WICU Athlete of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What sets this ballot apart: no city, seven straight editions

Most Pennsylvania sports fan-vote pages in this network name a home city on their own listing. WICU-TV's Athlete of the Year page does not: what is confirmed is the publisher, WICU-TV, and the state, Pennsylvania, and nothing narrower than that is confirmed anywhere on the page.

What the page does confirm in detail is its own run. Athlete of the Year has closed a round in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, seven editions on Second Street at wicu.secondstreetapp.com. The 2025-2026 round opened May 27 and closed June 24. Past that window, the page goes quiet on specifics: no category breakdown, no per-supporter cap, no eligibility note.

Seven straight years of confirmed editions is a longer run than several other Pennsylvania sports fan-vote pages in this network can show, even without a city attached to the listing.

A statewide-style publisher page, next to city-anchored sibling ballots

Several other Pennsylvania fan-vote sports pages built on this network name a single home city or region right on their own listing. WICU-TV's own confirmed page does not do that, which is the clearest way this ballot differs from its closest siblings.

What that means for anyone timing a push

Searching a generic phrase like "Pennsylvania athlete of the year vote" risks landing on one of the six ballots above instead of WICU-TV's own page, since none of them share a judging pool, a results page or an eligibility rule with each other. Only wicu.secondstreetapp.com decides who wins WICU-TV's own award, and only its own confirmed dates matter for that decision.

A publisher-level program, without an invented hometown

WICU-TV is the only name its own listing gives for Athlete of the Year. No city, no county and no viewing-area boundary is printed on the confirmed page, so this guide states the state and the publisher and leaves it there rather than guessing at a market the page itself never names.

Nothing in WICU-TV's current promotion list ties a second sweepstakes or photo vote to Athlete of the Year under the same account; the fan-vote award remains its own confirmed promotion, separate from whatever else WICU-TV happens to be running the same season.

A supporter searching for this award by hometown will not find one printed on wicu.secondstreetapp.com, unlike several sibling sports ballots in this state that lead with a region or a market right in their own name. Whatever local detail eventually distinguishes one nominee from another on this ballot, it is not something the confirmed page currently spells out, so the safest move is checking wicu.secondstreetapp.com itself rather than assuming a rule borrowed from a city-anchored award elsewhere.

Building support around a seven-year run of confirmed editions

Seven confirmed editions give Athlete of the Year more history to point to than most fan-vote sports ballots in this state can show, even though the exact month a new round opens is not fixed on the page year to year. Lining up real supporters before a window closes, rather than scrambling after it opens, fits a ballot with this kind of consistent yearly rhythm.

Real people, contacted more than once across the window, are what has kept this award running seven straight years. A vote pattern that looks automated or padded puts the entire entry at risk, and a flag on a program with this long a run of editions tends to draw closer scrutiny than the same flag would on something brand new.

Appearing on the ballot and actually winning the vote are two separate outcomes, and WICU-TV alone decides the second once its own count closes. Before spending real budget on a future round, is buying votes legal is worth reading first, since it sets out where ordinary supporter outreach stops and riskier tactics begin. Buying votes online and award-vote campaign planning both go deeper on how a paid push works for a yearly fan-vote ballot like this one.