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

What is the Ohio High School Player of the Year award on High School on SI?

Ohio High School Player of the Year is a sport-by-sport, season-end fan-vote recognition published by High School on SI — Sports Illustrated's prep-sports vertical, powered by the SBLive / Scorebook Live platform — at si.com/high-school/ohio. At the close of each major OHSAA season, the High School on SI Ohio editorial team nominates standout performers from across the state; fans then vote with no per-vote restriction until the listed deadline. A companion "top performance" poll also follows each OHSAA state championship weekend, letting fans weigh in on the best individual effort across championship game action.

• Covers all three OHSAA seasons — fall (football, volleyball, cross country, soccer), winter (basketball, wrestling, swimming), and spring (baseball, softball, track and field) — with separate polls per sport.
• All 820-plus OHSAA member schools across Divisions I through VII are eligible; small-school programmes in rural Ohio compete on equal footing with large suburban powerhouses once the fan-vote window opens.
• Ohio's editorial Mr. Football award — chosen annually since 1959 by Associated Press sportswriters and the Ohio Prep Sportswriters Association — is entirely separate: it is a journalists' vote, not a fan poll. The High School on SI Player of the Year is decided only by public votes.
• Vote cap: none — a supporter can return and vote as many times as they choose throughout the window; there is no hourly cooldown, no daily limit, and no device-based restriction.
• Winners are published in a named article on si.com, searchable by athlete name, school, and sport — a concrete credential that appears in recruiting searches.
• The post-season "top performance" championship poll (run at si.com/high-school/ohio after OHSAA state championship weekends) adds a second fan-vote opportunity for athletes who reached the state final stage.

Fan-voted top performances: which Ohio schools and athletes have appeared?

High School on SI runs both sport-specific end-of-season Player of the Year polls and post-championship "top performance" polls after each OHSAA state championship weekend. The table below lists confirmed recent fan-vote nominees and winners drawn from si.com/high-school/ohio coverage — schools span the full geographic and divisional range of Ohio prep sports.

The 2025 OHSAA football state championships, played at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, produced the post-championship top-performance fan poll that ran at si.com/high-school/ohio — with nominees drawn from all seven division state finals held across the championship weekend. Northeast Ohio schools — Glenville and Kirtland among them — dominated the 2025 OHSAA football championship landscape, according to coverage by the Cleveland Browns organisation and Cleveland-area sports media.

Which Ohio regions produce the most nominees?

High School on SI Ohio editorial staff draws nominees from all corners of the state. The table below maps OHSAA regional sections to representative schools frequently featured in statewide recognition polls.

How does the Ohio Player of the Year vote mechanic work on si.com?

Each Ohio Player of the Year poll lives inside a dedicated article published at si.com/high-school/ohio — the High School on SI platform built on Scorebook Live infrastructure. The poll widget is embedded in the article body and requires no account, subscription, or personal data to use. For a broader explanation of how online fan-vote polls operate in general, see our guide to online contest voting.

There is no per-vote cap. A fan can vote once, then reload and vote again immediately — no hourly cooldown, no device check beyond what a standard browser fingerprint can enforce, and no account-based daily limit. This makes the Ohio Player of the Year structurally different from weekly newspaper polls that enforce one-vote-per-hour restrictions: here, a highly motivated group of supporters who returns to the poll repeatedly across a multi-day window can accumulate a substantial lead.

The poll typically runs for several days following the close of the OHSAA season or championship event. The exact closing date and time — stated as 11:59 p.m. on a specific date — appears in the article text and on the poll widget itself. Live vote totals are visible to all visitors throughout the window, so supporters can track where their athlete stands and escalate mobilisation if needed.

Voting works on all standard desktop and mobile browsers; no app download is required. The si.com platform is accessible from any location — family members and supporters outside Ohio can vote just as easily as local fans.

How is the Ohio Player of the Year winner chosen?

The winner is the nominee with the highest vote count when the poll closes at 11:59 p.m. on the stated date. High School on SI editors control the nomination stage — selecting which athletes appear on the ballot based on performance, statistics, and statewide significance — but exercise no override after the poll opens. Vote total alone decides.

