So, here’s the deal—I’m both a track and field coach and a bit of a tech geek. I’ve always been into the numbers side of things when it comes to sports. Track and field, especially, is all about numbers: personal bests, meet results, season records. You name it. But keeping track of all those stats? Not as easy as you’d think. Spreadsheets are a pain to deal with, and don’t even get me started on paper records—they always seem to go missing. And the tools out there? They just don’t quite fit what a high school track program really needs.

That’s why I decided to build CloverleafTrack.com. My goal here is simple: I want to create a custom platform that tracks every performance from every athlete on Cloverleaf High School’s track and field team. But it’s not just about storing data. I want this platform to actually help coaches, athletes, parents, and even the fans interact with all that data in ways that are actually useful. You know, things like spotting trends, seeing how someone’s improving, or comparing results between meets and over different seasons. I want CloverleafTrack.com to be the go-to place for everything track and field related at Cloverleaf.

Why Start from Scratch?

Now, you might be wondering why I didn’t just use some existing software. I thought about it, but honestly, there are a few reasons I wanted to build this thing from the ground up:

1. Customization The pre-made solutions out there? They’re fine, I guess, but they don’t let me do exactly what I want. CloverleafTrack.com is going to be tailored specifically for our team’s needs. I’m talking full control over everything—performance tracking, team management, visualizing the data. I don’t want to deal with the limitations of some off-the-shelf tool that can’t handle the unique quirks of track and field events.
2. Scalability As more athletes join the team and we gather more data, this platform needs to keep up without slowing down or getting bogged down in old data. By building it from scratch, I can make sure the system will scale up as we grow—and even bring in historical data from past seasons without a hitch.
3. Ownership and Flexibility By hosting the platform ourselves, we’re not relying on some third-party service that could change its terms, raise prices, or go offline whenever they feel like it. We’re in full control. That means we can adapt and evolve the platform as our needs change without worrying about anyone else’s decisions.
4. A Passion Project Honestly? This is kind of a labor of love for me. Track and field has always been a big part of my life, and combining that with my love of tech just feels right. I’m not just building something functional; I’m building something I can continuously tweak and improve, making it more useful for everyone involved.

Where I’m Starting

For the first version of CloverleafTrack.com, I’m focusing on these four areas:

1. Athlete Profiles Every athlete will have their own profile that shows all their performance history, personal bests, and how they’ve improved over time. Whether they’re in individual events or relays, their profile will give a full picture of what they’ve accomplished.
2. Meet Management This is where I’ll be organizing all the data from meets, showing results across all events and athletes. It’ll make comparing performances between different meets and seasons much easier.
3. Performance Tracking and Scoring I’m also building a detailed scoring system that will give coaches more context around the numbers. It won’t just show raw results—it’ll show how those results stack up against different scoring systems, whether for local meets or even potential benchmarks for college-level competition.
4. The Leaderboard This feature is one of the more exciting parts. There will be two types of leaderboards:
   1. School Record Leaderboard: This will track the top performances for every event throughout the school’s history. It’ll give everyone a clear look at who holds the record for each event and when it was set.
   2. Event Leaderboard: This one will track performances for a specific event over time, showing how results have improved and where current athletes rank against historical data.

Looking Ahead

There’s still a lot more I want to build, and this is just the beginning. Down the road, I plan to add:

• Data Visualization I’m looking to create charts and graphs that’ll make it easier for coaches and athletes to spot trends and see where things are headed over time.
• Mobile-Friendly Interfaces Everyone’s on their phone these days, so I’ll be making sure the platform works seamlessly on phones and tablets. That way, anyone can check results or track performances while on the go.
• Meet and Season Scoring Metrics In the future, I’m going to build out scoring metrics that can show how the entire team performed across a meet or even over a full season. This will let coaches compare results from one meet to the next, and across seasons, making it easier to see team strengths and where improvements need to happen.

CloverleafTrack.com is more than just a place to track numbers. I’m hoping it becomes an interactive, useful tool that makes the data more meaningful for everyone involved—from coaches and athletes to parents and fans. By building it from scratch, I can make sure it’s built exactly for the unique needs of our track and field program, and I’ll keep improving it as we go.