The Beacon will conduct its second annual Athlete of the Year tournament via Twitter polls beginning Tuesday.

The tournament will open with the Round of 30 on Tuesday and will conclude with the championship round closing out the tournament on Saturday, April 13. The full schedule is listed below. Voting will open each day at 11 a.m. and close at 11 p.m.

The selection committee met Friday to place both 30 men and 30 women into their respective brackets. In each bracket, 18 automatic qualifiers, as determined by previous athletes of the weeks, join 12 at-large bids.

The field was announced on Sunday in a selection show posted to “Wilkes Now” on YouTube.

2018-19 #BeaconAOTY Bracket

The champion of both categories will be featured in a full page spread in the final edition of The Beacon on April 16.

Each week, The Beacon sports staff selected both a male and female “athlete of the week” from the previous week (Monday-Sunday). The selection was done at the staff’s weekly meeting. Now, each of the previous Beacon athlete of the week award winners (18), along with 12 other at-large selections, will compete in an end of the year Twitter poll tournament. Over a period of five days, Twitter polls will be set up to determine a champion in a bracket-style format. Male and female athletes will compete in separate divisions.

The staff made their selections consistent with the following criteria:

• Primary criteria: Contributed significantly to the team during their respective (ie: starter or other significant roles – 6th man, libero, etc…) and/or to the success of the team. Statistics and award/other honors related to each athlete may be used.
• Secondary criteria: Exhibited some/all of the following positive qualities on and off the court/field: Leadership, teamwork, communication, commitment and loyalty, work ethic, ambassadorship – good representative of the sport and of the school, respect for coach, teammates, opponents and officials, fair play/honor, sportsmanship and balancing of athletic and academic life
• Tiebreaking criteria: In the case where two or more athletes fulfill the criteria above equally, a tie may be broken by looking at total contribution in that year to the school athletic program (ie: excelled at more than one varsity athletic program, or contributed in other ways, such as coaching, refereeing, etc…)

Bracketing rules:

• Each bracket will consist of 30 athletes: 18 of which are previous Beacon athlete of the week award winners, as well as 12 at-large selections. Both male and female brackets will have 30 athletes.
• The top two seeds shall be automatic qualifiers and will receive first-round byes.
• Each Varsity athletic program shall have at least one representative unless the committee determines that a team had no meritorious candidates.
• When possible, the committee should avoid placing two or more student-athletes from the same team with the potential to meet in the Round of 16.
• Multi-sport athletes may only receive one entry. The Committee will decide the number of sports an athlete may represent on a case-by-case basis. An athlete must qualify for all sports. In determining seeding for multi-sport athletes, all sports can be taken into account.

Twitter Poll tournament rules:

• All polls will be conducted using the @WilkesBeacon Twitter Platform
• Polls will begin each day at 11:00 a.m. and will conclude at 11:00 p.m.
• Any use of automated Twitter accounts is prohibited and is against Twitter’s Terms of Service.
• The Beacon staff reserves the right to rule on any incident not listed here. The staff’s decision is final.

Tournament Schedule:

• Round of 30: Tuesday, April 9
• Round of 16: Wednesday, April 10
• Quarterfinal Round: Thursday, April 11
• Semifinal Round: Friday, April 12
• Championship Round: Saturday, April 13

For coverage of the tournament, check out the following Twitter accounts:

• Luke Modrovsky, editor-in-chief — @LukeModrovsky
• Ben Mandell, co-sports editor — @BenMandell55
• Kirsten Peters, co-sports editor — @kirstenpetersss
• James Dotter, Wilkes Now production assistant — @James_Dotter

Additional coverage will be provided through media partner 90.7 WCLH — Wilkes University radio through @WCLH_radio and @WCLHsports