Morning Call Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

Three confirmed seasons, dozens of weekly rounds each

The Morning Call's Athlete of the Week isn't one contest with one closing date; it's a new ballot published almost every week a Lehigh Valley school-sports season runs. Three seasons are confirmed so far: 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27.

The 2024-25 season alone ran from August 26, 2024 through May 15, 2025, spanning 33 separate weekly rounds. The most recently confirmed round from that stretch, Week 35, closed May 15, 2025. Further along, the 2026-27 season's own Week 1 already closed September 3, 2026, showing the series is still running on the same weekly pattern.

Reading that table honestly means accepting a gap: no single week's page tells a reader which sport or athlete will appear the following week. Confirm on the live ballot each cycle rather than assuming this week resembles the last one.

A weekly ballot address, not a single fixed one

Because a new week gets its own address, mcall.secondstreetapp.com does not work like most readers'-choice ballots that keep one link open for an entire season. A supporter searching an old week number after that round has closed reaches a page that no longer reflects who is up for a vote.

The Morning Call also runs unrelated promotions through the same Second Street platform: a separate Game of the Week poll judging a different kind of matchup, plus straightforward newspaper sweepstakes with no tie to Athlete of the Week at all. None of those share a week number, a nominee list, or a closing date with the athlete vote.

What that means for a reader trying to back one athlete

Bookmarking a single link is the wrong habit for a weekly series like this one. The safer approach is returning to mcall.secondstreetapp.com itself each week the season is active and confirming which specific address is current, rather than trusting a link saved from a previous round.

Allentown, and the wider Lehigh Valley this vote actually covers

Allentown is where The Morning Call is based, and its own coverage runs across the Lehigh Valley rather than one city alone. Bethlehem, just east of Allentown, and Easton, further east still toward the state line, both sit inside the paper's regular readership, alongside the smaller school districts scattered between the three.

No published rule narrows Athlete of the Week eligibility to Allentown's own schools. A given week's nominee list has drawn from wherever The Morning Call's sports desk is covering that week, which in practice spans the whole valley rather than a single district.

That regional reach is part of why the series can run three full seasons on the same weekly format: a paper covering one city alone would run out of fresh nominees far faster than one covering an entire valley's worth of school sports.

Pennsylvania's other weekly and season-long sport fan votes

The Morning Call's ballot sits alongside several other Pennsylvania sport fan votes, and none of them draw from the same nominee pool or run on the same schedule.

A Lehigh Valley school with an athlete on The Morning Call's ballot gains nothing automatically toward any of the other six; each keeps its own nominee list, its own broadcaster or publisher, and its own weekly or seasonal schedule.

Backing a nominee inside a short weekly window

A weekly ballot leaves far less time to build support than a season-long one. Once a specific week's address is confirmed, the only real lever is getting actual Lehigh Valley readers to vote on that exact page before it closes, then asking again rather than once.

Is buying votes legal is worth reading before spending anything toward a short weekly window like this one. Buying votes online covers what paid support can add on a Second Street ballot specifically. Because a single week here closes in days rather than months, getting that support timed before the deadline counts for far more than it would across a full season.

What stays true every week: only mcall.secondstreetapp.com, checked for that week's own address, can confirm which athletes are up for a vote and when the window closes. A rule or a nominee carried over from a prior week should not be assumed to apply to the current one.