Always stand on the
outside of the track. Call runners to the line with a "Runners on your mark!" and give 'em a few seconds to stretch and get in their blocks, if they're using them. If there
is someone using blocks, give the "Set!" command, then wait no more than 1 second and fire! If nobody's using blocks, don't holler "Set!" but instead just give 'em a gun after the "on your mark!" command.
Should you see a false start (runner moves before you fire the gun), fire the gun twice and call everyone back. Of course, if you have a really quick gun, you won't have any false starts
Also, take solice that no one is really gonna be paying attention to what you say, just listening for the gun.
NOTE*** - I'm not actually a track "official," but I do watch alot of track meets, and ran in HS. If you follow the advice above, you could probably fool all of the athletes all of the time, and none of the "official" officials none of the time
[Edited by Danvrapp on Mar 20th, 2002 at 02:54 PM]