Robert Geiger Teacher »

Tony Jones (left) and Bob Geiger are the co-editors for Dyestat.com’s Illinois edition, the one-stop source for anything related to cross country and track and field. Fourth in a series about high school sports Web sites. Track and field coaches, like swimming coaches, like to indulge in a fun exercise. I guess you can call it “Predict the state champion.” Both sports are measured by ticking seconds, or more accurately, ticking by one-tenth seconds. Web sites in both sports keep detailed list of “honor rolls,” a list tracking the top times in each event. Dyestat.com’s honor roll is called Leaderboards. If athletes were robots and always performed to their peak at the state meet, followers can try to predict the outcome by awarding point totals to the competitors based on their top times. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way. Neuqua Valley’s boys swimmers had the best seed times heading into the state meet, but Naperville Central pulled off the upset in the meet’s final event to also win the state trophy. Dyestat.com has it all for the track and field enthusiast: a coaches’ poll, meet results, photos, job postings, meets wanted openings and links to team Web sites. It’s free, but one former track and field coach told me that he is on the site nearly every day and would be willing to pay a monthly fee for its use.