Sports Column: Welcome to Year Three of the Athlete of the Week contest – The Vicksburg Post

Whenever a TV show returns for another season, or continues a multi-part episode, it usually starts with an action-packed recap beginning with the phrase, “Previously on …”

With that in mind, The Vicksburg Post’s Athlete of the Week contest is back for its third year. It might not be as critically acclaimed as the latest streaming darling from Netflix or Amazon, but we like it and it seems like our readers do too.

So, previously on “Athlete of the Week …,” four local athletes are nominated every Sunday for the title of, ummm, Athlete of the Week. Catchy titles are wonderful, but sometimes simple is best.

You, our awesome Vicksburg Post readers — and non-readers, if they want; we don’t discriminate here — then vote online for the winner. Whoever gets the most votes, wins, and is recognized with a story at vicksburgpost.com and in the print edition of The Post.

The four nominees are mostly from Warren County’s high schools, but youth and college players are eligible as well. So are those from the surrounding area, like Tallulah and Port Gibson, and any and all sports are considered. Last year there were 32 winners from eight sports, and 100 athletes were recognized as nominees.

The 2024-25 Athlete of the Week contest begins this Sunday and continues through early May, with a brief break around the December holiday season.

Now that we’re all caught up, we’d like to thank everyone for making this project a success. We weren’t sure how it would be received when we started it in 2022, but more than 100,000 votes have been logged during the first two years of the contest. Hopefully, we can surpass that this year alone.

The contest runs from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday at midnight each week. You can vote as many times as you want. If you’d like to spend Sunday evening spamming the poll for your favorite athlete, go right ahead. Bored at work on Monday? Log a few votes. Share it on social media and get people in Nepal talking about The Vicksburg Post’s Athlete of the Week contest. Let’s turn Athlete of the Week into this month’s “Hawk Tuah” or the Australian breakdancer as a viral social media sensation.

Or let’s just have some fun, support our local athletes, and keep what has quickly become a popular feature going strong.

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Ernest Bowker is the sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post’s sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post’s sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper’s 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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