Nebraska / Lincoln Journal Star Liberty First Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

The one thing most Lincoln voters get wrong about this poll

The Journal Star ballot closes mid-afternoon on a weekday. One confirmed close: 2 p.m. CT, Wednesday, April 1. That is not Sunday night. Not Monday 11:59 p.m. A Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon, in the middle of a school and work day.

Most fan-vote campaigns are built around a weekend rhythm. Post Saturday. Remind Sunday. Wait out the results. That rhythm loses here, because the voting window is already closing while people are at lunch on Wednesday. A campaign that doesn't start the moment the article goes live — usually later in the same week the performances happened — is giving up time it cannot get back.

This is the structural feature that sets the Journal Star poll apart from every other Nebraska fan vote. The SBLive Nebraska statewide ballot and the OrthoNebraska Omaha poll both have their own schedules, but neither has a midday midweek close that can catch supporters off-guard the way this one can. Know the close time for your week before you share anything.

What the inaugural winner reveals about this field

Sam Dearking of Lincoln Christian won the first confirmed Liberty First Athlete of the Week in girls basketball, approximately February 2026. That detail — a private-school athlete winning the inaugural award — is worth sitting with.

Lincoln Christian is one of the smaller programs in the Lincoln area. Its enrollment puts it well below the large Class A public schools — Lincoln Southwest, Lincoln East, Lincoln Northeast, and Lincoln Southeast. On a Friday night those programs rarely meet on a court or field. On a Wednesday afternoon poll they are all on the same ballot.

The lesson from that first result is the same one that shows up in fan votes everywhere: school size and classification do not gate the outcome. Turnout does. Lincoln's large Class A programs carry big absolute fan bases, but a smaller private school with a tight, activated community can concentrate its votes faster. That Dearking won the first one suggests the Lincoln Christian network moved quickly and together — which is exactly the kind of community structure that wins midweek polls.

So does eligibility extend beyond Lincoln city limits? Yes. Waverly and Ashland-Greenwood — both Class B schools in Lincoln-adjacent communities — are confirmed in the eligible geography. A small Class B program from Waverly or Ashland competes against Lincoln's largest public high schools on the same ballot.

Five to six nominees, multiple sports: reading the field

The Journal Star nominates 5–6 athletes per week, drawn from whatever sports are in season. During the winter season that might mean a boys basketball player, a girls basketball player, a wrestler, and a swimmer on the same ballot. During spring it might be a baseball player, a track athlete, and a soccer player all competing for one award.

That cross-sport structure changes the mobilization math. A football team's booster group and a wrestling team's parents are very different networks. A basketball program at Lincoln East and a track athlete from Waverly draw on communities that barely overlap. When the field is single-sport, you are competing against programs in your own sport's community. When the field is cross-sport, you are competing against entirely different social networks — some faster, some larger, some more concentrated than yours.

The confirmed sports on record: girls basketball (Dearking), boys basketball nominees, baseball nominees across multiple weeks, and a track winner. Wrestling is covered during the winter season, which matters for a state where Class B and C programs produce nationally ranked competitors with deeply tight-knit school communities. A Lincoln-area wrestling program with a nominee in January is drawing on a different support structure than a spring baseball team. Neither is inherently stronger — but knowing which networks move fast to a 48-hour window is the whole game.

For Lincoln-area fans looking to support a nominee, the fastest path is a direct poll link shared before Tuesday morning, while there is a full day of voting left. That compressed window is precisely what makes structured vote support useful when organic reach runs short. For a broader view of how Nebraska prep votes work, the Nebraska contest directory covers both this poll and the Omaha metro award. The full national directory is at /usa/.