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

What is the New Hampshire High School Player of the Year vote?

The New Hampshire High School Player of the Year is an annual recognition programme run by High School on SI, the prep-sports vertical operated by SBLive Sports and Minute Media at si.com/high-school/new-hampshire. Unlike the companion weekly Athlete of the Week poll — which resets every seven days — the Player of the Year vote draws together the standout performers from an entire sport's season and asks New Hampshire fans to pick the best of the best.

• Published at si.com/high-school/new-hampshire, the same platform that covers NHIAA scores, rankings, and playoff brackets year-round.
• Separate annual votes run for football (with both a preseason fan vote and an end-of-season finalist vote), baseball, and other sports covered by the editorial team.
• The football preseason vote names a community favourite before the season begins; the post-season vote selects from finalists after all NHIAA championship results are in.
• Each poll carries 10 nominees, curated by the High School on SI New Hampshire editorial staff based on season-long performance across all four NHIAA divisions.
• Voting is free, no account is required, and the results are publicly visible throughout the window at si.com.

A Player of the Year recognition on si.com creates a lasting, searchable record — useful for athletes building recruiting portfolios, since college coaches searching a player's name will encounter the SI/SBLive coverage alongside highlight film and coach contacts.

Which New Hampshire schools and divisions compete for this award?

High School on SI covers the full NHIAA landscape — all four enrollment-based divisions — so nominees can come from any public or private member school in New Hampshire. The editorial staff draws from season-long performance reports, playoff results, and community nominations rather than restricting the ballot to a single conference or region.

NHIAA divisions and representative programmes

Football nominees historically skew toward Division I and II programmes because those schools produce the largest individual stat lines — more carries, more passing yards — and generate the widest media coverage. However, small-school performers regularly earn nominations when they put up exceptional numbers or lead a title run. Campbell High School's Scott Hershberger, who rushed for 2,076 yards and led Campbell to an 11-0 Division III championship in 2024, won the Yukica panel award that year — a sign that D-III athletes can dominate statewide conversations when the performances warrant it.

Baseball, basketball, and other sports tend to produce more balanced division representation on the SI/SBLive nominee slates, since those sports do not have the same statistical gap between large and small schools that football creates. Fans of any NH programme — from Pinkerton's large Division I community to a small Division IV school — can mobilise to push their nominee to the top of the fan poll.

How does the New Hampshire High School Player of the Year fan vote work?

The mechanics are straightforward. When High School on SI publishes a Player of the Year vote, a poll article appears at si.com/high-school/new-hampshire listing the 10 nominees with their name, school, sport, and season summary. Any visitor can cast one vote per device per voting window — no subscription, no email address, no login of any kind. For a general overview of how online sports fan polls function, see our full guide to contest voting.

Each poll article states its own closing deadline, which varies by sport and timing in the NHIAA calendar:

• Football preseason vote — published before the season opens (late summer), with voting closing within one to two weeks.
• Football end-of-season / Offensive and Defensive POY votes — open after the NHIAA state championships conclude (typically December), with closing deadlines around December 31.
• Baseball and other spring sports — published after the NHIAA spring season concludes, with closing deadlines in late May or early June.

The vote cap is one submission per device per voting window — unlike a weekly poll where the limit resets hourly, the POY poll allows one vote total per device for the full duration of the open window. This means the race is won by the campaign that reaches the most unique devices, not by the campaign that votes the most frequently on the same devices.

Joe Yukica Award vs. the SI/SBLive fan vote — what is the difference?

New Hampshire football fans often encounter two distinct year-end football honours, and understanding the difference matters for anyone trying to participate or campaign.

Side-by-side comparison

The Yukica Award carries more formal weight as a credentialed honour from the National Football Foundation's New Hampshire chapter. It recognises the top senior player by expert consensus, making it resistant to community campaigning. The SI/SBLive fan vote operates on a different axis — it measures community mobilisation and public prominence, and a smaller school can absolutely win it if its supporters are more organised than those of a larger programme.

