Where to Find High School Sports and Athlete-of-the-Week Coverage on The News Leader

Updated

High school and local college sports coverage on The News Leader (newsleader.com) lives in the site's Sports section, and the paper's athlete-of-the-week feature appears there and on the homepage as a recurring story. If you are looking for a specific week's winner or the latest prep results, start with the Sports section rather than the homepage feed, which mixes sports with news, opinion, and shopping content.

Where sports coverage sits on the site

The homepage of newsleader.com covers the communities of the central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and its navigation includes a Sports link alongside News, Opinions, and other sections. Sports stories also surface directly on the homepage — for example, the athlete-of-the-week item and national college football coverage appeared in the main story feed.

That means there are two practical entry points:

  • Sports section — the most reliable place for prep and college coverage as it accumulates.
  • Homepage feed — good for catching the current week's athlete-of-the-week story and other timely sports items, but it rotates as new stories publish.

The athlete-of-the-week feature

The News Leader names an athlete of the week, published as a standalone story. One example visible on the site is a story naming the athlete of the week for Sept. 14–19. The feature recurs, so the current week's winner is typically the most recent version of that story.

To find it:

  1. Open newsleader.com.
  2. Go to the Sports section, or scan the homepage feed for a headline beginning "The News Leader names its athlete of the week."
  3. Open the story to see the named athlete and the week covered.

If you are looking for a past week's winner, note that these stories are dated by week (e.g., "Sept. 14-19"), so the date range in the headline is the fastest way to confirm you have the right one.

What else the Sports section covers

Sports coverage on the site is not limited to local prep athletics. Alongside the athlete-of-the-week feature, the homepage has carried:

  • National college football coverage, including US LBM Coaches Poll movement and weekly winners and losers.
  • Local prep and community sports stories from the Shenandoah Valley area.

So if your interest is specifically Staunton-area high school sports, expect that coverage to sit alongside broader college football reporting in the same section.

Practical notes

  • Subscription content: The site uses "subscribe" and "subscription" language, and includes an eNewspaper link. Some sports stories may sit behind a subscription; the site does not state on the homepage which individual sports items are free versus subscriber-only, so treat that as something to check per story.
  • Timeliness: The athlete-of-the-week story is tied to a specific date range, so the headline date is your best signal for whether you have the current week.
  • Related sections: Obituaries, eNewspaper, and contests appear in the same navigation, so if you land somewhere unexpected, use the Sports link to get back to athletics coverage.