Texas High School Volleyball Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Texas High School Volleyball Player of the Year poll?

The Texas High School Volleyball Player of the Year is an annual girls' volleyball award decided entirely by public fan vote, hosted at si.com/high-school/texas by High School on SI — the prep sports division of SBLive Sports operating under the USA TODAY Network. The editorial staff selects 25 nominees from UIL public and TAPPS private programmes statewide, spanning Class 6A down through smaller classifications, and the fan vote opens after the UIL fall state volleyball tournament concludes each November.

• Run by High School on SI / SBLive Sports, a national prep media network covering Texas volleyball year-round at si.com/high-school/texas.
• The ballot draws from across Texas — DFW Metroplex, Greater Houston, Greater Austin, San Antonio, and West Texas programmes all appear.
• Confirmed running in 2023, 2024, and 2025 with 25 nominees per cycle; voting closes Sunday at 11:59 pm CST.
• Both UIL public and TAPPS private school players are eligible — the pool mixes 6A powerhouses with smaller-class and private-school state champions.
• The award is separate from UIL All-Tournament teams and AVCA All-America selections; it is specifically a fan-determined recognition.
• Winners are published on si.com/high-school/texas and circulated across SBLive's Texas social media channels after the poll closes.

Because si.com reaches a national audience and Texas volleyball carries genuine national recruiting weight, a Player of the Year win here surfaces on the athlete's publicly searchable profile — the same page college coaches check during fall evaluation periods.

Which Texas volleyball programmes and players typically appear on the ballot?

The 25-nominee ballot spans the full competitive spectrum of Texas girls' volleyball — from the dominant DFW 6A public schools and TAPPS powerhouses in North Texas to consistently strong programmes in Greater Houston, Greater Austin, and the Hill Country. The table below lists programmes with confirmed recent POY ballot appearances or UIL state final appearances that feed the nominee pool.

North Texas dominates the nomination pool

DFW-area programmes consistently generate the largest share of nominees, reflecting the region's depth. Hebron (Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD) and Prosper (Prosper ISD) have each been perennial 6A state-contender programmes. Lovejoy (Lucas) competes in 5A and won the UIL Class 5A Division II state title in 2023–2024. Frisco Wakeland reached the 5A state quarterfinals in 2024–2025. Prestonwood Christian Academy won three consecutive TAPPS 6A state championships through 2024, producing nominees with national-level recruitment profiles.

Greater Houston adds programmes like Conroe Grand Oaks — the UIL 6A state champion in 2023–2024 — and Katy, a historically strong 6A school with consistent district and regional success. Greater Austin contributes Lake Travis and Cedar Park. The ballot is genuinely statewide, though DFW's population density and volleyball infrastructure mean the Metroplex accounts for a disproportionate share of nominees in most years.

How does the Texas Volleyball Player of the Year poll work?

The poll lives in the volleyball section of si.com/high-school/texas and is entirely free to vote in — no Sports Illustrated subscription, no SBLive account, and no personal data are required. The poll widget on the article page shows all 25 nominees with their name, school, and classification, alongside a live running vote count visible to any visitor throughout the open window.

High School on SI publishes the 25-nominee article and poll after the UIL state volleyball championships conclude at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, typically in mid-to-late November. The poll follows SI's standard fan-vote format: it closes Sunday at 11:59 pm CST, giving the community approximately one to two weeks of voting depending on when the poll is published.

Unlike some weekly newspaper polls, this poll does not state a fixed hourly vote cap — the primary fraud protection is the standard vote-widget fingerprint check. There is no login wall, which means the pool of potential voters includes anyone who can find the article link: teammates, club teammates, family, recruiting networks, and volleyball communities far beyond the nominee's school district. For a plain-English overview of how online fan polls like this function technically, see our guide to online contest voting.

Recent Texas High School Volleyball Player of the Year nominees and contenders

The High School on SI Texas volleyball POY poll has confirmed ballot entries from the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 cycles. The table below captures verified nominees and prominent contenders from recent years based on confirmed si.com reporting and UIL state results. Where a specific fan-vote winner is not publicly documented, the table notes the contender's credentials instead.

The 2024 ballot illustrates the range. The confirmed Prestonwood nominee held the Gatorade Texas Player of the Year and AVCA High School Player of the Year at the national level — an entry carrying crossover national volleyball credibility that typically attracts high vote totals from national recruiting networks beyond Texas. The Wakeland two-time state championship MVP brought a different appeal: a pure UIL public-school narrative with multi-year state tournament credentials and a Power Five commitment.

The 25-nominee breadth means any player with a committed school fanbase and active club network can be competitive in the fan vote, regardless of their national ranking tier. Organised communities — a school's volleyball booster programme, a club AAU team with multi-state reach, or a committed family network — have historically moved the needle more than raw recruiting-ranking status alone.

How is the Texas Volleyball Player of the Year winner chosen?

