IndyStar Wrestler of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the IndyStar Wrestler of the Week poll and who runs it?

IndyStar Wrestler of the Week is a recurring fan poll from The Indianapolis Star, the Gannett-owned daily based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Each installment asks readers to pick the standout from the newest weekend of Central Indiana high school wrestling, and the poll is presented by the YMCA of Greater Indianapolis. The publisher frames the series as a way to honor the best of Central Indiana wrestling from Saturday's semistate round, which anchors every ballot to results fans have just watched on the mat.

The ballot is hosted on Crowdsignal and reachable through poll.fm, with the edition currently linked sitting at poll.fm/14952258. Taking part is a public click: any reader who opens the article can choose a nominee, and the poll closes at noon Friday. No nomination form, payment step or membership wall is attached to the ballot as IndyStar presents it.

Because the honor rotates through the wrestling season, the nominee list changes from poll to poll. Schools named on recent ballots include North Central, Brownsburg, Hamilton Heights, Avon, Pendleton Heights, Columbus East and Roncalli, which spreads the ballot across several Central Indiana school communities instead of keeping it inside one district.

When does IndyStar wrestler of the week voting open and close?

The series holds editions in 2024 and 2025 on its published footprint, marking it as an annual feature of the IndyStar sports calendar. Inside each season the honor runs as a chain of short weekly ballots, not a single long vote, so a supporter who misses a week simply waits for the next question.

The ballot currently linked carries the headline asking who the IndyStar wrestler of the week was for Jan.13-18, and it now shows as closed. The publisher's instruction line for the series is explicit: voting closes at noon Friday. That cutoff is the only closing detail IndyStar attaches to each weekly ballot, and it holds whether the poll runs during the regular season or around the semistate.

The January tally broke decisively toward a single nominee. The leading wrestler took 42 percent of the vote on 22,262 ballots cast, while the runner-up finished at 38 percent on 20,212 votes. A margin that narrow left the outcome within reach of a well-timed late push.

What the publisher leaves unstated

Several details stay off the page. IndyStar prints no category roster for the series, sets out no per-supporter limit and publishes no eligibility terms; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The publisher likewise gives no opening hour for a fresh weekly ballot and no date for the edition that follows a closed one.

How do you vote in the IndyStar wrestler of the week poll?

Supporters reach the vote by way of the IndyStar wrestling article, where the publisher embeds the poll at the bottom of the story, or through the direct Crowdsignal link at poll.fm/14952258, which opens the identical ballot on its own page. Either path presents the nominee list, a set of schools beside each entry, and a submit control that locks the choice in.

Casting the selection

Picking a nominee takes a click, and the poll adds the selection to the running tally at once. There is no essay, no photo upload and no reason to prepare anything in advance; the whole act fits inside the minute it takes to read the ballot.

Voting from a phone

The poll sits inside the responsive article page, so the same tap sequence works on a phone browser between classes, at work or in the stands. Supporters who plan to rally others should send the article link rather than a screenshot, because the link lands every voter directly on the live ballot.

The edition linked above closed with the Jan.13-18 question. Later weekly ballots succeed it as the season advances, each one built around the freshest round of wrestling results.

How does this wrestling poll sit beside Indiana's other fan-vote contests?

Indiana readers who follow public-vote contests meet a crowded field of neighbors. The statewide Best of Indiana ballot, the CommunityVotes editions for Bloomington, Evansville and Fort Wayne, YourChoiceAwards South Bend and Best of Elkhart County all invite audiences to crown local favorites. Those programs lean toward businesses, eateries and community categories; the IndyStar wrestler poll stays narrow, weekly and athletic.

Subject and rhythm separate this ballot from the pack. Where the neighbors run broad community-choice catalogs on yearly cycles, IndyStar narrows the frame to individual wrestlers coming off the Saturday semistate, refreshes the nominee list every week and ties the honor to a fixed Friday noon cutoff. A school community can therefore campaign across many consecutive weeks rather than betting everything on a single long window.

For readers weighing paid support across several Indiana ballots at once, the award-votes overview describes how purchased volume is generally applied to public votes of this kind.

How can supporters give a wrestler a stronger shot in this poll?

The weekly reset is the structural advantage a campaign has here. A fresh ballot opens with each new round of results, so momentum from a strong semistate weekend can be converted into selections within days instead of waiting on a year-long cycle. Sharing the article link through team group chats, booster pages and school social accounts puts the ballot in front of the families already invested in the outcome, and those readers need only a click to take part.

The publisher attaches no rule about paid or coordinated voting help to the poll, so anyone considering purchased volume should weigh the organizer's silence carefully and study the tactics in this guide to earning more votes online. Whatever the channel, the noon Friday close rewards early movement in the week over a last-day scramble.