For athletes and families focused on the fan vote, note that the Yukica winner and the SI/SBLive fan-vote winner are often different players — the panel prizes football skill and character; the public vote reflects which community showed up most effectively at the poll. Both results are published separately and serve different purposes on an athletic resume.

How do you get more votes for New Hampshire's Player of the Year poll?

Because the POY cap is one vote per device per window (not hourly), the decisive factor is reach — how many unique people with unique devices you can direct to the poll page. Repeat-clicking on the same phone does nothing after the first vote. The entire campaign is about breadth, not depth. For broader strategy on online sports polls, visit our how-to guides; the NH-specific playbook below focuses on what actually works for statewide single-window polls.

• Share the exact poll URL — not just the athlete's name. Every extra click required before reaching the vote button loses roughly half the potential voters. Put the direct si.com article link in the first message.
• Reach the school's full parent and alumni network. For Division I schools like Pinkerton or Bedford, this can number in the tens of thousands; for D-III or D-IV programmes, a well-organised booster email can still reach the entire voting community in one send.
• Post to sport-specific New Hampshire Facebook and Reddit groups — r/newhampshire and NH sports Facebook communities have active prep-sports followings that engage with voting posts.
• Time the push at poll launch, not in the final hours. Unlike weekly hourly-cap polls where a final push is decisive, POY polls reward first-mover reach — voters who see the link early in the window and vote immediately cannot "come back later" to vote again, so getting them in the first 24 hours matters most.
• Activate booster clubs, coaching staff networks, and local businesses that sponsor the programme — they have distribution lists the immediate family circle does not.

When organic reach has been maximised and the nominee is still trailing, some families and programme supporters use a paid vote-promotion service to reach additional real voters. If you go that route, choose a service built for single-cap polls — paced delivery to unique real-audience devices — rather than one designed for hourly-reset polls. Our sports fan poll votes service is structured for exactly this type of campaign.

POY votes by sport and season — the NHIAA calendar

The High School on SI New Hampshire editorial team publishes Player of the Year polls timed to the close of each NHIAA season. The table below maps the sports calendar to the typical poll window, so fans know when to expect the vote to open for each sport.

The football end-of-season votes are the most contested because they follow the NHIAA state championships, when community engagement is highest and statewide attention to NH prep football peaks. The preseason football vote is lighter in total participation but gives smaller-school athletes early visibility before the season begins.

Fans following the baseball vote should note that the 2025 edition ran with a May 31 midnight PT deadline — a pattern consistent with spring sport polls closing at the end of the school year. Always confirm the deadline on the specific poll article before mobilising, as SI/SBLive adjusts windows by year.

For the full New Hampshire high school sports landscape — including weekly Athlete of the Week polls, playoff brackets, and rankings — see the New Hampshire contest guide hub. For all US high school fan polls, visit the USA guide index. General strategy for boosting votes in any online poll is at our votes guide.

Can you buy votes for the New Hampshire High School Player of the Year, and is it allowed?

Paid vote promotion services exist for fan polls of this type. The relevant question is not whether the option exists, but whether using it fits the specific rules and the personal risk tolerance of the athlete's supporters.

The SI/SBLive platform operates a fan-engagement poll with no formal prize, no sweepstakes structure, and no state prize-promotion law framework. The platform's terms address automated manipulation — scripts and bots that flood submissions — not real people choosing to cast a genuine vote after being introduced to the poll through a paid promotion channel. The practical distinction is:

• Bots / scripts / automated submissions — these attempt to bypass the one-vote-per-device cap programmatically. They produce abnormal traffic patterns, are detectable by the poll platform, and result in those votes being removed from the count. They also violate platform terms.
• Paid outreach to real human voters — real people, on their own devices, making a voluntary vote after being directed to the poll. Structurally equivalent to a booster email to a thousand families, except the reach comes from a paid distribution network rather than a school contact list.

Whether paid real-voter promotion satisfies the spirit of any specific poll's terms is a judgement each supporter should make after reading the current official poll page at si.com. The practical consequence of detected automated manipulation is vote removal, not athlete disqualification, and not a legal consequence — there is no account to ban, since no login is required. The reputational dimension is worth weighing honestly, particularly for an athlete building a college-application profile.