Fan the Gadsden Times Preseason High School Football Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Gadsden Times preseason player of the year poll is

The Fan the Gadsden Times Preseason High School Football Player of the Year is the fan vote The Gadsden Times runs each August to name its preseason honoree among area high school football players. The program asks readers to pick the player they believe deserves the paper's preseason honor, before the season itself begins. It sits in the sport vertical, alongside the weekly player of the week ballots Alabama publishers run once games are under way.

The ballot itself is hosted on Crowdsignal at poll.fm/14237326, and that address is the confirmed voting URL for the program. The 2024 edition's page now shows the poll closed, which is the normal end state for a preseason award once the paper has tallied the result. The nominee list from that edition named players tied to Glencoe, Sylvania, Sand Rock, Hokes Bluff, Fyffe, Guntersville, Westbrook Christian, Fort Payne, Piedmont, Albertville, Ashville and Collinsville, a spread of small towns across the paper's coverage area rather than a Gadsden city-limits-only field.

For readers comparing Alabama ballots, this program is one of several the state carries, including the Alabama High School Football Player of the Year and the Alabama High School Football Player of the Week. Each belongs to a separate publisher, and a vote cast on one never counts toward another.

The dated record for this preseason football poll

Two editions of the Gadsden Times preseason player of the year vote are confirmed, in 2023 and 2024. Both ran in August, the month the paper reserves for preseason football coverage, and the poll carries the preseason label precisely because it closes before regular-season play begins. No other edition years are attested for this program.

The paper does not publish, ahead of the round, the exact dates the window opens and closes, and no nomination round is described on the ballot page either. Anyone wondering whether the next poll is already open must look at the live Crowdsignal page or watch The Gadsden Times' own sports coverage, which is where the paper has historically announced the vote. The next edition year, and the dates it will run, are likewise not published; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

That absence of pre-published dates is worth taking seriously for planning. A family that waits for a printed calendar will not find one for this program, because the organizer announces the poll on its own schedule and the voting window appears to run its course within the preseason month itself. Anyone supporting a nominee in Fyffe, Guntersville, Sand Rock or any other town on the ballot should treat the first week of August as the season to start watching, then rely on the live page for the real dates. The weekly sibling ballot Alabama High School Baseball Player of the Week shows the same pattern of publisher-announced windows on the same platform.

How a supporter votes on the Gadsden Times preseason ballot

Voting here takes the simplest form a fan poll can take. A supporter opens the live ballot at poll.fm, reads the answer list, and clicks the nominee they want to back. Each answer pairs a player with the town or school community they represent, so a voter from Hokes Bluff or Sylvania can find their choice by scanning for the place name rather than reading every entry. Submitting the form registers the choice; the Crowdsignal page is built for that single-click pattern and the 2024 edition worked exactly this way.

Three practical points shape the experience. First, there is no account to create, so sharing the link with relatives, teammates and neighbors is the whole of the coordination task. Second, the poll page does not restate a written rule on repeat participation, and the Gadsden Times publishes no eligibility text alongside the ballot, so a supporter who plans a daily voting routine has nothing printed to rely on. Third, the nominee roster is fixed by the paper; there is no write-in field described on the ballot, so a player who is not listed cannot be added by supporters.

Because the poll is preseason rather than weekly, there is no series of fresh ballots to catch each Friday the way the Alabama High School Boys Basketball Player of the Week runs through its winter season. One ballot, one window in August, one result. That makes the opening days of the window disproportionately important for this program, since the entire opportunity sits inside a single short vote.

How this ballot sits beside its Alabama neighbours

This preseason award is the only program in the group that belongs to The Gadsden Times as a named publisher, and it is the only one framed around the preseason rather than the season itself. Its closest cousin on the Alabama slate is the Alabama High School Football Player of the Year, which covers football across the state, while the Gadsden poll is anchored to one newspaper's coverage area and draws its nominees from towns such as Albertville, Ashville, Piedmont and Collinsville.

The sibling set also includes Alabama High School Boys Basketball Player of the Year, Boys Basketball Player of the Week, Girls Basketball Player of the Week, and the baseball and football weekly ballots already mentioned. All are fan-voted public polls in the sport vertical, so a supporter who learns the mechanic on one Alabama ballot can work the others without relearning anything. What separates this program is timing and scope: it votes on a preseason individual honor, in August, for football specifically, rather than on a weekly performance.

That distinction matters for strategy as well as for description. A weekly ballot rewards a campaign that regroups after every round, while this preseason poll offers one continuous push through a single window. Readers who follow several of these programs will also notice that every ballot belongs to a separate publisher on a separate page, so a vote cast on the Gadsden Times ballot carries no weight toward any state-wide sibling, and support built for one cannot be transferred to the other.

Strengthening support for a Gadsden Times preseason nominee

Because the Gadsden Times ballot is a one-shot August poll with no printed per-person rule, the highest-value move for a nominee's supporters is early, broad sharing rather than a late scramble. The ballot rewards whoever can mobilize the most distinct voters across Glencoe, Fort Payne, Sylvania and the rest of the coverage area before the poll closes, and a preseason window gives less cushion to absorb a slow start than a weekly series would. Share the poll link directly, ask each supporter to pick the nominee and submit, and keep the request tied to the town name that appears beside the player on the answer list.

The organizer's page states no policy on outside help, so nothing is published either permitting or prohibiting paid vote support for this preseason poll. What the ballot itself shows is that votes are counted as they arrive on Crowdsignal and the paper has given no advance notice of any screening method for the program. Supporters who want to understand how purchased votes fit into public ballots generally can read the guide to getting more votes online, which covers the mechanics without promising any particular outcome, and nobody can promise a specific finish in a field this unpredictable.