National High School Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the National High School Athlete of the Week?

The National High School Athlete of the Week is a pair of free weekly fan-vote polls — separate Boys and Girls brackets — hosted at si.com by High School on SI, the prep-sports vertical of Sports Illustrated. The programme descends directly from SBLive Sports, a nationwide high school athletics media brand that was folded into the Sports Illustrated / Maven network in the early 2020s. Nominees are drawn from outstanding performances across all 50 US states each week, making this one of the genuinely national prep-sports recognition platforms in US media.

• Two polls per week — Boys and Girls — covering all major high school sports seasons: fall (football, cross country, volleyball, soccer), winter (basketball, wrestling, swimming), and spring (baseball, softball, track, lacrosse, tennis, golf).
• No per-voter cap and no account registration — readers cast votes freely; only automated scripts and macros are prohibited.
• Voting opens Monday or Tuesday after the editorial team reviews nationwide results; closes 11:59 p.m. PT Sunday.
• Winners receive a published article on si.com — a nationally searchable credential under one of the most recognised names in US sports media.
• High School on SI also operates state-level athlete-of-the-week polls for individual states; the national edition represents the apex of that multi-tier ecosystem.

Which states and regions are most represented in the national poll?

Nominees come from all 50 states every week, but certain states — and certain programmes within them — appear in the national ballot more consistently than others. The table below maps key states to their standout programmes and what each state's nominees are typically known for, based on patterns visible in recent national poll editions and the depth of High School on SI's state-level editorial infrastructure. For a broad view of US contest voting, visit our US voting contest hub.

Two structural advantages separate the states that produce the most national poll nominees. First, states with a strong Catholic-school athletic tradition — California (Mater Dei, Bosco), Ohio (St. Edward, La Salle), New Jersey (Don Bosco, St. Peter's), Pennsylvania (St. Joe's Prep), Maryland (DeMatha) — combine alumni networks spanning decades with parent booster organisations that have experience running campaign-style fundraising and can redirect that energy toward a vote mobilisation effort. Second, states with large-enrolment suburban public schools — Texas UIL 6A, Florida FHSAA 8A, Ohio OHSAA Division I — provide raw audience size: a school with 3,000+ students generates a parent community that vastly exceeds what a smaller programme can reach.

How does voting work in the SI national poll?

Each weekly poll lives inside a dedicated article published at si.com/high-school. Two separate articles appear each week — one for Boys nominees and one for Girls nominees — each containing an embedded voting widget listing that week's national ballot. Voting is free, requires no account or email address, and is accessible from any standard desktop or mobile browser. For background on how open-cap fan polls like this one work compared to capped formats, see our guide to online contest voting.

Is there a vote limit per person?

No. The National High School Athlete of the Week poll imposes no per-voter cap. A reader can vote once or vote hundreds of times — the only restriction is that automated scripts, macros, and any software-generated votes are explicitly prohibited. This structure makes total network reach — rather than timing or device count — the primary competitive variable. A campaign that reaches 20,000 genuine supporters who each vote once produces more votes than a household of 10 devices voting 100 times each.

The poll widget on si.com typically displays running vote totals for each nominee in real time, allowing supporters to monitor the standings throughout the week-long window. Each week's Boys and Girls polls are separate articles with separate vote counters — voting in one does not carry over to the other. Both polls close simultaneously at 11:59 p.m. PT Sunday.

How is the National High School Athlete of the Week winner decided?

The winner of each weekly poll is the nominee with the highest fan-vote total when voting closes. High School on SI's editorial team controls the nomination stage — sourcing outstanding performance highlights from coaches, school athletic contacts, and regional correspondents across all 50 states — but the outcome after the poll opens is determined entirely by the public vote count. No editorial panel override, no weighted formula, no tiebreaker beyond total votes.

