Vote for the Eagle-Gazette Boys Basketball Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Eagle-Gazette boys basketball player of the year vote is

The Eagle-Gazette, the daily newspaper serving the Lancaster area of Ohio, runs Vote for the Eagle-Gazette Boys Basketball Player of the Year as a seasonal reader award for high school boys basketball. The setup is a straightforward reader ballot: the newspaper publishes a page listing nominated players from schools in its coverage area, and readers mark the player they believe deserves the honour. The 2024-2025 edition carried nominees from Fairfield Union, Lancaster, Fisher Catholic and Bloom-Carroll, the schools that anchor the paper's basketball coverage.

The ballot itself sits on Crowdsignal, the survey platform reached through poll.fm. That hosting choice matters to supporters in practical ways: a poll.fm ballot needs no reader account, lists each nominee with his school next to a selectable circle, and displays running percentages while the vote runs. The confirmed address for the 2024-2025 ballot was poll.fm/15034616, and the paper's basketball coverage links each season's ballot when voting opens.

Facts at a glance

Because the award is a player of the year vote rather than a weekly honour, the season's whole conversation funnels into one ballot at the end of the run, and the paper sets the nominee list itself rather than opening nominations to readers.

The dated record: editions, the voting window and what is unpublished

Two editions of this ballot are confirmed: 2024 and 2025. The 2024-2025 season's page is the one whose full shape is visible, because it remains online in closed state. That edition's voting window ran in February, on a 6 a.m. Tuesday to 5 p.m. Friday schedule, a four-day sprint the paper announced alongside the ballot. The page's title carried the 2024-2025 season label, which is how the Eagle-Gazette frames each edition.

The closed ballot also preserves the result: the leading nominee finished with 37 percent of the vote on 875 votes, with the runner-up at 20 percent. Those figures come from the poll's own result display, making them the firmest numbers attached to this program.

Several facts sit outside what the newspaper has printed. The paper leaves the per-supporter ceiling, any eligibility rule and the daily-return question off this ballot; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. Next season's opening and closing dates are likewise absent from the closed page, and the Eagle-Gazette announces them with each new ballot instead of keeping a standing calendar. What the two confirmed editions do establish is a February pattern and a Tuesday-to-Friday rhythm, which is the best planning information a supporter has until the paper publishes the next window.

How a supporter votes in the Eagle-Gazette poll today

The mechanic is deliberately simple, and that simplicity suits a reader award. Voting starts at the poll.fm address the Eagle-Gazette links from its basketball coverage. Each nominee appears with his school, the supporter marks the circle next to his choice and submits. No sign-in screen appeared on the 2024-2025 ballot, so the entire task fits inside a minute on a phone.

Timing is the part supporters get wrong. The 2024-2025 window accepted votes from 6 a.m. Tuesday to 5 p.m. Friday, so the ballot stayed live roughly four days and then locked for good. Anyone who waits for the weekend lands on a closed page showing final percentages where the vote button used to be. Because the newspaper prints no rule on whether one person may cast repeat votes in this poll, the sensible approach is to follow the live ballot's own instructions and to ask supporters to vote early in the window instead of at the deadline.

One more detail worth knowing: a poll.fm ballot displays the live tally while voting runs, so a close race is visible to everyone watching. That visibility cuts both ways. It lets a campaign see exactly where its player stands, and it tells opponents the same thing, which is why the final hours of a Tuesday-to-Friday window tend to move fast. The result page, once closed, becomes the final tally of the outcome.

How this ballot sits beside other Ohio high school votes

Ohio runs a crowded field of reader-voted high school sports awards, and this ballot occupies a specific niche within it. Where the Columbus Dispatch Athlete of the Week and the Cincinnati Enquirer Athlete of the Week recycle a ballot every week across all sports, the Eagle-Gazette's vote is a single end-of-season award for one sport, boys basketball, in one paper's coverage area. The Fox 8 FNTD Player of the Year Vote is the closest structural cousin, a player of the year format rather than a weekly series.

The weekly programs in the state include the Akron-Area High School Athlete of the Week, the Dayton Daily News High School Athlete of the Week and the Dayton High School Football Player of the Week. Those ballots reset their nominee lists every seven days, so a supporter's effort resets with them. The Eagle-Gazette's format concentrates the whole season into one February window, which means a single push carries the entire outcome.

For a family or a booster group deciding where to spend attention, the difference is practical: a weekly ballot rewards a standing routine, while this player of the year vote rewards one well-timed mobilization inside the Tuesday-to-Friday window the paper sets each season.

Strengthening support inside this ballot's rules

This ballot rewards early, organized asks more than last-minute ones. The 2024-2025 window ran 6 a.m. Tuesday to 5 p.m. Friday, so a supporter group that sends the poll.fm link to teammates, parents and the student section on Tuesday morning gets four days of sharing instead of one frantic afternoon. Because the page shows live percentages, momentum is visible, and a visible lead tends to pull casual voters along with it.

On outside help, the Eagle-Gazette's position for this award is simply absent from print, so the live ballot's own terms are the only authority a supporter can point to. Keep the ask personal and real: a basketball program's own community voting for its own player is exactly what a reader award is designed to measure. For tactics that go beyond the school community, the site's guide to getting more votes online lays out the options and their trade-offs.