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

What is the Louisiana High School Athlete of the Week poll on SI.com?

High School on SI publishes a free statewide fan poll each week of the Louisiana prep sports calendar at si.com/high-school/louisiana. Sports Illustrated's local prep bureau — operating under The Arena Group's media portfolio — nominates standout athletes from across the entire state based on reported performances, then opens the ballot to every Louisiana fan and family member with internet access.

• The poll covers all LHSAA classes — non-select Classes 5A, 4A, 3A, 2A, and 1A, plus Select Divisions I, II, III, and IV — so public and private school athletes compete for recognition on the same ballot each week.
• Voting is free with no account required; the poll widget on si.com enforces one vote per device per hour.
• Winners are published at si.com and across the High School on SI social channels; the recognition surfaces in recruiting searches and local sports coverage.
• The poll has run continuously through the 2025–26 school year, with separate polls published weekly across fall, winter, and spring seasons.
• Statewide scope sets this poll apart from metropolitan-only awards — a Class 1A athlete from rural North Louisiana competes on equal terms with a Division I select-school nominee from metro New Orleans.

A win earns a published SI byline visible statewide — a meaningful credential for athletes whose coaches and college recruiters follow Louisiana prep sports coverage.

Which Louisiana schools and LHSAA classes appear in this poll?

The SI.com Louisiana bureau nominates athletes from schools in all nine LHSAA tiers. The table below lists schools that appear regularly in the 2024–25 and 2025–26 ballot pools, grouped by classification. Every LHSAA district and region is represented over the course of a full season — not just the metro New Orleans or Baton Rouge corridors.

The Select school tiers — Divisions I through IV — are private, parochial, or charter schools that compete separately from non-select public schools in the LHSAA playoffs, but they share the same nomination pool in the SI.com weekly poll. Catholic High and Rummel are traditionally the state's strongest Select Division I football programmes; John Curtis and Edna Karr have combined for the most Select state championship appearances among Division II schools in recent history. On the non-select side, Zachary, West Monroe, and Ruston are the dominant Class 5A football brands in their respective regions of the state — north-central, northeast, and southeast.

Because the poll is statewide, smaller-class schools from parishes like Caldwell, Cameron, or Vermilion also appear when their athletes produce statistically exceptional weeks. Class 2A and 3A schools have legitimate paths onto the ballot whenever a performance warrants it.

How does voting for the Louisiana High School Athlete of the Week work on SI.com?

The poll lives in the Louisiana section of si.com/high-school and is free for any visitor to use. The High School on SI poll widget loads with each nominee's name, school, sport, and a brief performance note; readers vote by clicking a name and confirming the submission. No subscription to Sports Illustrated, no account, and no email address are required. For a general explanation of how embedded online fan polls like this one operate across media platforms, see our complete guide to online contest voting.

The platform allows one vote per device per hour. A phone, a tablet, and a laptop each register as independent voting surfaces — meaning a three-device household can cast three votes in the first hour, three in the second, and so on for the duration of the window. The hourly cap resets automatically, and the widget permits a new submission without any additional action from the voter once the cooldown period expires.

Polls typically open mid-week — Monday through Wednesday — and close on Friday, though the exact open and close times vary by week. The precise close time appears on the active poll widget itself. Live totals update in near-real-time throughout the window, so supporters can check standings at any point and gauge whether an additional push is needed before the deadline.

Voting works on any standard desktop or mobile browser; no app download is required. Fans outside Louisiana — family members in other states, college coaches following a prospect — can vote from anywhere with a working internet connection.

How is the Louisiana Athlete of the Week winner chosen?

The winner is the nominee with the most votes when the poll closes — a straight popular vote with no editorial weighting, no regional adjustment, and no tiebreaker beyond vote total. The SI.com Louisiana sports bureau exercises editorial control only over which athletes appear on the ballot; once the poll opens, the outcome belongs entirely to the fan community.

From performance to ballot to winner

1. Performance reporting: coaches, parents, school athletic contacts, and local media submit outstanding weekly results to the High School on SI Louisiana bureau — typically by email or through SI's prep sports submission form.
2. Nominee selection: bureau editors review submissions and curate a shortlist based on statistical merit and context. Appearing on the ballot already represents editorial recognition — not every submission makes the cut.
3. Open poll: the ballot goes live on si.com; any reader can vote once per device per hour until the stated close time.
4. Winner published: the athlete with the highest vote count when the poll closes is named Louisiana High School Athlete of the Week and featured in SI's Louisiana high school coverage — no override, no panel adjustment.

