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

What is the Nevada High School Player of the Year fan vote?

Nevada has two distinct annual fan-vote programmes that crown a top prep athlete at the end of each school year. Understanding which one you are entering — or voting for — matters, because they cover different geographic footprints and use different formats.

• Nevada Sports Net (NSN) bracket: An annual bracket-style fan vote covering Northern Nevada schools in the Reno and Sparks metro area. NSN — an independent sports media outlet focusing on University of Nevada athletics and Northern Nevada prep sports — launched the first Northern Nevada High School Athlete of the Year fan vote in 2024–25 and ran its second annual edition in May 2026.
• High School On SI Nevada POY: A statewide sport-specific Player of the Year fan vote published through High School On SI (Sports Illustrated / Arena Group). Separate polls run by sport — football, basketball, and others — and are open to athletes from all NIAA regions, including Southern Nevada's Las Vegas and Henderson metro.
• Both programmes are free, publicly accessible, and decided by fan vote totals — no editorial panel override, no judges, no pay-to-enter fee.
• The NIAA also awards a separate Top 10 Student-Athlete recognition (scholarship-based, not fan-voted) annually, which is distinct from both programmes above.

Which Northern Nevada schools compete in the NSN bracket vote?

The NSN Northern Nevada Athlete of the Year bracket draws exclusively from Northern Nevada high schools — primarily NIAA 5A-North and 4A programs in Washoe County and surrounding areas. The 2025–26 bracket featured 32 athletes from 14 Northern Nevada high schools across two unseeded 16-player brackets, one for boys and one for girls.

Spanish Springs and Reno High produced two of the most prominent names in recent editions. Brady Hummel of Spanish Springs (5A-North football) and MacKenzie Sellers of Reno High (5A-North track and field) won the 2025–26 fan vote. In the 2024–25 inaugural edition, Bishop Manogue's Kiki Harris was recognised as the girls winner.

Southern Nevada schools — Bishop Gorman, Liberty, Arbor View, Desert Pines, Centennial — are not part of the NSN Northern Nevada bracket. Those athletes are eligible for the High School On SI Nevada statewide sport-specific POY polls, which draw from the entire NIAA membership.

How does the NSN Northern Nevada bracket fan vote work?

The NSN bracket vote runs over approximately five consecutive days each May, hosted entirely on Nevada Sports Net's Instagram account. The format mirrors a standard single-elimination tournament bracket.

1. Bracket release: NSN publishes the 32-athlete field split into a boys bracket (16 athletes) and a girls bracket (16 athletes). Brackets are unseeded — there is no official seeding by performance rank.
2. First-round voting: Matchup graphics are posted to NSN's Instagram Story on Day 1. Followers vote by tapping their preferred athlete on the Story poll sticker. Round results are tallied by the Story interaction count.
3. Quarterfinals (Day 2) and Semifinals (Day 3): NSN advances winners and posts new matchup graphics. Each round is a fresh vote on a new Story segment — previous round totals do not carry over.
4. Championship round: The two finalists in each bracket face off in a final Story poll. The athlete with more votes wins.
5. Winners announced: NSN announces both the boys and girls champion the following Friday morning on their website at nevadasportsnet.com.

Because voting happens through Instagram Story interactions, only users with an active Instagram account can vote — unlike most newspaper fan polls that require no registration. This means the mobilisation dynamic is different: the key is reaching people who (a) have Instagram and (b) follow or can see NSN's Story before it expires. Instagram Stories expire after 24 hours if not saved as a Highlight, so each voting window is time-sensitive.

How does the High School On SI Nevada POY vote work?

High School On SI publishes sport-specific "Vote: Who was Nevada's [Sport] Player of the Year?" articles on si.com. The 2024 Nevada Football POY vote drew 197,060 total votes — a substantial community engagement signal. Brandon Mann of Bishop Manogue won with 71.20% of the vote. These polls use a standard web poll widget accessible to any visitor at si.com with no account required. Voting is typically open for several days to a week after the article publishes.

For a broader overview of how online fan vote mechanics work — vote caps, device fingerprinting, and platform-specific rules — see our complete online voting guide.