1. Performance submitted: coaches, parents, and school contacts email outstanding weekly stats and game contexts to the High School on SI editorial team. Regional correspondents also contribute nominations based on their state coverage.
2. Editorial selection: the national team filters submissions by journalistic criteria — national-level statistical significance, quality of competition, sport-specific context. Not every submission earns a ballot slot.
3. Poll opens: Boys and Girls poll articles publish Monday or Tuesday; voting begins immediately with no cap and no account required.
4. Poll closes: 11:59 p.m. PT Sunday; the final vote count freezes at that moment.
5. Winner announced: the athlete with the highest total is named that week's National High School Athlete of the Week in the following week's poll article, published Monday or Tuesday on si.com.

The winning athlete receives a published si.com article that is searchable under their name for years after the vote — a lasting, nationally visible credential that carries weight in recruiting profiles and college coach correspondence. Past winners from California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Utah, Ohio, and nearly every other state appear in the si.com archive, with performance details that supplement conventional highlight reels.

How do you build a winning vote campaign for the SI national poll?

Winning a national, uncapped poll demands a different strategic frame than a capped regional poll. There is no hourly reset to exploit and no device-multiplication shortcut — the lever is the width of the real human audience you can reach and motivate to click. Share the direct URL to the current week's Boys or Girls poll article on si.com with every message; removing every friction point between a supporter and the vote widget is the single highest-impact action you can take. For a complete tactical playbook for fan-vote contests, read our how-to guide.

Two patterns reliably separate national poll winners from runners-up. First, campaigns that launch the moment the poll article publishes on Monday or Tuesday build early momentum that is visible to casual visitors — a leading position early in the week triggers additional organic sharing from supporters who want to see their athlete stay on top. Second, campaigns that explicitly recruit out-of-state supporters — college students who know the athlete, extended family, online communities around the sport — capture a voter pool that locally focused campaigns almost always leave untapped.

When organic reach has been fully tapped and the nominee still trails, some families and booster clubs use a paid vote promotion service to connect the poll with additional real voters. Any service you choose must deliver genuine, manually cast votes — the automated methods explicitly banned by High School on SI carry disqualification risk. Our sports fan poll votes service is built around real-voter delivery. See our pricing page for package tiers.

What are the rules — and can you buy votes for SI's national poll?

The National High School Athlete of the Week is a consumer fan-engagement poll hosted on a commercial sports media platform, not a regulated sweepstakes or state-licensed prize promotion. The core rule High School on SI publishes explicitly is that votes generated by automated scripts, macros, or similar software tools are prohibited — athletes whose tallies include such votes may be disqualified from that week's poll.

The rule the contest sets targets the mechanism — automation — not the channel through which real supporters are reached. Understanding the practical distinction matters:

• Prohibited: scripts, macros, bots, or any software that submits votes without a human manually clicking each time — this is what "disqualification" risk attaches to.
• Not prohibited by the rules as published: a real person voting multiple times (there is no cap), or a real person who was reached through a paid promotion channel and then voted manually. The rules do not restrict motivation or outreach channel — only the mechanism of vote submission.

Whether paid outreach to real voters feels consistent with the spirit of a fan-vote contest is a judgement each family and booster club should make independently — after reading the current official poll page and weighing the recognition value of a win against any reputational consideration. The practical consequence of automated vote removal is disqualification from that week's poll only; no account is required, so no account ban is possible, and no longer-term consequence accrues to the athlete.

For a balanced, full-spectrum view of how online contest voting rules work across different poll formats in the United States, see our guide to online contest voting.

When does the SI national poll open and close each season?

The National High School Athlete of the Week polls follow the standard US high school athletics calendar: active during fall, winter, and spring sports seasons, with a summer break when most state athletic associations do not sanction competition. Each week, a new Boys and Girls poll article publishes at si.com/high-school after the editorial team has reviewed nationwide weekend and early-week results.

The first week of fall — August football kickoff week — and October rivalry weeks in states like California and Texas typically generate the year's highest national vote totals. Spring weeks in track and lacrosse, where booster networks are smaller and less practised at mobilisation, can sometimes be decided with a few thousand votes rather than tens of thousands. Checking the live standings mid-window gives the best real-time read of what a competitive finish requires in any given week.

For state-level timeline context, explore the US national contests hub or the broader USA contest guide index.