Oakmont High School, Roseville, CA

April 18, 2009

The third annual Roseville Express Track Club (RETC) meet ended in success.  Twenty-four USATF clubs and over 40 unattached athletes descended upon Oakmont High School in Roseville for a glorious sun-filled day.  With over 730 athletes expected to compete in this meet it required a lot of coordination from the RETC volunteers.  Many thanks to Becky Klein for providing five certified USATF race walk officials to certify the 1500m and 3000m race walk events.  Also to the other USATF officials and Sun City Retiree T&F Officials who dedicated their day to help out with the various running and field events.  Your donation of time was invaluable!

At the end of the day … only 30 of the 140 meet records were left standing.  Athletes were pulling out all the stops to make this a premier meet of the season.  First events began at 9:00 am and the last leg of the last 4x400m relay team crossed the finish line at 5:55 pm. 

We encourage all athletes, parents and coaches to review results both at the Pacific Association website and also at www.athletic.net.  At this time Athletic.net cannot publish results for unattached athletes but it is an enhancement they plan to rollout before the 2010 track and field season.  Steps to locate our USATF Region 14 Pacific results:

• Click on “Youth Clubs” in the left navigation bar
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and view the right-hand side
• If you have not set up your club with an account, follow the steps to create an Athletic.net account.  Why?  All results for our youth meets are loaded here after each competition.  This allows athletes to view their athletic history week over week.  As you set up your account, make sure you “edit athletes” to add in their correct age group for the 2009 season
• For the purposes of educating you on the benefits of Athletic.net … click on the “Roseville Express” or go to  http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/School.aspx?SchoolID=28809

Now what?  There are many benefits for the athlete and coach when using Athletic.net.  Once a club has set up their team and loaded their roster, not only can current results be loaded but as time allows, a coach can input results from prior seasons.  This allows an enhanced long-term view of an athlete’s growth in their events.  Follow these steps once you are on the RETC Athletic.net team page:

• In the top tool bar click on the link titled, “Athlete Season Records”
• From this viewpoint an athlete can quickly see their best marks of the season
• From here, click on “Mackenzie Arnold” or go to http://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Athlete.aspx?AID=736219
• When you pull up an individual athlete now you can observe their development not only within the current season but also from past seasons
• Please note this is a work-in-progress and many of RETC’s historical results have not yet been loaded

Above is just one example of the ways you can use this tool to improve the tracking of your athletes.  When USATF moves into the cross country season we’ll load results from each meet as well thus providing a holistic picture of an athlete’s tenure in USATF.

This tool is only as good as the data that is loaded into it.   Ensure you take the time to correctly upload your results.  Take time to play with the website within your own club account and determine what will work best for your USATF club.