What is the Marion County Athlete of the Week poll and who runs it?
The Ocala Star-Banner puts a weekly spotlight on high school sport across Marion County,
Florida, through its Athlete of the Week fan vote. The publisher gathers candidates from
the people closest to the action: coaches, athletic directors and statisticians are
invited to send nominee names together with the statistics that back them up. From those
submissions the paper assembles each week's ballot and hands it to a public reader vote.
Where the ballot lives
The vote runs on Crowdsignal, the polling service behind the poll.fm addresses, and the
series ballot address is https://poll.fm/16452021. A closed poll keeps its results on
display, so latecomers can still see how the counting finished.
Who ends up on the slate
Lineups track the school sports calendar. Basketball has filled recent slates, with
nominees tagged to Vanguard, North Marion, Dunnellon, Trinity Catholic and FACA. Those
tags change as the season turns, which is why the nominee list looks different from month
to month and why checking the current ballot matters more than memorizing an old one.
| Item | Detail |
|---|
| Program | Ocala Star-Banner Marion County Athlete of the Week |
| Organizer | The Ocala Star-Banner |
| Market | Marion County, Florida |
| Platform | Crowdsignal (poll.fm) |
| Ballot address | https://poll.fm/16452021 |
| Nomination route | Submissions from coaches, athletic directors and statisticians |
| Shape | Annual series of weekly public ballots |
Which seasons has the poll run, and when does each window fall?
Three seasons anchor the series: 2021, 2023 and 2025. The gaps between them mean no
continuous year-by-year history has ever been published for the poll, so treat any
assumption of an unbroken streak as unproven. What the dated ballots do establish is
placement: windows for the series fall in November and December, which matches the heart
of the winter sports schedule.
The clearest completed week
The most detailed finished ballot is Week 19. Its final tally showed the leader at 59%
on 7,600 votes, the runner-up at 35% on 4,488, and the next line at 4% on 566. Those
shares illustrate how lopsided a weekly race can become when a school community rallies
early and keeps voting through the window.
Key fact: the 2025 season is the
latest confirmed run, and the next expected cycle lands in 2026.
On the unpublished side, the paper releases no season-wide calendar that stamps an
opening and closing date onto every week of the run, and it maintains no printed category
roster or written eligibility rule for the honor; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.
How does a supporter actually cast a vote this week?
The mechanics stay light. A reader opens the live ballot, scans the nominee list with
each athlete's school and sport beside the name, selects a favorite and submits. The
paper's own invitation tells readers they may vote as many times as they wish, so nothing
stops a supporter from returning day after day until the deadline arrives.
The weekly clock
Every ballot runs to the same beat: voting stays open until Friday at noon. After that
the poll flips to closed and the final percentages freeze on screen. Because the honor
resets weekly, a missed week costs nothing; a fresh slate goes up with the next round of
nominations.
Practical tip: set reminders around
the Friday noon cutoff, since a ballot that looked alive on Thursday is finished by
lunchtime Friday.
Nothing on the ballot page describes an account requirement, so work from the live form
rather than any assumption about extra steps. If a submission seems to vanish, refreshing
and trying again ahead of the close is the sensible response.
How does this ballot compare with other Florida public votes?
Other Florida public votes covered here take very different shapes. The
Best of Florida Awards run statewide,
while the
Best of Miami Readers'
Poll,
Best of
Orlando,
Best of Tallahassee and
Best of the Bay give city readers a
wide-ranging best-of ballot to work through. Even the
BEST BUDS
Pin Up Paws Calendar Contest belongs to the same family, letting supporters push a
pet toward a calendar spot.
What sets the Star-Banner's poll apart
Scope and subject. This ballot is county-sized and devoted to school sport, while the
others crown businesses or animals across whole cities or the entire state. That
difference changes who campaigns: a restaurant owner courts a citywide audience for
months, whereas the Athlete of the Week race is won by whichever school community
concentrates its support inside a short weekly window.
Timing separates the ballots as much as scope does. Each city and state contest builds
toward a single result once per cycle, so a supporter's push stretches across months.
The Star-Banner's honor resets weekly instead: a nominee who misses one Friday noon
cutoff can surface again on a later basketball slate, and a Marion County school that
falls short in Week 19 can regroup for the next round of nominations. A campaigner used
to annual contests therefore needs shorter, sharper bursts of outreach here rather than
one long season of reminders.
How can a school community rally more support before Friday?
Support in this poll compounds quickly because repeat voting is openly invited. The most
natural starting point is the nomination pipeline itself: since coaches, athletic
directors and statisticians feed the slate, a campaign that begins with a school's own
athletics staff stays aligned with how the ballot was built. From there the work is
ordinary outreach: share the poll.fm link in team group chats, ask families to vote
daily, and keep the weekly deadline visible in every reminder. For tactics that reach
beyond a school community, the site's
guide to getting more votes online gathers
approaches that suit any public fan vote.
