WIAA / Gesa Credit Union — AOTW: How Voting Works & How to Win

Who the WIAA Athlete of the Week recognizes, and who nominates

The WIAA / Gesa Credit Union Athlete of the Week is a statewide recognition programme for Washington high school student-athletes, run by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association together with Gesa Credit Union. It lives on the association's own website at wiaa.com/aotw/, which matters for anyone used to athlete-of-the-week polls hosted on newspaper or radio platforms: here the organizer and the host are the same body, and the nomination form sits on the same domain as the association's schedules, standings and classifications.

The programme's reach is unusually broad for a weekly award. It covers all WIAA sports and activities across the fall, winter and spring seasons, every WIAA classification, and both genders. The organizers have stated the intent plainly: each week, the WIAA and Gesa Credit Union will recognize student-athletes for outstanding performances and impactful contributions in their communities. That wording puts community contribution on the same footing as athletic results, which shapes what a good nomination looks like.

Because the audience is school communities rather than a general voting public, the people who act on this page are coaches, athletic directors, teammates, parents and local supporters. A nomination is the concrete act, and the weekly write-ups the programme publishes read like short profiles, emphasizing growth, dedication and leadership through a season.

The dated record: editions, season span and what is not published

Confirmed editions of the programme appear for 2025 and 2026, and the recognition runs weekly through each school year rather than as a single end-of-season event. The season spans September through May, which tracks the fall, winter and spring sports calendar the WIAA administers. A weekly series is one continuous programme, so the 2025-2026 cycle is treated as a single edition with weekly honorees named along the way, and a further cycle would fall in 2027.

Several facts a supporter might want are not printed in advance. The WIAA has not published exact nomination and recognition window dates for the current cycle; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The organizers have also not published a category list, since the programme is not divided into named categories the way a readers' choice contest is. No per-nominator rule and no eligibility text beyond the programme's own scope appear on the page either.

That absence is normal for an organizer-run recognition rather than a sponsored public ballot. The practical consequence is that anyone planning a nomination around a specific week should read the live page that week instead of relying on dates carried over from the previous cycle. The weekly rhythm itself is the only timing the organizers commit to in writing.

How a supporter nominates an athlete this week

The literal mechanic is a nomination form on the organizer's own page. A supporter goes to wiaa.com/aotw/, reads the current week's honoree and any instructions printed there, and completes the nomination form with the athlete's details and a description of the performance or community contribution being put forward. No outside voting service sits between the supporter and the form, no login wall is described on the page, and there is no separate voting round after nomination.

Timing is the part that demands attention. Because honorees are named weekly from September through May, a nomination belongs to the week of the performance it describes. A standout game from three weeks ago is old news in this format, so supporters who want an athlete recognized should submit while the week is current. The write-ups the programme publishes reward season-long narratives too, describing athletes as the most improved or as leaders through the year, so a nomination can frame either a single week or an arc.

What the form asks for beyond the athlete's identifying details, and whether one person may submit more than once, is not stated on the page. The form itself is the authority on that; read it before planning a coordinated push from a team's families.

How this programme sits beside the state's other weekly honours

The state has a crowded field of weekly high school recognition programmes, and this one is distinct in being run by the state's own activities association rather than by a publisher. The nearest neighbours in coverage are publisher-run polls: the Tacoma News Tribune Athlete of the Week and the News Tribune Girls Athlete of the Week serve the Tacoma market, while VarsityWA runs sport-specific weekly ballots for basketball and football.

The differences are structural. A publisher poll usually names a shortlist and asks readers to vote, so the supporter's act is clicking a candidate. The WIAA programme starts from an open nomination form on the association's own site, so the supporter's act is writing and submitting a nomination. Scope differs too: the newspaper and VarsityWA programmes are tied to a publisher's coverage area or a single sport, while this one spans every WIAA sport, activity and classification statewide.

At the far end of the scale sits the Seattle Sports Star of the Year, an annual professional and amateur award rather than a weekly school honour. A student-athlete's path in the state can therefore run from a weekly nomination like this one toward larger seasonal recognition, and the Washington High School Football Player of the Week shows how a single sport can carry its own parallel weekly track.

Strengthening support for a nominee in this programme

Because this programme's entry point is a nomination rather than a vote counter, support is built through the quality and timing of nominations. The strongest submission lands during the week of the performance, names the sport, classification and school context accurately, and describes the community contribution the organizers say they value alongside athletic results. A coach or athletic director's nomination carries the detail a classmate may not have, so involving school staff is the practical first move.

The organizers have not published rules about outside help, coordinated nominations or any per-nominator limit, and no such text appears on the programme page. What is clear is the format: an organizer-run recognition on the association's own site, not an open paid ballot, so services that add votes to a public poll have no mechanism to act on here. For readers comparing programmes that do run open ballots, the service overview at buy award votes explains how those contests differ from nomination-based ones.

The honest summary for a family asking how to help: submit a well-written nomination on time, and let the organizers' weekly selection do the rest.