The Herald News Boys Track Athlete of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Herald News boys track ballot is and who runs it

The Herald News Boys Track Athlete of the Year honors a Massachusetts high school boys track season through reader votes alone. The organizer is The Herald-News, a newspaper whose own site sits at theherald-news.com, and the program covers boys track across the schools the paper reports on. There is no judging panel and no entry round described on the ballot: the honor goes to whichever nominee collects the most support from the public.

Balloting sits on the poll.fm polling site operated by Crowdsignal, a platform publishers use for reader questions. The live page for the 2025 edition sits at https://poll.fm/15663362 and is titled Who is the Herald News Boys Track Athlete of the Year. It presents the nominee roster, each athlete listed by name alongside the Massachusetts high school the athlete represents, and a vote button under the roster.

The ballot is aimed at the paper's own readership: families, teammates and school communities following Massachusetts high school boys track. Because the award is decided by raw vote count rather than by a panel, the size of the school community behind each nominee tends to shape the result, which is visible in the spread of the final tallies on the closed 2025 page.

The dated facts for the boys track award

The program's confirmed editions cover 2022 and 2025. The 2025 ballot ran in June and has since closed, and the closed page still displays the final tallies: the leading nominee finished at 56 percent of 5,601 votes, while the runner-up drew 22 percent of 2,187. A further edition is expected in 2026, following the pattern the two confirmed years set.

Several facts sit outside what the publisher has printed. The Herald-News has not stated the exact day the June window opens or the day it closes; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Beyond the window, the newspaper has printed no category list for the track ballot, no cap on how often one supporter may vote, and no eligibility rules describing who may cast a vote. None of that text appears on the 2025 poll.fm page, and the newspaper's own site carries no round dates for the platform either.

What the published facts do establish is the shape of each cycle: a single ballot, posed as a single question, opened during the June track season and closed once the winner was set. Between editions the poll.fm address goes quiet, holding the closed result until the newspaper posts the next roster.

How a supporter votes on the Herald News track ballot today

A supporter starts at https://poll.fm/15663362, the Crowdsignal page carrying the question Who is the Herald News Boys Track Athlete of the Year. The page presents the nominee roster for the edition, each boys track athlete shown by name with the Massachusetts high school the athlete represents. There is no nomination form on the ballot itself; the roster is set by The Herald-News before the vote opens.

To cast a vote, the supporter marks the choice beside the preferred nominee and presses the vote button under the roster. The poll.fm page then logs the choice toward that athlete's total. No write-in box is offered, so a vote can only go to a listed nominee.

Timing matters because the ballot is not always open. The 2025 edition ran in June and is now closed, so the page currently displays final tallies rather than a live vote form. When the newspaper posts the next edition, expected with the 2026 track season, the same address pattern applies and the vote button returns. Anyone supporting an athlete should plan to act inside the June window, since a vote cast after the ballot closes counts for nothing and the displayed result is final.

How this ballot sits beside its Massachusetts neighbours

The Herald-News track ballot is one of several Massachusetts reader votes covered on this site, and its shape is distinct among them. Where the weekly ballots reset every seven days, this program is a single year-end decision: the roster is fixed, the window falls in June, and the winner holds the title until the next edition.

Neighbouring programs include the Eagle-Tribune Athlete of the Week and the Enterprise Brockton Athlete of the Week, both of which name a new honoree each week of a season. The Massachusetts High School Athlete of the Week and the Massachusetts High School Baseball Player of the Week follow the same weekly rhythm in their own sports, while the Massachusetts Gatorade Softball Player of the Year is a year-end award like this one, but for softball.

What sets the Herald-News ballot apart is its publisher and its market: a single newspaper putting its boys track readership to a vote on Crowdsignal, with the whole edition decided by the count on a single ballot page rather than by a rolling series of weekly winners.

Strengthening support before the June window closes

Because this edition is a single ballot that closes permanently, the practical challenge for any nominee's supporters is concentration: the whole school community needs to reach the poll.fm page inside the June window, not after it. Passing the ballot link around the team, the families and the classmates is the mechanic this program rewards, since every vote must land on the Crowdsignal page before The Herald-News closes the poll.

The newspaper has published no rule covering outside help for the track ballot, so supporters planning a larger push should read the live ballot page for whatever terms apply to the current edition. General guidance on building support for award ballots of this kind is collected at get more votes online, and the award-specific background sits at buy award votes. No vote service, this site's included, can guarantee a win in a public vote; the count on the poll.fm page is the only thing that decides the Herald News Boys Track Athlete of the Year.