Recent Nevada Athlete of the Year fan vote winners

The table below compiles verified winners from both the NSN Northern Nevada bracket and the High School On SI Nevada POY polls. Because the NSN bracket is only in its second year, the historical record is limited but growing. SI Nevada POY data is available for football from 2024.

Brady Hummel's 2025–26 win followed an exceptional senior season at Spanish Springs: he recorded 84 receptions, 1,064 receiving yards, and 16 receiving touchdowns while also contributing 60 tackles and 5 interceptions on defence. Spanish Springs won the NIAA 5A state football championship that season, and Hummel was named 5A-North MVP.

MacKenzie Sellers of Reno High earned her 2025–26 fan vote victory by defending her 5A girls pole vault state title — her third consecutive state championship in the event — making her one of the most decorated Northern Nevada track athletes in recent years.

Brandon Mann's 2024 SI Nevada Football POY result — 197,060 total votes, 71.20% share — demonstrates that when a Southern Nevada powerhouse (Bishop Manogue is in Reno, not Las Vegas, but competes in 5A-North) fields a nationally recognised prospect, the SI statewide vote draws substantial traffic. Mann was a dual-threat quarterback who completed 172-of-274 passes for 2,435 yards and 31 touchdowns while adding 866 rushing yards.

How do supporters get more votes for Nevada's Player of the Year nominees?

The mobilisation playbook differs meaningfully between the two formats because the voting surfaces are different.

For the NSN Northern Nevada bracket (Instagram Story format)

The entire vote lives on Instagram Stories, which expire after 24 hours. Every hour you wait before activating your network is lost voting time.

For the High School On SI Nevada POY poll (web format)

The SI poll uses a standard web widget with no Instagram requirement. Sharing the direct si.com article link works across all platforms — Twitter/X, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Facebook, and email. The 2024 football poll generated nearly 200,000 votes, showing there is a large existing SI Nevada audience to tap. The most effective single move is getting the direct article URL into school athletic department social posts and local Nevada sports Twitter/X accounts — those channels already have audiences primed to vote on Nevada prep topics. For general strategies applicable to any online poll, our how-to voting guide covers the complete toolkit.

Can you buy votes for Nevada's Player of the Year, and what do the rules say?

The NSN bracket operates on Instagram's Story poll feature. Instagram's platform terms prohibit automated interactions and botted engagement broadly. The practical enforcement risk for Story polls is that anomalous engagement patterns — unusually large vote spikes from accounts with no prior activity — can look suspicious, though Instagram does not publicly disclose its moderation thresholds for Story polls specifically. For the SI Nevada POY poll, standard web-poll terms apply: automated scripts that bypass per-device voting limits are prohibited.

The SI Nevada football POY drew 197,060 votes in 2024 — with one winner taking 71.20% of the total. That concentration suggests organised campaigns were in play. At that scale, reaching real voters through direct-link sharing, school community emails, and coordinated social posts is the foundation; paid promotion options exist as a supplement for campaigns that have exhausted organic reach. For any service you consider, paced delivery matched to realistic human voting patterns is the standard that avoids platform flags.

There is no cash prize or formal sweepstakes structure attached to either the NSN bracket or SI Nevada POY polls. The consequence of detected automation is vote removal, not legal action or athlete disqualification. That said, the reputational value of a verifiable, clean win — especially for recruiting contexts — argues strongly for keeping promotion in the real-audience zone. Visit our Nevada contest guide for state-specific context on related polls and fan votes.

How does the NIAA sports calendar shape these annual votes?

Both the NSN bracket and the SI Nevada POY polls are anchored to the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association (NIAA) calendar, which divides the school year into three sports seasons. The timing of the fan vote typically reflects which sports just concluded state championships.

The 5A-North classification covers the largest Northern Nevada schools — Spanish Springs, Reno, Bishop Manogue, Reed, McQueen, Galena, and Damonte Ranch are all 5A-North programs. The 4A-North covers mid-size schools like Carson High, Douglas, Wooster, and North Valleys. Both tiers feed the NSN bracket field. The 5A-South covers Las Vegas and Henderson's largest schools; the SI Nevada POY polls are the primary statewide fan-vote venue for athletes from that region.

For a fuller picture of Nevada prep sports contests and fan votes, visit our Nevada sports contest hub or the broader USA contest guide index.