Publication of heat sheets prior to meets serves multiple useful functions. Read on as we discuss of few of those functions.
When I started coaching track and field in the spring of 2002, almost every meet brought a massive pile of heat sheets to the coaches' meeting, usually with the stipulation that there would be one or two copies allowed per school. Even at that, the photocopying bill must have been astronomical. Literally, most meets involved multiple reams of paper, not to mention the copier costs.
We've moved beyond that now, and the forests are already thanking us for that.
Simply stated, any meet in the state is welcome to send either start lists or heat sheets to me for publication in advance of their meet. Usually about 24 hours in advance of the start of the meet is close to ideal. Those start lists or heat sheets will go up on the front page for easy access to coaches, athletes, and fans alike. In most cases, I will also be able to add them to the meet page itself as well.
Here's what a meet gains from having heat sheets posted:
1. Faster scratch meetings. I hesitate to say scratch/add meetings as many meets are no longer allowing meet day adds or changes, but if the heat sheets have been available for up to 24 hours before the meet, it takes less time for coaches to identify and communicate scratches to the timer.
2. An enormous PR boost for the meet. A meet that has heat sheets published in advance of the meet simply presents the image of a meet that has things together and means to operate efficiently.
3. A great resource for parents, fans, and coaches. Just about everyone comes to meets with mobile devices these days. Announcers rarely have time to detail the entries in all of the heats and flights of the meet (and when they do, the PA system is often difficult to hear clearly), but a simple check with the heat sheets allows all involved to quickly identify the athletes in any given event. For coaches, it is many times easier than carrying around a 10-page (or more) document in your hip pocket all day. For athletes, it means not having to ask your coach what heat and lane of an event you're in. So many questions are answered the easy way rather than the hard way.
4. Athlete anticipation. As a general rule, athletes love to see who they'll be going up against in the next day's events. Pre-publication of heat sheets builds the advance excitement for your meet.
Because entries are done through Colorado Track XC, I have the capability of producing start lists for any meet if a meet director makes that request. Theoretically, I also have the capability of creating heat sheets, but I won't do that because of things like ties in seeding being broken differently under different programs and the numbers of contestants in field event flights are not typically a fixed, reliable number.
I will also never post heat sheets or start lists for a meet without the permission of the meet director, timer, or head coach of the host school. There may be reasons not to post heat sheets for a particular meet and I will honor a no-request-to-post as an expression of a desire not to have start lists or heat sheets posted for that meet.
To have heat sheets posted, all that needs to be done is to create a Hy-Tek flat html file of the heat sheets for the meet and mail those as an attachment to me at the e-mail address in the bottom left corner of this page. I will select a photo of an athlete to be featured in the meet as a cover photo and post those heat sheets as a front-page article. And, we really do try to spread the joy around with athlete photo selection. More articles means more opportunities to feature different athletes on cover photos.
If, for some reason, a set of heat sheets is not possible, just send along a request and I will post a set of start lists for each event for the meet and publish in more or less the same format as the heat sheets.
If you have a revised set of heat sheets to send out after an initial set, please don't be reticent to send those along. It is the model of simplicity to replace one set of heat sheets with another set in an article. If that makes your meet work more efficiently, let's do that!
There is never a charge for posting heat sheets, and heat sheets never go behind the subscription wall. These are open content for all to view.
Please always feel welcome to send questions my way!