South Carolina High School Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the South Carolina High School Athlete of the Week poll?

The South Carolina High School Athlete of the Week is a free weekly fan-vote poll operated by High School on SI — the prep sports vertical of Sports Illustrated, powered by SBLive Sports (part of the Minute Media network). The poll lives at si.com/high-school/south-carolina and covers every SCHSL-sanctioned sport across all three seasons: fall, winter, and spring.

• Run by High School on SI / SBLive, the national leader in state-level prep sports polls with editions in every US state.
• Covers all SCHSL classifications — 5A, 4A, 3A, 2A, 1A — and all six geographic regions statewide.
• Fans cast unlimited votes from any device; there is no per-hour or per-day cap on human votes.
• Voting closes every Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time — one unified weekly deadline regardless of season or sport.
• The only prohibited activity is automated scripts, macros, or bots; genuine fan votes face no stated restriction.
• Results are published at si.com/high-school/south-carolina alongside the weekly recap article for that sport.

A win earns the athlete a published feature on Sports Illustrated's prep platform — a nationally recognised brand — which is increasingly cited in recruiting correspondence and college programme media guides.

Which South Carolina schools and SCHSL regions compete in this poll?

The High School on SI poll draws nominees from SCHSL-member schools across all six geographic regions and all five classifications. The table below shows a representative sample of schools that appear regularly in poll ballots, drawn from every corner of the state — Upstate, Midlands, Lowcountry, and Pee Dee.

South Carolina's SCHSL organises its member schools into five classifications — 5A (largest), 4A, 3A, 2A, and 1A — with each classification divided into regions for regular-season scheduling. The statewide poll deliberately draws from multiple classifications each week, meaning a standout 2A or 3A athlete from a smaller school competes on the same ballot as a 5A nominee from Dutch Fork or Wando. That cross-classification exposure is one of the reasons smaller-school boosters mobilise heavily: a 3A athlete from Barnwell or Bishop England can realistically win if their community votes consistently.

The Upstate region — centred on Spartanburg, Greenville, and Anderson counties — produces a disproportionate share of nominees given its density of well-funded athletics programmes. Dorman, Byrnes, and T.L. Hanna all operate out of Spartanburg and Anderson County school districts with large, organised alumni and booster communities. The Lowcountry's Wando and the Midlands' Dutch Fork are the two most consistently dominant programmes in 5A football and multi-sport recognition statewide.

How does the High School on SI South Carolina voting poll work?

The poll is embedded at si.com/high-school/south-carolina and is free to use — no Sports Illustrated subscription, no SBLive account, and no personal information are required to vote. Each weekly edition names a set of nominated athletes (typically 8–12 nominees) with name, school, sport, and a brief performance summary alongside a live vote counter visible to all visitors. For a plain-language overview of how online prep-sports polls function in general, the online contest voting guide covers the mechanics in full; the South Carolina-specific notes below address what matters for this poll.

Unlike most regional newspaper polls, this one carries no hourly or daily cap on human votes. A supporter can visit the page, vote for their athlete, refresh, and vote again immediately — there is no cooldown period for genuine human voters. The only hard prohibition, stated clearly in the poll's own rules, is automated scripted voting: bots, macros, and any tool that casts votes without a human action are banned and result in disqualification.

This structure changes the competitive math entirely. Winning is determined by which fan base can sustain the highest sustained human-vote volume from open (typically Monday or Tuesday after the sports desk processes weekend results) through Sunday close. Large, well-organised school communities — Dutch Fork's booster network, Dorman's Spartanburg County supporters, T.L. Hanna's Anderson County alumni — have a structural edge in any given week.

Votes are accepted from outside South Carolina; family and friends anywhere in the country can vote freely, which makes national alumni networks an asset for schools with widespread graduate communities.

How is the Athlete of the Week winner chosen in South Carolina?

The winner is whichever nominee accumulates the highest total fan votes before the Sunday 11:59 p.m. PT deadline. High School on SI's sports editorial staff controls the nomination stage — they select which athletes appear on the ballot based on performance highlights submitted by coaches, parents, and school contacts — but the outcome is determined entirely by fan votes, with no editorial weighting or override.