1. Performance submission: coaches, athletic directors, parents, and school contacts submit season highlights, box scores, and performance summaries to the High School on SI Ohio editorial team throughout the season.
2. Editorial ballot: the SI editorial staff curates a nominee list — typically four to eight athletes per sport — based on statewide competitive context. Not every submission earns a ballot spot.
3. Fan vote opens: the poll article is published at si.com/high-school/ohio; fans vote with no cap until the stated deadline. Live totals are visible throughout.
4. Winner published: after the poll closes, High School on SI publishes the winner in a named recognition article on si.com — searchable, indexed, and attributed to the school and sport.

Because there is no vote cap, the outcome depends almost entirely on which nominee's community mobilises most effectively across the full polling window — not solely on athletic merit. A Class 3 rural school with a deeply connected local community can and does outpoll Division I metropolitan nominees.

Building your Ohio Player of the Year vote campaign

The absence of a per-vote cap fundamentally changes how an effective campaign runs compared with hourly-capped newspaper polls. Every minute the poll is open, every vote cast by every supporter compounds — so starting early and sustaining momentum across the full window matters more than a single end-of-window push. For general tactics applicable to any online fan poll, see our how-to voting guide; the Ohio-specific notes below target what actually drives totals in this format.

High-leverage tactics for an unlimited-vote Ohio poll

Two Ohio-specific patterns produce outsized results in unlimited-cap polls. First, small-school rural programmes — Kirtland in Lake County, St. Henry in Mercer County, Ironton in Lawrence County — have multi-generational community ties where local identity runs through the school athletic programme. A single post shared to a community Facebook group or church WhatsApp chain can recruit dozens of dedicated daily voters. Second, the large GCL Catholic schools in Cincinnati — Elder, Moeller, St. Xavier — carry alumni networks that extend well beyond the current student body into decades of graduates, many of whom vote routinely in any poll featuring their school.

When every organic network has been activated and the lead is still within reach, some campaigns use a paid vote-promotion service as a force-multiplier. For unlimited-cap polls like this one, the key is pacing delivery naturally across the window rather than injecting votes in a single burst — our sports fan poll votes service is built for exactly this pattern.

Poll rules and the buy-votes question for Ohio High School on SI

The Ohio High School on SI Player of the Year is a reader-engagement fan poll published by Sports Illustrated's prep sports platform. It carries no cash prize, no formal sweepstakes structure, and no Ohio prize-promotion law framework that would govern a competition for material value. The relevant restrictions are those of the poll platform itself — primarily the prohibition on automated scripts that artificially generate traffic. For a full analysis of legality across different poll types, see our complete buy-votes guide.

The meaningful distinction, as with most fan polls, is between two different activities:

• Automated scripts and bots — software that generates rapid-fire vote requests programmatically, without human interaction. These violate standard platform terms, produce detectable traffic anomalies, and result in vote removal or poll invalidation.
• Real human vote campaigns — genuine people clicking and voting repeatedly within the poll's own mechanics (which have no cap). This is structurally identical to a well-organised booster club email reaching 2,000 additional families — it is fans voting, reached through a broader channel.

Whether a paid real-voter promotion satisfies the spirit of any specific contest is a judgement each family, booster club, or programme must make after reading the current official poll terms. The risk in this format — a no-prize media fan poll — is reputational rather than regulatory.

Ohio Player of the Year polls by sport and OHSAA season

High School on SI Ohio publishes Player of the Year and top-performance polls across all three OHSAA competitive seasons, with post-championship polls added after state tournament weekends. The table below maps the full calendar of Ohio prep sports fan-vote opportunities to the OHSAA seasonal schedule.

Each poll article at si.com/high-school/ohio includes a clear close date — typically 11:59 p.m. on a specific day. Post-championship polls usually run for three to seven days after the final game. End-of-season Player of the Year polls for non-championship sports (such as softball all-state position polls) may run for a longer window of ten or more days.

The fall football post-championship poll, published after the OHSAA state finals at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, consistently draws the highest statewide fan engagement of any Ohio High School on SI poll cycle. Seven division champions are crowned in a single weekend, generating a nominee pool that spans the geographic and divisional breadth of Ohio high school football.

For the full picture of Ohio fan-vote contests — school elections, community recognition polls, and regional athlete awards — visit our Ohio contest hub. For the complete US contest guide index, see all USA contest pages. For a broader overview of how to maximise any online contest vote campaign, see our buy-votes guide.