# @paulmerca70601 on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DU3yCAvEmvy
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/56718475-paulmerca70601-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/c559fa91ea.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-02-17T19:57:59.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Paul Merca (@paulmerca70601) — https://gondola.cc/paulmerca70601

## Caption

Just finished announcing the Husky Classic for uwtrack, which was essentially twelve hours of talking over two days.

Someone asked about the process of announcing a track meet. It starts as soon as stephboknows, who is the meet director, sends me the list of accepted entries. 

Once I get the entries, I start sorting through it, and figure out who I’m going to highlight (it’s impossible to highlight everyone in a running race when you have maybe two minutes before the gun goes off, and less if the meet’s behind schedule).

It takes me about 12-16 hours over three days to put together my announcer notes, which is done on an Excel spreadsheet. Note that the names are highlighted—if I don’t have something I need on that athlete on the fly, I can click the cell, and it takes me to their worldathletics or ustfccca profile.

The next slide is the setup of my desk, with an iPad for field events, a screen with the runnerspace video feed, my laptop with several tabs open, including live results, profiles, descending order lists, my binder where I can hand write notes, along with whatever announcements I need to read, and of course the mic.

The next two slides are how the magic at Dempsey happens. On the final slide is spotter extraordinaire spotter47, who is constantly feeding me information during races, and reminding me to announce meet and arena records, as well as field events happening and telling me to shut up when the starter’s gun goes up.

I’m lucky that Kevin Saylors lives in Seattle, as this man has spotted track meets such as the world championships, usatf nationals, and the olympics either for the in stadium announcers or for US television announcers.

Thanks to Husky track alum and world class sports photographer howlaophotography for the pics.

#publicaddressannouncer publicaddressannouncer #trackandfield #athletics

## Stats

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- **Likes:** 39
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## Credits

| Name | Username | Profile | Role |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Paul Merca | @paulmerca70601 | https://gondola.cc/paulmerca70601 | Photographer |

## Tags

trackandfield, publicaddressannouncer, athletics

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