Midland Reporter-Telegram 2026-27 Athletes of the Week 2: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Midland Reporter-Telegram Athletes of the Week is

The Midland Reporter-Telegram Athletes of the Week gives Midland, Texas, a recurring fan ballot for high school sports, published by the Midland Reporter-Telegram, the daily newspaper serving the city. The paper's sports desk asks varsity coaches to nominate standout athletes each week, then opens a public vote so readers can decide who takes the weekly honor. The program runs on Second Street, a balloting platform that hosts the newspaper's interactive promotions at midlandreportertelegram.secondstreetapp.com.

Each week of a season carries its own ballot with its own address. The page now live is the 2026-27 Week 2 ballot, which runs from September 7 through September 9, 2026. The week before it, Week 1 of the same season, ran from August 31 to September 2, 2026. A supporter who arrives at the platform's root address sees whichever ballot the newspaper has most recently posted, so the week number in the address matters.

The program sits inside the paper's broader high school sports coverage. The publisher's Second Street account also carries its Readers' Choice ballot and its sweepstakes promotions, but the Athletes of the Week series is its own recurring feature with its own weekly rhythm. The table below pulls the program's confirmed details together.

The dated record: seasons, weeks and windows

The series has run across four confirmed seasons: 2023-24, 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27. It is a weekly program, meaning a fresh ballot is posted every week of each season rather than a single annual event. The depth of the 2025-26 run is visible in the platform's own listing, which carries that season's Week 36 ballot from May 4 to 6, 2026, and its Week 37 ballot from May 11 to 13, 2026. A series still posting ballots in its thirty-seventh week of a season is one that runs for most of the school year.

The 2026-27 season opened with Week 1, live from August 31 to September 2, 2026, and now sits on Week 2, open from September 7 through September 9, 2026. Within each week, the newspaper's published schedule is specific: voting opens at 8 a.m. Monday and closes at 3 p.m. Wednesday, and the coach nomination deadline is 10 p.m. the Saturday before. That gives the paper a weekend to assemble the ballot before the Monday open.

Several details of each week are not fixed in advance. The newspaper does not print the ballot's category list or any per-supporter voting limit on the platform page; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The same applies to which week of the series is open when a reader arrives, since the address changes weekly as the season advances.

How a supporter votes on the weekly ballot

Voting is a straightforward public fan vote, and the mechanic is the same every week of the season. A supporter opens the current week's ballot on Second Street, either through the mrt.com/AOTW link the newspaper publishes or by typing the ballot address directly. The page lists the week's nominees, submitted by their varsity coaches, grouped by the categories that week's ballot carries. The supporter selects a nominee and submits the form.

Timing is the detail that trips people up most. The confirmed window runs from 8 a.m. Monday to 3 p.m. Wednesday. A ballot visited on a Thursday or over the weekend belongs to a week that has already closed, and the next week's page may not be open yet. Supporters who want their vote to count should return early in the Monday-to-Wednesday window rather than near the Wednesday close.

The nomination side belongs to the coaches, not the fans. Varsity coaches submit nominations each week to [email protected] by 10 p.m. Saturday, and the newspaper builds the ballot from those submissions. A fan cannot add a name to the ballot directly; if an athlete is missing, the route is through that athlete's coach before the Saturday deadline. Once the ballot is live, the fan's only job is to pick and submit before 3 p.m. Wednesday.

How this ballot sits beside its Texas neighbours

Weekly athlete-of-the-week fan votes are a common format across Texas newsrooms, and the Midland Reporter-Telegram's version is the Permian Basin's entry in that group. Elsewhere in the state, the Austin American-Statesman runs its own Athlete of the Week ballot, and the DFW Star Local Media papers run a high school athlete of the week vote for the Dallas area. Each is anchored to its own publisher's coverage area.

Football-focused ballots form a second cluster. The CenTex High School Football Player of the Week serves the region its name points to, the Dallas / North Texas High School Football Player of the Week covers the metroplex, and the East Texas High School Football Player of the Week covers that region. Dave Campbell's Texas Football Quarterback of the Year runs on a longer horizon, naming a season-long winner rather than a weekly one.

What distinguishes the Midland ballot is its scope and its rhythm. It covers high school athletes across the paper's sports coverage rather than a single sport, and it posts a new ballot every week of the season, with the 2025-26 run reaching Week 37. The weekly cadence means a supporter's attention resets every Monday, and the paper's own mrt.com/AOTW link is the reliable route to whichever week is currently live.

Strengthening support during the Monday-to-Wednesday window

Because this series resets weekly, support has to be organized fast. The window is short and fixed: 8 a.m. Monday to 3 p.m. Wednesday, every week. A nominee's supporters do best when they treat each week as its own campaign, sharing the mrt.com/AOTW link as soon as the ballot opens Monday morning rather than waiting until Tuesday or Wednesday when the window is nearly shut. Team group chats, school parent networks and booster club channels are the natural distribution points for a ballot like this one.

The organizer's structure also shapes what help can do. Nominations come only from varsity coaches by 10 p.m. Saturday, so no amount of fan organizing adds a name to the ballot; the work starts once the coach's submission is live. And because the newspaper has not printed any cap on repeat voting on the ballot page, the practical ceiling is whatever the Second Street form enforces when a vote is cast. Supporters planning a larger push should read our guide on getting more votes online and weigh it against the paper's weekly rhythm, where a missed window cannot be recovered until the next ballot opens.