When local youth football coach Derrick Mertl looks at the playing field, he sees two shades of green.
This month, Mertl launched SideLine Tracker, a new mobile app designed to capitalize on the desire of parents and coaches to track youth sports participants’ playing time to make sure they’re getting their fair share.
Mertl, who works in IT at local accounting firm Cherry Bekaert, saw the opportunity to build the product after coaching the Glen Allen Ravens over the past three years.
He said many area youth leagues set mandatory thresholds for the minimum number of plays or amount of time participants must reach. The policy is set to ensure kids get enough game time experience and keep parents happy, Mertl said.
Good in theory, the policy doesn’t always play out as well as some parents hope.
“It’s very intense watching a youth football game. There’s a lot of yelling and heartache,” Mertl said. “In the end, you always have a parent who says their kids didn’t play enough.”
Mertl spent $40,000 to develop the iPad app and a website for SideLine Tracker. He financed it with personal loans. He’s also working with two small investors.
The new product made its debut this month in Apple’s online store. Parents can pay $0.99 for the app to track one child. The ability to track up to 20 players on a team sells for $14.99. The app is good for one season at a time.
Mertl, 39, called around to soccer, basketball and hockey coaches and found that many struggled to track individual players’ time on the field.
Derrick Mertl (Photo by Michael Thompson.)
“Doing it manually wasn’t the best or most accurate way,” Mertl said.
Last summer he hired V4 Development, a web development firm in Rocketts Landing, to “turn the regular clipboard into a digital clipboard,” he said.
The screen looks like the field of play. Coaches can swipe icons representing individual players on and off the field to keep track of playing times and number of plays.
When a player reaches the minimum time her icon turns yellow, and when she reaches the maximum it changes to green. Parents can sign up to receive a post-game email reporting their child’s time on the field.
SideLine Tracker can be used for basketball, hockey, soccer and football. Mertl hopes to add more sports and features to SideLine Tracker.
“We’d like to take it further,” Mertl said. “We’re brainstorming how we can track temperature, strides and distance ran in the game.”
When local youth football coach Derrick Mertl looks at the playing field, he sees two shades of green.
This month, Mertl launched SideLine Tracker, a new mobile app designed to capitalize on the desire of parents and coaches to track youth sports participants’ playing time to make sure they’re getting their fair share.
Mertl, who works in IT at local accounting firm Cherry Bekaert, saw the opportunity to build the product after coaching the Glen Allen Ravens over the past three years.
He said many area youth leagues set mandatory thresholds for the minimum number of plays or amount of time participants must reach. The policy is set to ensure kids get enough game time experience and keep parents happy, Mertl said.
Good in theory, the policy doesn’t always play out as well as some parents hope.
“It’s very intense watching a youth football game. There’s a lot of yelling and heartache,” Mertl said. “In the end, you always have a parent who says their kids didn’t play enough.”
Mertl spent $40,000 to develop the iPad app and a website for SideLine Tracker. He financed it with personal loans. He’s also working with two small investors.
The new product made its debut this month in Apple’s online store. Parents can pay $0.99 for the app to track one child. The ability to track up to 20 players on a team sells for $14.99. The app is good for one season at a time.
Mertl, 39, called around to soccer, basketball and hockey coaches and found that many struggled to track individual players’ time on the field.
Derrick Mertl (Photo by Michael Thompson.)
“Doing it manually wasn’t the best or most accurate way,” Mertl said.
Last summer he hired V4 Development, a web development firm in Rocketts Landing, to “turn the regular clipboard into a digital clipboard,” he said.
The screen looks like the field of play. Coaches can swipe icons representing individual players on and off the field to keep track of playing times and number of plays.
When a player reaches the minimum time her icon turns yellow, and when she reaches the maximum it changes to green. Parents can sign up to receive a post-game email reporting their child’s time on the field.
SideLine Tracker can be used for basketball, hockey, soccer and football. Mertl hopes to add more sports and features to SideLine Tracker.
“We’d like to take it further,” Mertl said. “We’re brainstorming how we can track temperature, strides and distance ran in the game.”
Always like seeing creative thinking in #RVA – and v4 Development always does great work. I like seeing local entrepreneurs sourcing local firms. This should do well with the millions of parents who want to get their kids playing time. Some may argue its a big brother approach over the coaches; but any good coach will realize its a tool to assist their planning, strategy, and awareness of play- not to run it. Kids and parents who pay for a league deserve to have their kids on the field to learn. Great talented kids deserve extra time to develop as… Read more »
My experience is that any screen is very hard to see in sunlight… Not to mention the rain that many outdoor sports endures. Also a major problem is that it has to be done without missing one substitution, or the integrity is totally compromised… Not easy to do… A parent playing with an app, and then jogging over to a coach at the end of the game with a complaint – is not good for anyone.. especially the kids. Leagues who cater to parents whining about playing time are doomed. You’d be better served spending more focus on telling parent’s… Read more »