Northern California High School Athlete of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

Northern California High School Athlete of the Week at a glance

The Northern California High School Athlete of the Week is a free weekly fan poll operated by High School on SI — the dedicated prep-sports platform of Sports Illustrated, built on the infrastructure originally launched under the SBLive (ScoreBookLive) brand around 2020. Polls are published at si.com's California high school section each week of the fall, winter, and spring sports calendars. Fans nominate athletes by emailing [email protected] or tagging @sbliveca on social media; the editorial team sets the ballot; the community decides the winner.

• Covers seven CIF Northern California sections: Sac-Joaquin, North Coast, Central Coast, Central, Northern, San Francisco, and Oakland — the full geographic sweep from the Oregon border to the Tehachapi range.
• Voting is free and unlimited per manual voter. Unlike newspaper polls enforcing a one-vote-per-hour cap, the SBLive rules set no hourly or daily ceiling — automated scripts and macros are the only prohibited category.
• The poll closes every Monday at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time, giving supporters a full week-long window from the Wednesday or Thursday opening through the Monday deadline.
• Winners are published on si.com and promoted across @sbliveca social channels — a Sports Illustrated–branded credential that has genuine value in college recruiting contexts across the Sac-Joaquin, North Coast, and Central Coast pipelines.
• High School on SI runs equivalent polls at roughly 30–40 US states; the NorCal edition is among the more active, reflecting the density of nationally ranked programmes in the North Coast and Sac-Joaquin sections.
• A parallel Southern California edition covers the CIF Southern Section, LA City Section, and San Diego Section — the two polls share the same format but draw from entirely separate NorCal and SoCal school pools.

A win under the Sports Illustrated brand — even at the regional high school level — registers differently with college coaches and recruiting services than a local newspaper mention, particularly for athletes in NorCal sports with competitive collegiate pipelines: football, basketball, baseball, wrestling, and track.

Which NorCal schools and CIF sections compete in this poll?

The Northern California Athlete of the Week draws nominees from all seven CIF NorCal sections, spanning the California coast from the Bay Area to the Central Valley and from Fresno north to the Oregon border. The table below maps key schools by section and city — these are real programmes that appear regularly in High School on SI's Northern California coverage and weekly nomination pools.

What makes each section's nominee pool distinctive?

The CIF North Coast Section (NCS) encompasses the Bay Area's East Bay, Marin County, and the outer East Contra Costa communities. De La Salle in Concord is the most decorated programme in NCS history, having won more than 200 NCS championships across all sports. Pittsburg and Liberty — both in East Contra Costa County — have strong football traditions that generate frequent early-season nominee appearances. The NCS also covers Oakland Section schools through Oakland's independent section, including McClymonds, a programme with national football and basketball recognition.

The CIF Central Coast Section (CCS) covers the San Francisco Peninsula south through Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey counties. Serra of San Mateo has emerged as one of the state's highest-profile football programmes in recent years, stunning Folsom in consecutive open-division matchups and producing nominees across multiple sports. Valley Christian in San Jose is consistently competitive in football and track.

The Sac-Joaquin Section (SJS) is the geographically largest section in Northern California, covering Sacramento, the northern San Joaquin Valley, and the foothills. Folsom's football programme has won four straight SJS Division I titles. Granite Bay and Del Oro represent the Placer County foothill corridor, while St. Mary's of Stockton anchors the SJS's private-school talent pool in the Central Valley.

The CIF Central Section (CS) covers the Fresno metro and the southern San Joaquin Valley. Buchanan and Clovis North are among the most consistently competitive programmes in the Fresno area across multiple sports, and Central (Fresno) has significant football and basketball programmes. Athlete of the Week nominees from the Central Section are common in football, wrestling, and track seasons.

How does the NorCal Athlete of the Week vote work — and what is the cap?

The poll runs on the si.com platform within the High School on SI California hub. Each week's ballot is a standalone article page listing nominees with their name, school, and sport alongside an embedded voting widget. Visiting the page, clicking a nominee's name, and submitting the vote is all that is required — no subscription, no email address, no account. The widget typically shows live standings throughout the polling window.

Is there a vote limit — and how does it compare with newspaper polls?

The SBLive and High School on SI rules explicitly state no limit on how many times a fan can vote manually. This is a meaningful structural difference from regional newspaper polls — such as those operated by Gannett or McClatchy — that typically impose a one-vote-per-device-per-hour cap. The SBLive rules, published on the poll pages, confirm the poll is "intended to be fun" and set no ceiling on manual voting frequency. The one firm prohibition: votes generated by script, macro, or other automated tools are prohibited and result in athlete disqualification.

In practical terms, a single supporter on one phone can vote many more times across a full week under the SBLive format than under a per-hour newspaper format. A household with three devices each submitting votes several times a day throughout the polling window can accumulate substantial totals through entirely legitimate manual effort. For a broader explainer on how online contest polls are structured, see our guide to online voting contests.

The poll is accessible on all standard desktop and mobile browsers — no app required. Live totals are typically visible on the widget throughout the window, letting supporters track standings and calibrate mobilisation in real time.

How is the Northern California Athlete of the Week winner decided?

