Times Union Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

A Capital Region boys' sports ballot that differs from New York's other high school polls

Most high school athlete votes in New York state narrow the field before the voting starts: a football player of the week, a girls basketball poll, a single sport and a single section. The Times Union Athlete of the Week works the other way around. It covers boys' high school sports in the Capital Region across the whole athletic calendar, so a linebacker in September, a soccer striker in October and a basketball guard in January can all win the same honor in the same school year.

The organizer is the Times Union, the daily newspaper for the Capital Region of New York, and the vote runs on the paper's own site, not on any outside balloting service. That matters to supporters in practice: there is no separate platform account to create, and the ballot sits alongside the paper's other high school sports coverage, which is where its readers already are.

The mechanics are simple by design. The Times Union sports staff names five high school athletes as finalists after each week of competition, and readers choose the winner. The girls' program runs on the same pattern with its own five finalists. Compare that with single-sport neighbors such as the lohud Boys Basketball Player of the Week or the Hudson Valley New York High School Football Player of the Week, which commit to one sport all season.

Program facts at a glance

Confirmed editions and the voting window

Just 2025 and 2026 stand as the program's confirmed edition years, which is enough on this page's standard to call the ballot annual. The dated anchor within the 2026 edition is a June cycle: the ballot page announced the boys' sports Athlete of the Week finalists and winner for the week of June 15, 2026, with voting already closed on that cycle when the page was published. June sits at the tail of the high school sports year, so the confirmed evidence brackets the school-year season rather than proving a single month of activity.

The rhythm inside each edition is weekly. Nominations are collected Friday through Sunday of the school year through a form on the Times Union site, the sports staff then selects five boys' finalists and five girls' finalists, and the reader vote follows. Because every week produces a new ballot, the confirmed June 2026 cycle is one instance of a repeating pattern, not a standalone event.

The ballot page itself does not print the exact days a weekly vote opens or closes; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The published rules do settle one timing question: voting opens on Monday of each week during the season, which gives supporters a known starting point even where the closing hour is not spelled out alongside it.

A 2027 return is the reasonable expectation given two confirmed years, but this page treats only 2025 and 2026 as established. Each new school year brings a fresh nomination form and a fresh series of ballots, posted at the same corner of the paper's site.

How a supporter votes on the current ballot

The supporter's job is short. The current boys' sports ballot lives at the Times Union's project page for the athlete of the week, and it lists five nominated athletes whose outstanding performances came from the previous week of competition. Each finalist appears with a short write-up of what made the week notable, so a voter can make an informed pick without hunting through box scores.

To vote, a reader opens the ballot page, chooses one of the five finalists, and submits. The rules page governing the program states the limit plainly: one voting entry per week per email address. That single rule shapes everything about how support works here. A supporter cannot vote repeatedly within one cycle, so the size of the athlete's circle, not the persistence of any one fan, decides the outcome.

The weekly reset completes the picture. When the next week's five finalists are posted, the previous cycle is finished and its winner stands. The same email address is free to vote again in the new cycle, and families of multi-sport athletes sometimes find their student nominated more than once in a school year, once for fall performances and again for winter ones.

Nomination is a separate door. Anyone can put forward a team or athlete through the paper's nomination form, which stays open Friday through Sunday of the school year, and the sports staff chooses the five finalists from what comes in. Getting nominated is therefore a coach-and-community task; getting elected is a reader vote.

How this ballot sits beside its New York neighbors

Within this site's New York family, the Times Union ballot is the only all-sports boys' program tied to a single metro newspaper. Its closest structural sibling is the Buffalo News Prep Talk Girls Athlete of the Week, another newspaper-staff weekly that honors athletes across sports rather than within one. The remaining neighbors narrow by sport or by section instead.

The lohud program runs two seasonal polls, one for boys basketball and one for girls basketball, each tied to the winter season. The Hudson Valley ballot covers football only, as do the statewide New York High School Football Player of the Week and the Section 1 variant, the New York Section 1 High School Football Player of the Week, which draws its nominees from one athletic section rather than a newspaper's home metro.

Three differences follow for a family weighing where to focus attention. First, the Capital Region ballot rewards breadth: an athlete in any boys' sport can be nominated, which widens the competition but also widens the chance of appearing. Second, the weekly winner format means there is no season-long accumulation to chase, unlike a poll that builds toward a single year-end honor. Third, the one-vote-per-email weekly cap is stricter than some community ballots that allow daily returns, so mobilizing people matters more here than repeating votes.

For a Capital Region family, this ballot is usually the most relevant of the six, because its nominees and its readership both come from the Times Union's home coverage area.

Strengthening support within this ballot's rules

This program's rules leave little room for volume tactics: one voting entry per week per email address, on a ballot that closes fast after its Monday opening. What actually moves a weekly newspaper poll is reach in the first days. Ask the athletic department to post the ballot link on its team accounts the morning finalists are announced, have the athlete's teammates share it with their own circles, and put the ask where local readers already look, the paper's sports coverage and school social feeds.

Nomination is the earlier lever. The paper's form accepts submissions Friday through Sunday of the school year, so a strong week of performances plus a coach who submits on time is how an athlete reaches the five-name ballot at all. No outside help changes the sports staff's selection of finalists; the public vote only decides among the five named.

Because the cap is per email rather than per day, a reminder campaign that reaches fifty distinct people beats one person voting repeatedly, and anything that pushes past the stated cap works against the athlete it is meant to help. Our votes guide covers honest outreach in more depth.