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

What is the Idaho High School Player of the Year?

The Idaho High School Player of the Year is an annual season-end fan-vote recognition published by High School on SI — Sports Illustrated's dedicated prep sports vertical — at si.com/high-school/idaho. The platform was formerly branded as SBLive Sports before the Arena Group rebranded it under the SI umbrella. Idaho editors nominate standout IHSAA athletes at the close of each major sport's season; fans then vote online with no per-vote cap until the stated 11:59 p.m. Pacific deadline.

• The award is annual and sport-specific — separate polls run at the end of football season, basketball season, and other major IHSAA sports, not as a single composite award.
• All IHSAA member schools are eligible across all six classifications (6A through 1A DII) and all six geographic districts, from the Idaho Panhandle to the Snake River Plain.
• The 2024 football Player of the Year was Jax Tanner of Rocky Mountain High School (5A, District III, Meridian), confirmed by the High School on SI Idaho football POY poll.
• Unlike the weekly Athlete of the Week award, this poll recognises an athlete's full season of performance, and the ballot appears only once per sport per year.
• No per-vote cap is applied — fans may vote as many times as they choose from open to close, making total network breadth and ongoing engagement the key competitive variable.
• A win earns published recognition on si.com under the Sports Illustrated brand — a searchable, nationally indexed credential that frequently surfaces in college recruiting searches of the athlete's name.

Because the Idaho Player of the Year poll carries no per-vote cap, the outcome is determined by which nominee's community mobilises earliest, most consistently, and most broadly across the full polling window — not by single-day surges alone.

Who has won the Idaho High School Player of the Year?

High School on SI Idaho has run Player of the Year polls across football, basketball, and other IHSAA sports since the SBLive era. The table below lists confirmed or publicly reported POY honours by sport and season. Where precise winners are not available in the public record, the entry is omitted rather than estimated.

Rocky Mountain High School in Meridian has been the most consistently represented school across Idaho POY football polls — its 5A classification, enrolment above 2,000 students, and location in the fast-growing Treasure Valley give it both a large voter base and a steady supply of high-calibre nominees. The 2024 football win by Jax Tanner continued that trend.

Small-school athletes in District VI — the Southeast Idaho region covering Rexburg, Rigby, and Sugar City — have historically outperformed their enrollment numbers in POY voting. Communities in that region, anchored by tightly knit religious congregation networks, mobilise rapidly when a local athlete earns a spot on the ballot. Madison High School (Rexburg) and Sugar-Salem (Sugar City) have produced POY-calibre nominees across wrestling, basketball, and track despite 4A and 2A classifications well below 5A Treasure Valley enrolments.

How does the Idaho Player of the Year vote work?

Voting takes place through a poll widget embedded inside individual sport-specific articles published on si.com/high-school/idaho. There is no single universal Player of the Year page — each sport's poll is a standalone article, published at the end of that sport's IHSAA season. The mechanic is straightforward: navigate to the article, find the embedded widget, click a nominee's name, and submit. No SI account, SBLive login, or personal data is required at any step.

There is no per-vote cap. High School on SI describes these polls as community engagement features without vote limits — a single browser session can submit votes repeatedly; returning to the same article on the same or a different device adds more votes to the tally without a cooldown or hourly reset. For a broad explanation of how open fan polls like this one function structurally, see our guide to online voting contests.

How does this differ from the weekly Athlete of the Week poll?

The weekly Idaho Athlete of the Week poll on the same platform operates under a one-vote-per-device-per-window cap. The annual Player of the Year poll is structurally different: no cap applies, the window is typically longer (several days to two weeks), and the ballot represents a season-long record rather than a single-week performance. For general tactics applicable to any Idaho fan poll, see our how-to guide library. The no-cap structure of the POY poll makes continuous repeat voting the central variable — not device breadth alone.

When does Idaho Player of the Year voting open and close?

Player of the Year polls open after each IHSAA sport season concludes — after championships are complete and the final rankings are set. High School on SI Idaho publishes each poll as a dedicated article; the exact open and close dates vary by sport and by season. All known polls close at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on the stated date in the poll article.

Because multiple sport POY polls can be active at the same time — for example, boys basketball and girls basketball may run simultaneously in March — supporters need to locate the specific poll article for their athlete's sport, not just the Idaho section homepage. Assuming the closing date from one sport's poll matches another is a common mistake that costs votes.

Athletes enter the Player of the Year ballot through editorial nomination by the High School on SI Idaho staff, not through a public submission form. Coaches, parents, and school contacts who want to surface a deserving athlete should reach the Idaho reporters through si.com throughout the season — the editorial team tracks IHSAA scores, rankings, and standout performances across all districts and classifications continuously.

How to get more votes for your Idaho Player of the Year nominee

With no vote cap applied, the key variable in an Idaho Player of the Year campaign is the size of the activated network multiplied by how many times each person votes across the full window. Every additional return visit to the poll article from every supporter adds directly to the nominee's running total. For general principles behind vote-building in open fan polls, see buy-votes-online; the Idaho-specific notes below cover what actually drives results in this market.

Idaho-specific mobilisation patterns that move POY totals

Two community types consistently produce outsized results in Idaho Player of the Year voting. In District VI Southeast Idaho — Rexburg, Sugar City, Rigby, Pocatello — congregation-based community networks create rapid broadcast chains that reach well beyond school enrolment numbers. When Madison or Sugar-Salem has a nominee, those networks activate for the full duration of the poll window, voting repeatedly through the no-cap format at a pace that 5A schools with less organised community structures cannot match on a per-voter basis.

In Treasure Valley's 5A schools — Rocky Mountain, Eagle, Mountain View, Centennial — the advantage is raw network size. Enrolments above 2,000 and fast-growing suburban populations in Ada and Canyon counties mean even moderate engagement rates translate to large absolute vote totals. The 2024 football POY Jax Tanner of Rocky Mountain benefited from exactly this combination: a high-profile football season capped by a ballot placement timed to the Treasure Valley football community at full engagement.

When every realistic organic channel has been activated and the nominee is still trailing entering the final 48 hours, some families and booster organisations use a paid vote promotion service to extend reach to additional real voters. Choose a service delivering paced, genuine votes aligned with the open-window format. Our sports fan poll votes service is designed for this no-cap structure; see the pricing page for package options.

Rules and the buy-votes question for this Idaho poll

The Idaho High School Player of the Year poll is a media-organisation fan engagement feature — not a licensed sweepstakes, not an IHSAA-administered award, and not a regulated election subject to Idaho state prize-promotion law. There is no cash prize, no entry fee, and no formal Idaho regulatory framework covering fan polls of this type. The rules that apply are High School on SI's own platform terms.

The meaningful practical distinction for Idaho families and boosters is between two structurally different categories of activity:

• Automated bot scripts — high-volume scripted requests generating traffic patterns inconsistent with normal browser behaviour. These can trigger platform-side anomaly detection regardless of whether a stated vote cap exists.
• Paid outreach to real human voters — real people navigating to the poll article and casting genuine votes through normal browser interactions. Structurally this is identical to a booster email reaching 500 additional Idaho families — it is fans voting, reached through a different distribution channel.

Whether paid real-voter outreach aligns with the spirit of any specific poll's terms is a judgement each entrant must make after reading the current official poll page on si.com. Athletes, families, and school contacts should weigh that against the recognition value of a Sports Illustrated-branded Player of the Year citation honestly. The broader buy-votes considerations applicable to open fan polls are covered in full at buy-votes-online.