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

What is the Arkansas High School Player of the Year poll?

The Arkansas High School Player of the Year is an annual fan-driven award published by High School on SI / SBLive at si.com/high-school/arkansas. Unlike the weekly Athlete of the Week, this is a season-ending honour — one poll per major sport per year — crowning the single best prep performer in the state after the final whistle of the Arkansas Activities Association season.

• Run by High School on SI (Sports Illustrated's prep vertical, operated by Maven), which covers all 75 Arkansas counties and publishes year-round state rankings, all-state lists, and recruiting profiles.
• Separate annual polls are published for football (typically December, after the 7A/6A/5A state championship weekends), boys basketball and girls basketball (March–April), and baseball/softball (May–June).
• ArkansasPrepSports.com, an independent Arkansas-focused prep outlet presented by Shelter Insurance, runs parallel Player of the Year fan polls for five regional areas: Fort Smith, Little Rock, Northeast Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas, and South Arkansas.
• Both platforms are free to vote — no account, no subscription, no personal data required.
• The SI/SBLive polls allow unlimited votes per reader, provided no automated scripts or macros are used; ArkansasPrepSports.com adds an IP-address cooling-off period for excessive voting and may trigger a CAPTCHA if suspicious patterns appear.

A Player of the Year win on si.com/high-school generates a nationally indexed byline — unlike a local paper mention, it surfaces immediately when a college coach types the player's name into a search engine.

Who has won the Arkansas Player of the Year in recent seasons?

The table below compiles confirmed POY data from publicly reported results across the SI/SBLive, Gatorade, and MaxPreps programmes — the three most cited annual Arkansas prep sport awards. Fan-vote POY winners from SI/SBLive are determined by the community poll; Gatorade and MaxPreps are editorial selections included here for context.

Kane Archer of Greenwood set a national record in 2024–25 by completing 81.5 percent of his passes — 247 of 303 attempts for 3,880 yards, 57 touchdowns, and just two interceptions — while leading the Bulldogs to a second consecutive 6A state championship. Drake Lindsey of Bentonville preceded him, passing for 3,745 yards and 52 touchdowns with a 13-0 record and the 7A title. Both earned unanimous multi-platform POY recognition.

For basketball, Little Rock Christian Academy's J.J. Andrews earned widely reported Arkansas Player of the Year recognition. The sport-by-sport cadence reflects how the SI/SBLive platform structures its end-of-season coverage: football in December, boys and girls basketball in March, baseball and softball in May–June.

How does voting for the Arkansas Player of the Year work?

The SI/SBLive Arkansas Player of the Year poll is an embedded fan widget published as a standalone article at si.com/high-school/arkansas. Here is the exact mechanics of each platform.

SI / SBLive statewide poll

The SBLive Arkansas desk selects nominees based on season-long performance across all AAA classifications — typically six to ten players per sport. The poll widget goes live after the state championship has been decided. Voters need no account, no email address, and no subscription. Votes are unlimited per reader; the only restriction is that automated scripts, browser macros, or bots are prohibited. Manual multi-device and repeat voting is permitted within those bounds. The poll window runs until the article is closed — typically one to two weeks — and the winner is announced in a follow-up article.

ArkansasPrepSports.com regional polls

ArkansasPrepSports.com divides Arkansas into five geographic areas — Fort Smith, Little Rock, Northeast Arkansas, Northwest Arkansas, and South Arkansas — and runs a separate Player of the Year poll for each, presented by Shelter Insurance. These open after each sport's postseason concludes and typically run for about a week, closing at a specified time listed on the poll page. The platform applies an IP-address cooling-off period for voters who vote excessively in a short window, and will trigger a CAPTCHA challenge for suspected automated traffic. Manual voting is encouraged; nomination submissions (name, school, grade, reason) are accepted by the editorial team before nominees are locked.

For guidance on how fan-vote mechanics work across online platforms generally, see our complete guide to online contest voting.

Which Arkansas high schools and athletes are most competitive in POY votes?

Arkansas's largest-enrolment schools and those with deeply organised alumni and booster networks consistently dominate Player of the Year vote campaigns. The AAA's largest classification, 7A, covers schools in the Northwest Arkansas (Bentonville, Fayetteville, Rogers, Springdale) and Pulaski County (North Little Rock, Bryant, Conway) metro areas — where population density and strong Facebook/community networks translate directly into vote volume.

