You want your school to have one of these polls to determine the four best athletes to ever attend
Update, May 31, 12:40 p.m.: The polls have closed, and the Rushmore schools for the summer of 2017 are set.
The top eight finishers in the poll below will get Mount Rushmore polls: Roxbury, Union City, Rancocas Valley, South Plainfield, Old Bridge, Pope John, Montgomery and Shawnee. The winner of the Times-area poll is Nottingham, and the winner of the South Jersey Times-area poll is Woodbury.
The 10 predetermined schools are Delbarton, Kingsway, Linden, Manasquan, Millburn, Montclair, Ridgewood, Scotch Plains-Fanwood, Toms River North and Wayne Hills.
Thanks to all who participated in our selection process and congrats to the 2017 Rushmore schools. Before long, we will post the five-week schedule that will start July 5. Each Rushmore school should look out for a call for nominations before the poll actually goes up.
For the third straight summer, NJ Advance Media will feature best-ever-athlete polls for schools all over N.J. to select the Mount Rushmore of athletics for schools they care about. And this year we're bumping the number of schools to 20.
Which schools? Well, that's half up to you. This year, we've selected 10 schools ourselves (list below) and we're leaving the selection of the other 10 to be determined by your voting. Eight schools will be selected in the statewide poll below. One school will be selected from a poll for South Jersey Times-area schools, and one will be selected from a poll for Times, Trenton-area schools.
We'll send reporters to the 20 schools to dig into athletic archives, interview key alums and school historians to come up with a list of the top all-time athletes (and coaches) from those schools. Over a five-week period starting July 5, we'll again leave the selecting to you in polls to determine the top four - the four best-of-the-best athletes to put on each school's athletics Mount Rushmore.
What else you need to know:
• The voting options below aren't final - if you don't see your school and want it to be in the running, write a comment below, and we'll add it. Then, it's up to you to round up the votes. That's how Piscataway became a Rushmore school in 2015.
• Check how these turn out. Here are the results from the 2015 schools, and here are last summer's results. (Note: Schools who have already participated are ineligible to go again and are left out of these selection polls.)
• The Rushmore polls for the selected schools will happen four at a time over a five-week span starting on or around July 5.
Important: We know you take these polls seriously. We do, too. We encourage you to come back and vote often. Please note, the poll will view rapid-fire voting from any individual IP as an attack and will put that IP in a time out.
You can do anything you want within reason to win these polls - make your case in the comments below, use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, MySpace, carrier pigeons, telegrams ... whatever you want to get the vote out. BUT any tech-based method designed to rack up votes will be flagged and those votes will be thrown out.
• South Jersey Times-area selection poll
• Times, Trenton-area selection poll
Statewide selection
Already selected as Rushmore schools this year are Delbarton, Kingsway, Linden, Manasquan, Millburn, Montclair, Ridgewood, Scotch Plains-Fanwood, Toms River North and Wayne Hills.
The list below is alphabetical. The top eight finishers will be selected as Mount Rushmore schools this summer. Voting closes at noon on Wednesday, May 31.
Pat Lanni may be reached at planni@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @PatLanniHS. Like NJ.com High School Sports on Facebook.