The Courier & Press Orthopaedic Associates Female Athlete of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

An Orthopaedic Associates-sponsored vote from the Evansville Courier & Press

The Evansville Courier & Press runs a single yearly vote naming a female athlete of the year across its high school sports coverage, carrying a sponsor's name built directly into the award's own title: the Courier & Press Orthopaedic Associates Female Athlete of the Year. That sponsor line is part of how the newspaper brands the honor, distinct from the paper's other sports ballots.

Voting happens on Crowdsignal, reached at the short address poll.fm/17151746. The newspaper builds and promotes the ballot through its own sports desk; Crowdsignal supplies only the polling mechanism, not the nominee list or the coverage around it. A reader with a question about who qualifies for the honor is better served contacting the newsroom directly than the polling platform.

The nominees each year are high school athletes, so individual names are left off this guide entirely. What identifies the program here is the sponsor, the newspaper, the platform and the confirmed pattern of when it runs, all drawn from the Evansville Courier & Press's own reporting rather than from any third party.

2023 and 2026 on the books, with an unusually open voting rule

Two editions are confirmed for this award: 2023 and 2026. Nothing published explains the years between them, so this account states the two confirmed rounds rather than assuming the vote quietly continued in 2024 and 2025. Far more detail survives about 2026: the Evansville Courier & Press's own article on the vote fixed Friday, June 26 as the closing point, though the same coverage did not print when that round's voting actually began.

What makes the 2026 round worth noting on its own is the paper's stated rule on repeat participation. Its coverage told readers they were welcome to "cast your vote as many times as you wish" ahead of the June 26 close, printed without any daily cap or total limit attached. That is a more open policy than many newspaper polls publish, and it is stated plainly enough to treat as fact for that round rather than as an assumption.

Outside that one rule, the Evansville Courier & Press has not printed a category breakdown for this ballot, and no separate promotional calendar for the program appears in the polling network's own listings; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Whether the unlimited-voting policy carries forward to a future round the same way it applied in 2026 is not something any current page states either way.

From poll.fm/17151746 to a counted response, repeated if a supporter chose to

A supporter reaches the ballot directly at poll.fm/17151746, no account or login needed, the way Crowdsignal builds all of its public polls. The page presents the current nominee list exactly as the Evansville Courier & Press's sports desk posted it for that round.

Selecting a name and pressing submit is the whole action; Crowdsignal confirms the response on screen immediately. For the 2026 round specifically, the newspaper's own coverage said as much: supporters were welcome to repeat that action, since the article never mentioned any limit on repeat responses from the same reader. On a phone or a desktop the steps are identical, and nothing about the ballot's design changes with the device used to reach it.

That openness does not extend automatically to every future round. Because the Evansville Courier & Press has not said whether the same unlimited approach will govern a later edition, the safest reading for anyone voting after 2026 is to check the live ballot's own instructions rather than assume the June 2026 rule still applies. Crowdsignal keeps a closed round's page online after voting ends too, so the 2026 ballot stays visible as a reference for how that specific vote was configured even once it stops accepting responses.

One newsroom, several ballots, and where this one fits among Indiana's other polls

The Evansville Courier & Press runs more than one reader vote across its sports coverage, and this female athlete of the year award is the once-a-year kind rather than a weekly feature. The clearest comparison sits inside the same newsroom: its football player of the year vote follows the same organizer and the same general format, aimed at a different sport and a different season.

Beyond the shared organizer, none of these six carry any connection to each other's results; a nominee recognized in one program gains nothing automatically in another. For a reader specifically interested in the Evansville Courier & Press's own coverage, the football honor is the closer sibling to follow, sharing a newsroom even though the sport, the season and the nominee pool are entirely separate.

Turning a real Evansville-area following into counted votes

Because the 2026 round explicitly allowed repeat voting through Friday, June 26, the most effective honest push here combines reach with persistence: get the poll.fm/17151746 link in front of teammates, classmates, coaches and family, and ask each of them to return more than once before the deadline rather than casting a single response and stopping. The Evansville Courier & Press's own coverage supports exactly that approach for this specific round.

What that openness does not cover is automated or purchased activity standing in for real supporters; the newspaper's invitation was aimed at people who actually care about the outcome, not at traffic bought to inflate a count. Award-vote campaign planning covers how a community organizes that kind of sustained, genuine push without depending on rules a paper hasn't published.