Citizen Times and Times-News Boys Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

Who runs the Citizen Times and Times-News Boys Athlete of the Week

The Citizen Times and Times-News Boys Athlete of the Week is a reader-decided award for boys high school athletes in North Carolina, run by The Citizen-Times under the Citizen-Times and Times-News mastheads. Each ballot asks one question, printed in its title: who is the boys athlete of the week for the span of dates shown there. The format is a reader poll rather than a juried award, so the outcome depends entirely on how many supporters each nominee turns out.

The vote itself runs on Crowdsignal, with the program's live ballot sitting at the poll.fm address shown in the table below. Nominees on recent ballots come from high schools across the communities the publisher covers, and the school names matched to North Carolina for this program include Asheville, Brevard, Cherokee, Madison, Polk County, Mountain Heritage and West Henderson. That footprint is local rather than statewide, which is what separates this poll from the Charlotte-based programs listed further down the page.

For supporters, the practical meaning is straightforward. Because the ballot is open to any reader, a nominee's total reflects how effectively a school, a family network and a student body can turn attention into daily votes. The poll rewards organized school communities, and the weekly rhythm means a fresh start every round.

When the boys athlete of the week poll runs in North Carolina

The program is annual, with confirmed editions in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Within each season The Citizen-Times runs the award as a series of weekly ballots rather than a single long vote, and a 2026 season is the next expected run.

The August window is where the dates hold. The ballot held for this program carries the title asking who the Citizen Times and Times-News boys athlete of the week is for Aug. 17-23, and that poll is closed. For the current cycle, the publisher's own high school sports story states, "The poll closes on Aug. 27 at noon," which fixes the close of at least one 2026 weekly ballot at midday on Aug. 27.

Alongside the ballot, the publisher has printed no opening day for each weekly round, no nomination dates ahead of voting, and no roster of award categories beyond the boys athlete question itself; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Nomination timing is likewise absent from the publisher's printed material, so nobody outside the newsroom can say in advance when a week's nominee list is set.

Treat the weekly title as the calendar. Each poll names the span it covers, and the close time, when one is printed, appears in the accompanying story rather than on the ballot itself, which is why reading both is the dependable habit.

How a supporter votes in the weekly boys athlete poll

Voting happens on the Crowdsignal ballot, at the program's poll.fm address. A supporter who opens the page sees the list of boys high school athletes nominated for that week's span, selects one and submits. The poll title carries the dates, so a reader can tell at a glance which week the ballot covers and whether it is still open or already closed.

The organizer's rule on frequency is printed in its own words: "You can vote once per day." That makes the daily return the core habit for a nominee's supporters. A vote cast today does not carry into tomorrow's tally, so a school community that spreads its support across every day of the polling span builds a steadier total than one that concentrates everything into a single evening.

No purchase, membership or registration is presented as part of the published mechanic. The ballot is an open public vote with no gate around it, and the practical work of winning it happens off the ballot, in how well a nominee's community is mobilized to show up each day the poll is open.

Because each weekly round is a fresh poll, momentum does not roll over from one week's result to the next. Every ballot starts from zero, which keeps late-season nominees as competitive as early-season ones and gives every school community a recurring chance to turn out.

How this ballot sits beside other North Carolina athlete of the week programs

Within North Carolina, this poll belongs to a family of newspaper and station athlete awards. The Charlotte Observer operates separate programs, a general Athlete of the Week plus distinct boys and girls high school editions, each answering to its own ballot. The Greensboro News & Record Player of the Week runs on a similar weekly rhythm, the Tatum & Atkinson Scholar Athlete of the Week from ABC45 blends athletics with academics, and a statewide high school baseball Player of the Week rounds out the group.

What distinguishes the Citizen Times and Times-News version is the pairing of mastheads and the focus on boys nominees across the publisher's coverage area around Asheville, Brevard and Cherokee. A vote earned here advances a boys nominee in this publisher's poll and does nothing for the Charlotte or Greensboro programs, and the reverse is equally true.

For a supporter deciding where to invest effort, that separation matters. Each ballot is its own contest, with a fresh weekly span, a fresh nominee list and a fresh close, so support has to be organized per program rather than spread across the family of North Carolina athlete polls as if they shared a tally.

Building daily support for a nominee

Strengthening support in this poll starts with the mechanic the publisher itself sets: a vote once per person per day, on a ballot that resets with each weekly span. The dependable moves are the unglamorous ones. Share the poll.fm address directly with teammates, families and school groups rather than a search result, remind people the day after their first vote, and tie reminders to the span printed in the poll title so nobody wastes a click on a closed ballot.

The publisher's pages do not print a policy on paid or coordinated support, so anyone weighing outside help should read the legality guide and the votes guide before deciding anything. Whatever route a community takes, the once-per-day rule and the weekly reset are the two fixed points every plan has to work around.