A pure fan vote total determines the winner. The SBLive and High School on SI editorial team controls which athletes appear on the ballot — it reviews performance submissions from coaches, parents, and fans each week and selects the nominees based on statistical significance and newsworthiness across all seven NorCal sections. Once the ballot is published, the result is entirely determined by vote count: the nominee with the most votes when the Monday 11:59 p.m. deadline arrives is named that week's Northern California Athlete of the Week.

1. Performance submission: coaches, parents, athletic directors, or fans submit the athlete's highlights — statistical summary, game context, opponent — to the SBLive team by email or social media tag.
2. Ballot selection: editors choose which athletes appear from among all submissions received. A nomination earns ballot placement only if the performance stands out across the full seven-section NorCal field that week — not every submission makes the cut.
3. Open poll: the ballot goes live at si.com, typically Wednesday or Thursday, and runs until Monday at 11:59 p.m. PT. Any visitor can vote as many times as they wish manually.
4. Winner announced: the nominee with the highest vote total at close is published as the week's winner on si.com and across the @sbliveca social channels. There is no editorial override after polls open — the count decides.

Recognition is published under the Sports Illustrated brand, giving NorCal winners a nationally recognisable media credential — distinct from a local newspaper mention — that recruits and college coaches in football, basketball, and baseball pipelines see when searching an athlete's name.

Getting more votes for your NorCal Athlete of the Week nominee

Because this poll has no per-hour cap, the entire weekly window — from the Wednesday or Thursday opening through Monday at 11:59 p.m. — is active voting time. Every hour that passes without mobilisation is opportunity lost; the decisive campaigns start on day one. Distribute the direct link to the active poll article on si.com the moment the ballot goes live — not the si.com homepage, but the specific URL for that week's NorCal poll — through every realistic channel.

Two NorCal-specific network patterns consistently produce outsized vote totals. First, the private-school and Catholic community networks — De La Salle, Serra, St. Mary's of Stockton, Valley Christian — carry multi-generational alumni communities that extend well beyond current enrolment. A single post in an active De La Salle alumni Facebook group can reach former graduates from across the Bay Area, many of whom remain engaged with NCS results.

Second, the Sac-Joaquin foothill corridor — Folsom, Granite Bay, Del Oro, and El Dorado Hills — contains dense professional-family communities with high social-media engagement. Neighbourhood Nextdoor groups and local Facebook communities in those ZIP codes are actively followed by parents who check local sports content daily, making a specific link-bearing post in those channels disproportionately effective.

When all organic channels have been engaged and the nominee is still trailing, some families and school communities use a paid vote promotion service to reach additional real voters. If you go that route, choose a service that delivers genuine, human-paced votes consistent with the manual-only rule. Our sports fan poll service is built for open-window polls exactly like this one. For general strategy on combining organic and paid approaches, see our full contest voting guide and our how-to hub.

NorCal Athlete of the Week rules — and the buy-votes question

The Northern California Athlete of the Week is a consumer media fan poll with no cash prize, no entry fee, and no California prize-promotion law framework. SBLive publishes explicit rules on each poll page stating the contest "is intended to be fun" and confirming that no limit is placed on how many times a fan can vote. The one clear prohibition is automated generation of votes.

The rules draw a clear structural line between two categories:

• Prohibited — automated scripts and macros: programmatic requests generated at machine speed, bypassing normal browser interaction. These are explicitly against SBLive's stated rules and result in athlete disqualification from that specific poll.
• Permitted — unlimited manual voting: any person clicking the vote button as many times as they wish across the open window. The rules confirm this directly.

Paid promotion services that deliver real people casting genuine manual votes through the normal browser interface fall structurally into the second category under the stated rules — they are fans voting, reached through a paid channel rather than organic sharing. Whether that approach aligns with the spirit of any specific week's contest is a judgement each entrant should make independently by reading the current official poll language.

The practical consequence of disqualified automated votes is removal from the tally for that poll. There is no account suspension (no account is required to vote), no permanent ban from future nominations, and no legal consequence under California law for participating in a free fan poll with no prize. The risk is competitive — losing accumulated votes — not legal or systemic. See our buy-votes guide for a balanced framework across different contest types.

NorCal Athlete of the Week — season timeline and CIF calendar

The poll runs throughout every California high school sports season, tracking the CIF NorCal calendar from late August through early June. Fall brings football and cross country; winter is basketball and wrestling season; spring covers baseball, softball, track, and lacrosse. Below is the full seasonal timeline mapped to the CIF school year, with notes on which sections and sports drive the most competitive poll weeks.

Within each week, the poll opens Wednesday or Thursday after the SBLive editorial team reviews Friday night football results or mid-week contest outcomes, then runs continuously until the Monday 11:59 p.m. close. Fall football weeks in September and October — when programmes like De La Salle, Folsom, and Serra are in nationally watched matchups — generate the largest single-week vote totals, often reaching several thousand votes for the leading nominee. Spring track and baseball weeks at smaller-section schools can be decided with a few hundred votes.

The consistent, fixed close time — Monday at 11:59 p.m. Pacific, every week — distinguishes the NorCal SBLive poll from newspaper-based regional polls that vary close days by season. Supporters can plan their mobilisation around the same deadline each week regardless of sport or season.