For Hs Athlete Of The Week Football Soccer Cross Country: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the WENJ athlete of the week vote is and who runs it

For HS Athlete of the Week Football Soccer Cross Country is a weekly public vote for South Jersey high school athletes, run by WENJ, the ESPN radio affiliate serving the New Jersey side of the Philadelphia market. The vote sits on WENJ's own domain, 973espn.com, outside any third-party polling service, which means the ballot, the nominee list and the announced winner all occupy pages the station controls directly.

The program's scope is written into its title. Football, soccer and cross country are the three fall sports the ballot draws from, and the nominees are individual high school athletes rather than teams. Each weekly round produces a winner, and the ballot page carries both the current nominees and the result for the week of November 3rd together, so a supporter landing there can see who is up for the award and who has already won it.

WENJ folds this vote into its regular high school sports coverage. The program is published within the station's weekly athlete award series alongside its community articles, which is why the ballot reads as part of the station's editorial output rather than a standalone contest page.

The dated record for this South Jersey ballot

The ballot has a long confirmed run. Editions are recorded from 2021 through 2026, six consecutive years on the same URL at 973espn.com. That history earns the program annual standing instead of one-season status, and it puts the next cycle's expectation at 2027, assuming the station keeps the format.

Within the 2026 cycle, the vote is a weekly series through the fall high school season rather than a single ballot. The November window is confirmed, and the week of November 3rd produced a named winner alongside its nominee list. Nominees for each week are revealed during GameNight at 6:50 p.m., which gives the series a fixed weekly anchor point on the station's schedule.

Several details are not published anywhere the station has printed them. WENJ has not posted opening or closing timestamps for each weekly ballot, has not said whether one person may vote repeatedly, and has listed no eligibility criteria for nominees; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Because the program is weekly, those missing details reset in practice with every fresh round.

Across the six years, no format change appears in the published pages. The three-sport title, the weekly cadence and the November timing all line up, and the ballot URL has never moved.

How a supporter votes this week

The mechanic is as simple as a public ballot gets. A supporter opens the vote page at 973espn.com, reads the nominee list for the current week across football, soccer and cross country, picks an athlete and submits it on WENJ's domain. There is no external polling platform, no separate registration step and no nomination round before voting, because the station's editorial team already assembles the weekly list.

Timing matters because the ballot turns over weekly. Nominees are revealed each week at 6:50 p.m. on GameNight with Josh Hennig on WENJ, and the fresh ballot follows that on-air reveal. A vote cast for last week's nominee list does nothing for this week's round, so supporters who want to move a specific athlete need to vote inside the current weekly window and then return when the next list posts.

The station publishes the outcome on the same page. The winner for the week of November 3rd appears alongside that week's nominees, which means the ballot doubles as a running results page for the season. Supporters can check past weeks without leaving the program's URL.

One caution for anyone rallying votes: the ballot page itself carries no printed instructions about repeat voting, so how often a single person may cast a vote here is something to read off the live form, not assume from another program's rules.

How this ballot sits beside its New Jersey neighbours

South Jersey has no shortage of high school athlete votes, and this one is distinct on three points. First, it is radio-run. WENJ is a broadcast station, so the nominee reveal happens on air during GameNight before the ballot goes live, a rhythm print and web-only publishers cannot match. Second, it is multi-sport. Football, soccer and cross country share one ballot, where most New Jersey competitors scope to a single sport. Third, it is regional to South Jersey, not statewide.

The neighbours each hold their own lane. The Asbury Park Press High School Athlete of the Week comes from a Gannett newspaper. The Courier-Post South Jersey Girls Basketball Player of the Week shares the South Jersey footprint but covers one girls sport in a different season. The Jersey Sports Zone Football Game Ball is a football-only ballot from a video-first outlet.

Statewide ballots round out the field: the New Jersey High School Boys Basketball Player of the Week, the New Jersey High School Football Player of the Week and the NJ MileSplit Boys Performer of the Week for track and cross country athletes. A supporter's vote in this WENJ ballot carries weight only here, and every ballot on the list answers to a separate publisher with separate terms.

Strengthening support in a weekly station-run ballot

This program rewards speed and repetition more than any other New Jersey ballot, because the field resets every week and the window is anchored to a fixed radio time. The practical playbook starts with the 6:50 p.m. GameNight reveal: know the moment the new nominee list posts, share the ballot link that same evening while the round is freshest, and aim supporter pushes at the school community, the roster's families and the program's own social accounts before midweek attention fades.

Keep the ask specific. A request that names the athlete, names the week and links the exact ballot page converts far better than a general cheer, and because WENJ announces each winner on the ballot page itself, celebrating a weekly win publicly feeds momentum into the next round's vote.

On outside help, the organizer has printed no policy covering purchased or automated voting for this program, which cuts both ways: nothing is permitted in writing and nothing is forbidden in writing. A push that looks padded with irregular activity is the kind of thing any organizer can act on after the fact, so build on real supporters first. Methods that work across public ballots are compared in how to get more votes online, and paid options for award-style ballots are outlined at buy award votes.