1. Performance submissions: coaches, parents, and school athletic staff submit game stats and highlights to the High School on SI South Carolina editorial team, typically following Friday-night and Saturday contests.
2. Ballot curation: the editorial staff selects the week's nominees by journalistic judgement — not every submission earns a spot, and the desk considers competitive significance, sport mix, and geographic diversity across the state.
3. Poll opens: the ballot goes live at si.com/high-school/south-carolina early in the following week, usually Monday or Tuesday, with live vote totals visible throughout the window.
4. Poll closes Sunday 11:59 p.m. PT: the nominee with the highest vote total at that exact moment is named the winner.

Because there is no editorial override on the outcome, organisations with large active fan bases hold a genuine competitive advantage in any week where a well-known programme's athlete is on the ballot.

How do you build a winning vote campaign for this South Carolina poll?

The absence of a vote cap makes this poll different from most newspaper editions: there is no ceiling on how many votes a single motivated supporter can personally contribute. But volume still requires scale — the highest-profile weeks, particularly fall football with Dutch Fork, Dorman, or Byrnes nominees, can see totals in the thousands. The first move is always the direct poll link to every realistic network; the full vote-building guide covers universal tactics in depth, while the notes below focus on what works specifically in South Carolina.

Tactics ranked by SC-market fit

Two South Carolina patterns reliably produce outsized vote totals. First, the Upstate is home to several tightly bonded industrial and mill-town communities — Gaffney, Byrnes in Duncan, Daniel in Central — where high school athletics carry deep community identity. A single post shared in the right county-level Facebook group can reach several thousand people within an hour. Second, the Lowcountry's Wando and Summerville programmes serve large, affluent suburban Charleston communities whose parents are active on neighbourhood social media platforms and respond well to direct appeals.

When organic networks have been fully activated and the nominee is still trailing, some supporters use a paid outreach service to reach additional genuine voters. If you pursue that option, use a service that delivers real human votes — rapid-fire automated injections violate the poll's explicit rules and result in disqualification. Our sports fan poll votes page covers how cap-aware delivery works for polls like this one.

Poll rules and the buy-votes question

High School on SI publishes its rules plainly: votes generated by script, macro, or other automated means are not allowed, and athletes who receive such votes will be disqualified. Beyond that restriction, there is no stated cap on how many times a genuine human voter can vote, and no language prohibiting paid outreach to real human audiences. For a broader discussion of how these rules compare across contest formats, see our how-to voting guide.

The practical distinction that matters here is clear-cut:

• Automated scripts and bots — tools that cast votes without a live human interaction, often at superhuman speed or from data-centre IP ranges. These are explicitly banned and result in disqualification.
• Paid outreach to real human voters — reaching additional genuine people through paid channels, each of whom casts their own vote manually. This is structurally the same as a booster email reaching a wider audience, and nothing in the published rules prohibits it.

Families, coaches, and boosters should read the current poll rules directly before taking any action beyond organic outreach. The consequence of disqualification on a no-prize fan engagement poll is reputational, not legal — the athlete loses the recognition, but there is no regulatory or legal exposure for the family or school.

South Carolina high school sports season and poll timeline

The High School on SI poll runs across all three SCHSL seasons. Each season has distinct sports, a different set of schools most likely to appear on ballots, and shifting competitive intensity for the poll. The table below maps the poll schedule to South Carolina's athletic calendar.

Fall is unambiguously the most competitive season for this poll. South Carolina's 5A and 4A football rivalries — Dutch Fork's pursuit of back-to-back titles, the Upstate quad of Dorman/Byrnes/Gaffney/T.L. Hanna, and the expanding Charleston-area 5A programmes — generate fan bases that mobilise extensively for online recognition polls. Spring track and baseball weeks, by contrast, can be decided with a few hundred sustained votes when booster networks are less actively organised.

The Sunday 11:59 p.m. PT deadline translates to 2:59 a.m. Monday Eastern time — a meaningful detail for South Carolina supporters planning a final-hour vote push, since it runs through late Sunday night in the Eastern time zone.

For context on how South Carolina prep sports fit into the broader US contest landscape, visit our South Carolina contest hub and the USA contest guide index.