South Bend Tribune Non-Football Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

Who runs the South Bend Tribune Non-Football Athlete of the Week poll?

The South Bend Tribune publishes this poll under its Non-Football Athlete of the Week feature. The ballot sits on Crowdsignal, a polling platform that hosts it at poll.fm under ballot number 16229257. The poll covers athletes from the South Bend area in sports other than football, and the 2025 sample ballot included answers tied to schools in Mishawaka and other South Bend area communities.

For a reader comparing contests, the most useful fact is who sponsors the vote. A newspaper runs this one rather than a league or a school board, and the publisher's name sits on the poll itself, which makes the sponsor easy to check before a supporter casts a vote.

Facts at a glance

When does the South Bend athlete poll run each season?

The poll runs as a weekly series. Its sample week was Oct. 27-Nov. 1, 2025, and the voting phase in the timing data ran from October through November 2025. Two seasons, 2024 and 2025, are on the platform for this series, so readers have two sets of ballots to look back on.

Because each week is a separate question, a reader who wants the full season should save the platform link rather than a single week's page. The poll itself sets the opening and closing of each weekly ballot, so the timeline below is a guide to the pattern rather than a fixed calendar.

The 2026 window is not set in this guide, so the active poll page is where readers should look for the next ballot.

How does a supporter vote in the poll today?

A supporter opens the current weekly question on poll.fm, reads the listed answers, and casts a vote for a single answer. Each answer pairs an athlete with a school and a sport, which is why the sample ballot reads like a school roster. The mechanics are the same from week to week, but the answers change.

Each week, the answers form a list of athletes with their school and sport, so a reader can compare the sports covered across weeks. A supporter who wants to compare answers should read each one before voting, since the poll page is the only place the current list is shown.

Sample ballot format

The sports list is not fixed. The poll page shows which answers run in a given week, and the sample alone should not be read as a full set of sports.

How does this poll compare with other Indiana athlete awards?

On the Indiana list, this poll sits beside the Bloomington Herald-Times Athlete of the Week and the Evansville Courier & Press Football Player of the Year. Unlike the Indiana SI player-of-the-year titles, which are sport-specific awards, this poll is a weekly ballot covering non-football athletes from the South Bend area.

The Indiana SI titles include boys basketball and football by class, and the state hub at Indiana lists the full set of local ballots.

Readers who follow the South Bend area may find the basketball and football titles useful for context, while this poll remains the non-football weekly ballot in this set. The two kinds of award answer different questions, so a reader should pick the page that matches the sport they care about.

How can supporters strengthen votes for this poll?

The main lever a supporter has is reach. Sharing the live poll link with families, coaches and local readers is the place to start, because the ballot is open to anyone who can reach poll.fm. Whether outside help is allowed is not set out in the material behind this guide, so read the poll page before you try anything new.

The get more votes online guide explains the general approach to public polls. Paid services exist for public polls in general, and a provider can only work inside the poll's rules, so review the sports fan poll vote service page before you decide.