There is no physical prize or cash award — the value is the published Sports Illustrated byline, which surfaces in recruiting searches and statewide sports coverage. A named SI credential carries more weight on a recruiting profile than a local newspaper mention for many Division I and II prospects.

Strategies to build more votes for your Louisiana nominee

Louisiana's statewide poll creates both opportunity and challenge: the reach means more potential voters, but it also means competing against well-organised booster networks from powerhouse programmes across the state. The most effective vote-building starts the moment the poll link is shareable — within the first two hours, before rival networks react. For a full tactical breakdown of online poll vote campaigns, read our complete vote-building guide; the Louisiana-specific patterns below are what actually shift totals in this market.

Two Louisiana-specific dynamics consistently produce outsized results. First, the metro New Orleans select-school networks — Jesuit, Rummel, Catholic High's Baton Rouge community — have decades of alumni concentrated in professional-family social circles. A single share by an influential alum can cascade through multiple generation layers within hours. Second, North Louisiana public school communities around West Monroe and Ruston are among the tightest-knit booster cultures in the state: football is central to community identity, and parents treat game-week engagement — including online polls — as a collective responsibility.

Posts that name the athlete, school, sport, and the precise contest — "Vote for [Name] from [School] in the SI.com Louisiana Athlete of the Week poll — link below, vote once an hour until Friday" — convert two to three times better than a generic "go vote" message. Remove every friction point in the first message; most supporters will not search for the poll on their own.

When organic networks have been fully activated and the nominee is still trailing, some families and programmes use a paid promotion service to reach additional real voters. If you explore that route, choose a service that delivers paced, genuine votes matched to the hourly cap — rapid-fire injections that violate the cooldown window are detectable and removed. Our sports fan poll votes service uses cap-matched delivery built specifically for polls like this one.

What are the rules, and can you buy votes for this SI.com poll?

The Louisiana High School Athlete of the Week poll is a reader-engagement fan feature — there is no prize, no formal sweepstakes structure, and no Louisiana state prize-promotion law applies. The operative restrictions come from the SI.com poll platform's own technical terms, which primarily prohibit automated scripts that circumvent the hourly vote cap. For a broader discussion of legality across online polls generally, see our full buy-votes guide.

The practical distinction that matters in this type of poll:

• Automated scripts / bots — rapid-fire requests from the same device fingerprint that bypass the one-hour cooldown. These violate standard poll platform terms, produce detectable traffic anomalies, and result in vote removal from the counter.
• Paid outreach to real human voters — real people voting from their own devices within the hourly cap. Structurally this is identical to a booster club email reaching 500 additional families; the mechanism is fan voting, reached through a paid distribution channel.

Whether paid real-voter promotion satisfies the spirit of any specific week's poll terms is a judgement each entrant must make after reading the current official page. For a fan recognition poll with no prize and no formal contest law framework, the risk is reputational rather than legal. Athletes, families, and booster clubs should weigh that context honestly.

When does Louisiana Athlete of the Week voting open and close — LHSAA season timeline

The SI.com Louisiana poll follows the LHSAA's three-season athletic calendar. Each season brings a distinct mix of sports and a different set of schools dominating the nominee pool. The table below maps the poll cadence to the real LHSAA calendar.

Within each week, polls typically open Monday through Wednesday after the SI.com Louisiana bureau reviews weekend results, then close on Friday — though the exact close time is displayed on the widget and varies around holidays, tournament scheduling, and LHSAA playoff brackets. Always verify the close time directly on the active si.com poll rather than assuming a fixed hour.

Fall football weeks — particularly October contests involving Class 5A North Louisiana schools and Select Division playoff match-ups — regularly produce the poll's highest annual vote totals. Spring polls, especially mid-week track and softball weeks, can be decided with notably lower totals when booster mobilisation is lighter.

For the full landscape of Louisiana voting contests — including school spirit polls, community recognition awards, and statewide fan votes — see our Louisiana contest guide. For all US state-level contest pages, visit the USA contest directory.