh that honestly. For context on how buying votes works across different poll types, see our detailed explainer.

When does Massachusetts POY voting open and how are athletes nominated?

Voting windows are tied to the MIAA sports calendar rather than a fixed annual date. High School on SI publishes each sport's POY poll at si.com/high-school/massachusetts in the final weeks of that sport's MIAA season or immediately after the state tournament concludes. The baseball POY poll, for example, typically goes live in May or June after the MIAA Division 1–8 state championships have been played.

There is no formal public nomination form. Athletes reach the ballot through one of three paths:

1. Coach or school contact outreach — coaches email the SI Massachusetts editors with season statistics, awards won, and a brief performance summary. This is the most reliable path to ballot inclusion.
2. Media coverage — athletes who receive coverage in Boston Globe High Schools, MassLive, or local papers during the season are already on the editors' radar and frequently appear on ballots without a separate submission.
3. Regional award recognition — athletes named to MIAA All-State teams, league MVPs, or district-level awards are strong candidates for SI ballot inclusion in their sport.

Nominations submitted well before the end of the regular season give editors enough lead time to research and verify statistics. Athletes who wait until after the state tournament to reach out risk missing the ballot entirely if the editors have already finalised the shortlist.

For more Massachusetts-specific high school sports coverage and contest opportunities, visit our Massachusetts contest hub. For the full index of US state POY guides, see the USA contest guide.