Northwest Arkansas — Benton and Washington counties — is the state's fastest-growing region and supplies dense social-media networks that mobilise quickly for fan polls. A single post in a Bentonville or Rogers Facebook community group can reach tens of thousands of engaged parents within hours, making NW AR schools structurally advantaged in any statewide digital vote campaign.

How do you build enough votes to win Arkansas Player of the Year?

Every successful POY vote campaign starts with the same arithmetic: the more real people who see the direct poll link at the right moment, the higher your total. The SI/SBLive statewide poll's unlimited-vote structure means a well-timed network push can generate outsized totals — but that same feature applies equally to every other nominee's support base.

• Share the direct article link immediately — not just the athlete's name. The fewer clicks between the message and the vote button, the higher the conversion. Put the link in every group chat, school Facebook page, booster club email, and Instagram story within the first hour after the poll goes live.
• Name the platform and the sport explicitly — "Vote for [Name] from [School] in the SBLive Arkansas Football Player of the Year poll — link in bio, you can vote as many times as you want." Generic "go vote" posts consistently underperform.
• Activate alumni networks beyond the current student body — for schools like Greenwood, Pulaski Academy, and El Dorado, multi-decade alumni communities on Facebook are larger and more engaged than current parent groups alone.
• Use multi-device households — since SI/SBLive allows unlimited votes per reader, a single household can contribute a significant total just from phones, tablets, and laptops if the link is in reach and the ask is clear.
• Time a reminder push 48–24 hours before the poll closes — most vote campaigns lose momentum after day one; a second activation message consistently recovers trailing candidates.
• Church, youth league, and civic group networks — in tightly bonded communities like El Dorado (Union County) and Greenwood (Sebastian County), church congregations and youth athletic leagues add a multiplier unavailable to larger anonymous suburban schools.

When every reachable organic network has been tapped and the margin is still tight, some families and booster programs supplement with a paid vote promotion service. For a full tactical breakdown of how legitimate fan-vote campaigns operate, see our voting strategy guide. If you need additional real-voter reach for a sports poll specifically, our sports fan poll votes service delivers paced, genuine votes that match each platform's mechanics.

What are the rules, and can you buy votes for Arkansas Player of the Year?

The two platforms have meaningfully different rules, and knowing which applies to a specific poll matters before running any vote campaign.

SI / SBLive Arkansas polls

The SBLive platform explicitly prohibits automated scripts, browser macros, bots, and any technical means of circumventing the natural vote flow. The stated consequence for detected automation is athlete disqualification — not merely vote removal. Manual unlimited voting from real readers is explicitly the intended mechanism. Paid promotion to real human voters who manually cast their own ballots is structurally identical to a booster club email reaching five thousand additional fans — it is real readers voting, reached through a different channel. Whether any particular voter-acquisition service meets that standard depends on how it operates; always confirm the method before engaging one.

ArkansasPrepSports.com polls

ArkansasPrepSports applies an IP cooling-off period for high-frequency voting and will trigger a CAPTCHA if suspicious automated patterns are detected. This is a lighter technical barrier than a hard ban; the platform is designed to allow enthusiastic fan voting while filtering obvious script traffic. Manual voting across multiple real devices across the poll window is consistent with the platform's design.

For a broader look at what distinguishes legitimate paid fan-vote promotion from prohibited bot activity, see our balanced breakdown at buy-votes-online.

When does Arkansas Player of the Year voting open and close by sport?

The Arkansas Player of the Year polls follow the Arkansas Activities Association's seasonal calendar. Each sport's POY poll opens after postseason play concludes — not mid-season — so the window is always tied to state championship results.

The SI/SBLive polls do not always publish at the same date each year — the AAA championship schedule shifts, and the editorial team publishes when the state finals are complete. The surest way to catch a poll the moment it opens is to follow the High School on SI Arkansas social channels or bookmark si.com/high-school/arkansas and check it in the days after your sport's state championships.

Football polling in December draws the largest voter mobilisation of the year. The 7A and 6A state championships, typically held at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, draw tens of thousands of in-person attendees whose social networks are already activated — creating a ready-made voting base the moment a POY poll drops.

For related Arkansas fan-vote contests that run throughout the school year — including weekly Athlete of the Week polls — visit the Arkansas contest guide. For all US prep fan-vote resources, see the USA contest index.