About
Made at the meet, for the meet
First Call and the First Call Playbook are by Christopher Friend, who runs middle school track meets in Fairfax County, Virginia. The playbook is the way those meets are run; the app is how every volunteer, coach and announcer gets it on their phone.
I've run track meets for eight years, more than seventy of them. I started by building Virginia's then-largest youth running club, and went on to become the architect behind Fairfax County Public Schools' middle school sports programs, cross country and track & field. I've directed weeknight tri-meets of fifty athletes and championships of 26 teams and over a thousand.
Why "First Call"
The 1st call is the moment a race begins for its athletes: thirty minutes out, time to head to the clerking area. Get that right, on time, every time, and the rest of the meet follows.
Who it's for
Meet directors of middle and high school meets, the parent volunteers who staff them, and the coaches who want to know where their athletes need to be.
Where it stands
Built and ready for a pilot meet. What comes after is on Behind the Scenes.
Questions meet directors ask first
Short answers
Getting started
What do I need to run it?
A Windows laptop with First Call installed, and the heat sheet PDF from Athletic.net. For phones on meet day, a Wi-Fi network the laptop and the phones can all join. A phone's hotspot works.
Does it need the internet?
No. Planning and meet day run on the laptop. The internet is used only for the weather forecast on Home and for live results on the Awards page.
Do volunteers need an account or an app?
No. They scan their role's QR code, or open a link, in their phone's browser.
Which heat sheets does it read?
The meet program PDF that Athletic.net produces. Other meets can be entered by hand: start from scratch and add events.
Meet day
The meet is running late. Do I change every time?
No. Start each race with Started Now and every later time moves by itself. For a stoppage, use Delay.
The meet is running early. Why don't the times move earlier?
Your playbook's Timing has "never start an event earlier than planned" on, so athletes aren't called before their published times. Turn it off if you want the schedule to pull forward.
Two clerks are working the same event. Will they overwrite each other?
No. Each tap is saved on its own, and the heat board shows the other phone's taps within a few seconds.
Entries changed on the morning of the meet.
Re-import the new heat sheet. You choose which changes to apply, and check-ins follow the athletes.
Roles and your way of running a meet
We don't have a clerk helper.
On Setup, uncheck Clerk Helper, then give its tasks to the Clerk or mark them not at this meet. To make that the default, change your playbook once.
At our regular meets I'm the announcer too.
That's the default: regular meets have no Announcer, so the calls land on the Meet Administrator's list.
Can I add a role, such as a starter or a gate volunteer?
Yes. In your playbook's Roles, add a role, then give it a guide, a station and tasks.
We run our meets differently. Can we still use it?
Yes. Change what's different in your playbook: roles, guides, stations, tasks, timing. Your changes go into your own copy, which your meets follow, and the original stays as a reference.
Our starters and finish line helpers don't use phones.
They don't have to. They're in the playbook with a printed guide, and How it Works shows where they stand.
Coaches, privacy and safety
What can coaches see?
Their own athletes' events, heats, lanes or hip numbers, when each event is called, the heat being formed, and their own athletes' check-ins. They don't see other schools' check-ins, and they can't change anything.
Where are athletes' names kept?
In the data folder on your laptop, and nowhere else. Every screenshot on this site uses made-up schools and athletes.
Who can open the meet?
Anyone on the same Wi-Fi who knows the address, while phone access is running. Roles decide which pages a phone shows, but they aren't passwords yet; per-meet codes are planned. Until then, close phone access when the meet ends, and use a network you control.
Contact
Run a pilot meet, or just say hello
If you run track meets and want to try First Call at one of yours, I'd love to hear from you.