The winner is the nominee with the highest cumulative fan vote total when the poll closes at 11:59 pm CST on the designated Sunday. High School on SI editorial staff control only the nomination step — selecting the 25 candidates based on season performance, UIL state results, TAPPS outcomes, all-district and all-region selections, and statistical milestones. Once the ballot is published, there is no panel score, no editorial weighting, and no override mechanism — fan votes alone decide.

1. Post-season nominations: High School on SI Texas volleyball editors compile nominations after the UIL state tournament at Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, drawing on UIL all-tournament teams, TAPPS final rosters, MaxPreps stat leaders, and coach nominations submitted to the editorial desk.
2. 25-player ballot published: A dedicated article at si.com/high-school/texas presents each nominee with name, school, classification, and a brief performance summary — giving voters the context to decide.
3. Open fan vote: The poll goes live immediately and runs until Sunday 11:59 pm CST, with live totals visible throughout the window.
4. Winner announced: After close, SI publishes the winner with final vote totals on si.com/high-school/texas and distributes the result through SBLive social channels.

How do you build a winning vote campaign for the Texas Volleyball POY poll?

This poll's statewide scope changes the calculus compared to a city or county newspaper poll. A nominee from Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD competing against a player from Katy cannot rely on a single school's booster club reaching the full voter pool — the most effective campaigns here operate across volleyball-specific networks that span district and regional lines. For the general framework of how online fan polls work and broad vote-building principles, read our full online voting guide; the notes below focus on what specifically moves this poll.

Statewide volleyball-specific networks

Texas club volleyball operates on a statewide basis. An athlete who plays for a prominent Texas club programme — Mizuno Houston, Texas Tornados, D1 Juniors, or similar — has access to a multi-region network of club parents, coaches, and alumni whose engagement goes beyond any single ISD. Sharing the direct poll link through the club's communication channels typically reaches more potential voters than the school network alone.

The timing of the push matters as much as the channel. Because the poll closes on a specific Sunday at 11:59 pm CST, deploying the largest network activation in the final 48 to 72 hours — when supporters can see live standings and feel the urgency — produces a different result than spreading the effort evenly across the full window. A Saturday morning reminder message noting the specific margin and the remaining hours is consistently the highest-single-hour vote-per-contact conversion point for these polls.

When school and club networks have been fully mobilised and the nominee is still trailing a nationally-recognised player with a large existing fan base, some families and programmes use a paid vote promotion service to reach additional real voters. If you consider that route, use a service that delivers paced, genuine votes — our sports fan poll votes page explains how cap-matched delivery works. Review the current official poll page for any updated terms before proceeding.

Texas Volleyball POY: rules, fair play, and the buy-votes question

The High School on SI Texas volleyball POY poll is a reader-engagement fan vote with no cash prize, no formal Texas sweepstakes framework, and no UIL sanction — meaning the primary terms governing vote conduct are the SI/SBLive poll platform's own conditions, which prohibit automated scripts and bot-driven vote inflation. For a comprehensive look at the legal and practical landscape of paid vote services across online polls, see our buy-votes guide; the specifics below relate to this poll.

Two distinct categories of activity apply here:

• Automated bots / scripts — repeated rapid-fire requests from the same device fingerprint or IP block that do not reflect individual human voters. These violate standard poll platform terms and are detectable by traffic pattern analysis.
• Paid outreach to real human voters — real individuals casting genuine votes from their own devices after being reached through a paid channel. Structurally, this is equivalent to a club director's mass email generating hundreds of additional votes — the voters are real, the votes are genuine, and the method of reaching them is the only variable.

Whether the second category satisfies the specific spirit of the current poll's terms is a judgement each entrant must make by reading the official page. The practical risk in a no-prize fan poll with no formal regulatory framework is reputational, not legal — and is weighed differently by different families and programmes.

Texas Volleyball Player of the Year season timeline and UIL state tournament context

The Texas High School Volleyball Player of the Year poll is anchored to the UIL fall volleyball calendar, which runs from August through the state championship weekend in November. Understanding the timeline helps supporters plan their campaign from the moment the ballot goes live. The UIL state volleyball tournament is held at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas — a 6,000-seat multi-purpose arena inside the Garland ISD complex that has hosted the UIL championships for multiple years.

One feature of this timeline that differs from weekly newspaper polls: the voting window often spans part of the winter holiday break (late December through early January). This timing means a supporter network with students and families not in school — with more free time and phone availability — represents an unusually high-engagement voter pool compared to a weeknight poll during the regular season. Campaigns that lean into the holiday window by timing key pushes around Christmas week and the New Year's period historically outperform those that wait until the final few days.

For more Texas high school sports contest guides and fan vote resources, visit the Texas contest hub and the national USA fan vote index. For step-by-step guidance on building a vote campaign for any online poll, see our how-to guides.