The SB Tribune Preseason Boys Soccer Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the SB Tribune preseason boys soccer poll is and who runs it

Each August, the South Bend Tribune puts a preseason question to its readers: which boys soccer player deserves the player of the year label before the fall schedule even begins. That question is the fan-vote award this page covers, and it sits inside the Tribune's high school sports desk for South Bend, Indiana, where the paper is the daily newspaper.

Crowdsignal (poll.fm) is the polling platform behind the ballot, the same host the paper uses for its other reader votes. The confirmed voting address for this soccer program is https://poll.fm/15890689. A supporter does not register for anything tied to the Tribune; the ballot asks one question, prints the nominee list directly on the page, and any visitor can cast a vote on it.

The format is the familiar newspaper fan poll: a question, a list of nominees identified by name and school, a button beside each name, and a live percentage count while the ballot is open. Because the nominees are high school players, this reference page names only the publisher, sport, class and season rather than reprinting any player's name; the ballot itself carries the full list.

Facts at a glance

The dated record: which editions ran and when the window falls

Confirmed editions of this soccer poll appear in 2022 and 2025, the two years that anchor the program and mark it as a recurring preseason feature of the Tribune's boys soccer coverage rather than a single experiment.

The most precisely dated cycle is the 2026 preseason poll. The Tribune's own story on it, published from its high school soccer desk, states that voting was open for the 2026 South Bend Tribune boys soccer preseason player of the year poll and that readers could keep voting until the poll closed Sunday, Aug. 16 at 11:59 p.m. ET. That places the window squarely in August, matching the preseason timing the program's name implies and the August-August window the poll.fm series shows.

The closed 2025 ballot also carries a hard number: the leading nominee finished with 34 percent of the 20,586 votes cast on that soccer poll. That total is the only vote figure attached to this program, and it gives a sense of the scale a preseason Tribune ballot can reach in the South Bend market.

What the Tribune has not published beside this soccer poll is a written eligibility rule or an explanation of how the preseason nominee list is assembled; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The exact opening day of each new soccer ballot is likewise announced with the poll itself rather than in advance.

How a supporter votes in the SB Tribune preseason soccer poll today

Simplicity is the whole design of this Tribune soccer ballot, and that is why unlimited participation works. A supporter opens the ballot at the poll.fm address linked from the paper's boys soccer coverage, reads the question asking who the SB Tribune preseason boys soccer player of the year should be, and presses the button beside the nominee he supports. Crowdsignal registers the choice immediately and the page then displays the updated percentage split among the soccer nominees.

Two details of the 2026 cycle matter for anyone planning to participate. First, the Tribune's story states plainly that readers may vote repeatedly until the poll closes Sunday, Aug. 16 at 11:59 p.m. ET. There is no published per-person ceiling on this soccer ballot, so revisiting the page later in the window and pressing the button again is exactly what the organizer invites. Second, the ballot is public: no Tribune subscription is described as part of the voting path, and the poll sits on poll.fm rather than behind the paper's own site.

After a soccer poll closes, the ballot page does not disappear. The 2025 ballot still displays its final standings under a poll-closed marker, so supporters can check where a nominee finished even months later. That makes the poll.fm address the single place to watch both during the August window and after it.

How this soccer ballot sits beside its Indiana neighbours

This program is part of a wider family of Indiana fan-vote awards covered on this site, most of them newspaper-run polls in the same high school sports space. The nearest structural cousins include the Bloomington Herald-Times Athlete of the Week, a weekly honor from a different Indiana paper, and the Evansville Courier & Press Football Player of the Year, a player-of-the-year format from the state's southwest.

Statewide programmes round out the set: the Indiana High School Football Player of the Week, the Indiana SI Boys Basketball Player of the Year, and the Indiana SI Football 3A and 4A Player of the Year ballots.

What distinguishes the SB Tribune soccer poll within that group is its preseason placement and its sport. Most of the neighbouring programmes honour football or basketball, and several run weekly during a season; this ballot asks its question before the boys soccer fall campaign starts, in August, and settles it in a single window rather than a week-by-week series. It is also strictly local to the Tribune's South Bend readership, drawing nominees from schools in that part of northern Indiana rather than from the whole state, which keeps the voting community concentrated around the paper's own audience.

Strengthening support for a nominee in this soccer poll

Because the Tribune allows unlimited voting until the close, the effective way to build support for a nominee is organized repetition plus reach. A school community that sets a daily habit, voting each morning and evening through the August window, multiplies its total far more than a single push near the Aug. 16 deadline. Sharing the poll.fm link directly, in team group chats and on the program's own social accounts, removes the step of hunting for the ballot in the Tribune's coverage.

The organizer's published position is permissive on volume: the Tribune's story says readers may vote repeatedly. Nothing published beside this soccer ballot restricts outreach, though the nominees are high school players, so outreach belongs with families, teammates and the school community. For a broader playbook that fits a newspaper fan poll of this kind, see how to get more votes online, and for the general rules question around paid support, buying award votes explains the landscape for awards ballots.