The City National Bank Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the City National Bank Athlete of the Week is and who runs it

During the Texas school year, City National Bank puts its name on a weekly honour for high school athletes, one decided entirely by readers. Each week the sponsoring newspapers publish a short list of finalists drawn from that week's games and meets, and readers pick a winner on a public poll. The ballot runs on Crowdsignal, reached through poll.fm, and the poll currently live sits at https://poll.fm/16759395.

Two West Texas newspapers anchor the series in the material published about it. The San Angelo Standard-Times runs the award as its own athlete of the week presented by City National Bank, and the Reporter-News runs a Big Country edition of the same programme. Both papers take nominations from readers all year and release a fresh finalist list at the beginning of each week, which is what keeps the series moving from one Monday to the next.

Because the ballot names individual student athletes, this reference page describes the programme by its sponsor, its publishers, its platform and its sport, and leaves every nominee unnamed.

Program facts

The dated record of the weekly ballot

Confirmed editions cover 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026, four school years in a row that each carried their own sequence of weekly polls. Ballots in the series fall between September and May, matching the high school sports calendar, and the material published about the series describes it as weekly throughout, with the papers taking nominations and releasing finalists at the start of each week.

Inside a week the rhythm is fixed. Each poll opens Monday and closes at 11 a.m. Thursday, and the winner is announced shortly after the close. Nominations for the following week are due by 5 p.m. every Saturday, submitted by email to [email protected]. One spring ballot in the series, dated 3/16, had already closed when its page was titled, which shows how the cycle rolls on week after week regardless of when a reader arrives.

The fine print is absent: no category list appears on the ballot page, and nothing on it says whether one reader may vote once or many times, so confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The papers also do not print a season-long calendar of poll dates in advance, so any future week's exact opening day is known only when that week's poll goes up.

How a supporter votes on the current ballot

Voting takes a minute and costs nothing. A supporter opens the current poll at https://poll.fm/16759395, reads the finalist list, which pairs each athlete with a school and a sport, selects one name, and submits the choice. The poll displays a live percentage beside each finalist, so the standings are visible while voting runs, and the ballot closes at the Thursday 11 a.m. deadline.

Nominations follow a separate route. Anyone can email a nomination for the following week to [email protected], and the papers set a 5 p.m. Saturday deadline for those submissions. The editors then assemble the next finalist list and open a fresh poll at the beginning of the week, which is why the series never runs out of ballots.

Because a new poll opens every Monday, a supporter who misses one week has missed only that week's award, not the programme. The rhythm rewards a habit: check the new ballot at the start of the week, vote well before the Thursday close, and repeat. Anyone building support for a nominee should also weigh the organizer's unpublished position on outside help before spending effort, and the wider tactics are covered in how to get more votes online.

How this ballot sits beside its Texas neighbours

This ballot belongs to a wider Texas family of high school sports votes. Six sibling programmes cover other markets: the Austin American-Statesman Athlete of the Week, the CenTex High School Football Player of the Week, the Dallas / North Texas High School Football Player of the Week, Dave Campbell's Texas Football Quarterback of the Year, the DFW Star Local Media High School Athlete of the Week and the East Texas High School Football Player of the Week.

What separates the City National Bank programme from those neighbours is its sponsor and its publisher pair. Most siblings carry a media brand in their own name, while this one leads with a bank and reaches readers through the San Angelo Standard-Times and the Reporter-News. It also spans girls and boys sports across the school year, with ballot options that have included track and field among other sports, where several siblings concentrate on football alone.

The practical difference for anyone voting here is cadence. A football player of the week vote rises and falls with the fall season, while this award produces a ballot nearly every week from September through May, so a campaign here has many more chances to land, and each one resets on Monday.

Building support in a ballot that resets every week

Support in this programme is won week by week, not in a single push. A nominee stays on the ballot only until the Thursday 11 a.m. close, so the useful work repeats: remind classmates, teammates and family each Monday when the fresh poll opens, and make sure a strong performance from the previous week is nominated by the Saturday 5 p.m. email deadline so it reaches the next finalist list at all.

No published rule from the bank or the papers addresses outside help or purchased support, so anyone weighing that route should first read whether buying votes is legal and the overview of award vote services before committing anything. Whatever path a campaign takes, the weekly reset is the fact that shapes it: one strong Monday push reaches a full open window, while a late Thursday scramble reaches almost none.