Coach's FAQ

Your staff logs each play from the sideline. The app keeps score, down and distance and ball spot, builds player stats, and writes the postgame report.

It replaces the clipboard and the spreadsheet. It isn't a film or scouting system.

The app is a free download. You need a coach subscription only to create a team.

In the US it's $50 a year. The App Store listing and the subscription screen in the app show the price for your country, and what they show is what you're charged. The first two weeks are free if your Apple Account is still eligible for an introductory offer. One subscription covers your whole account: up to five separate teams, so a varsity and a JV cost the same as one.

Joining a team with an invite code is free for coaches, parents and fans, so your assistants, parents and players pay nothing.

Five, on one subscription. A varsity, a JV and a freshman team is three, so most coaches never come close.

Deleting a team frees the slot right away, so a team you set up by mistake or finished two seasons ago doesn't count.

Running more than five (a couple of programs, or a youth organization with several age groups)? Email [email protected] and we'll raise your limit. There's no second subscription to buy, and signing up again with another email won't work. The App Store ties a subscription to your Apple Account and will only sell you one.

An iPhone or iPad on iOS 17 or later. Most coaches using it are on iPads, and it works on both. In landscape on iPad the screen splits in two: entry on the left, play log on the right.

There's no Android version and no web version.

From the App Store. Here's the listing. It's a free download, and the subscription only comes in when you create a team.

If you're searching instead of using that link, search for "SideKick Tracker". There's another developer's app called plain "Sideline Sidekick", and it isn't this one. The listing you want is Sideline SideKick Tracker, by Jeffrey Feely.

Sideline Headset, the wireless headset app for your staff, is a separate free download and is included with a coach subscription.

Yes, and you don't need an account. On the sign-in screen, tap Look around first and pick See an example team you coach or See an example team you follow. The coach version is an invented team with the real play-charting screen. The follow version is the parent's view of a game in progress.

It's all made up, nothing is saved, and nothing is charged. If you already have a team, the same two choices are in your Account screen and on the team picker.

Three things, once: your roster (name, number, position, grade), your playbook (the formations and calls you actually use) and your team colors. A logo is optional.

After that it's set. You're not rebuilding anything week to week.

The whole staff. Create the team, share the invite code, and anyone signed in to that team can log plays into the same game. One coach spots while another logs, and nobody retypes anyone's work.

If you want them to. Anyone you give the invite code joins as a read-only Fan: they see the score, the play-by-play and player statistics, and that's all. A Fan can't change anything or see your formations or play names.

How widely the code goes out is the owner's call. Treat it like any other roster information.

The owner can make a new one. In the app, open Members, find the invite code and tap Generate a new code. The old code stops working right away. People who already joined stay on the team, and only new people need the new code.

To take someone off the team, the owner removes them from the same Members screen.

Yes, on football teams. The team owner (or a co-owner) opens Team Settings, then Fans and privacy, and sets Who can join to Private. After that, anyone who enters the code asks to join and sees nothing of the team until an owner lets them in. Owners can let a person in, decline, or decline and block.

The owners can see the person's name and email while the request waits, and a request nobody answers is removed after 30 days. People already on the team stay on it. When you switch to Private, the app offers you a new code too, so the old one stops working. The privacy policy has the details.

The team owner can remove any member at any time from the Coaches screen. Ownership can also be handed to another coach.

The owner or a coach can add one. Your team's logo goes in team settings, under Logo. An opponent's goes under Their crest when you add or edit a game against them. Pick the image from your photos. Only the picture you choose is shared with the app.

It has to be a logo or crest, with no photos of people, and one you have the right to use. An opponent's logo only needs adding once: it shows on every game against that team.

Usually 24 to 48 hours. Every logo is checked by the developer before anyone else on your team sees it. Until then your team keeps its initials crest, and your team settings show that the logo is waiting for review.

Your team settings show the reason. The usual ones are:

• it shows people (logos can't include photos of anyone);
• it isn't a logo or crest;
• the image quality is too low to show clearly;
• it didn't pass the automatic check that runs before review.

You can upload a different image instead. If you think a logo was turned down by mistake, email [email protected].

Press and hold the logo and choose Report. Anyone on the team can do it, including parents and players who follow as Fans. The developer reviews every report and can remove the logo.

A plain run takes a few taps: formation, play, ball carrier, a spot button, save. The ball is placed for the next snap when you hit save, so there's nothing to reset between downs.

The keyboard stays out of your way. It only shows up in the notes field.

The app expects that. Log a complete game in airplane mode: plays, scoring, opponent scores, all of it. It syncs when the connection returns, and it shouldn't feel slower offline.

No. Undo the last play, or open any play in the log and change it, including where it ended. Play numbers, drives and start spots after it fix themselves.

When a play reaches the end zone, a prompt on the dashboard asks for the points and the try. Tap it and the sheet is already filled in. You just answer the try.

It doesn't take over the screen mid-drive, so you don't miss the next snap. Opponent scores and kickoff returns are covered too, and a return won't ask for a formation you never called.

That's what it's designed for: big type, heavy contrast, a play log you can read at a glance. If something washes out on a bright afternoon, that's a bug. Report it.

The line score by quarter, every score and stat lines for your top players. Tap Draft the email and Mail opens with the report already in the body and your recipients filled in, remembered on your phone. If Mail isn't set up, it opens the share sheet instead. You can also share it as plain text, or as a PDF.

Send it from the parking lot, without waiting to get home to a computer.

Yes. Any game exports as a spreadsheet from its menu, and the whole season exports as one workbook from Stats & Export or from the Schedule. Open it in Excel or send it to a coordinator.

The postgame report shares as text or PDF. Need another format, like a particular stat service's? Email it. That kind of request is how most of this got built.

Only people the team's owner has admitted to that team. That means your coaching staff, plus anyone in the read-only Fan role if the owner has shared the invite code that far. Nobody else in the app. The developer can also see every team, to run the service, as the privacy policy explains.

Those limits are enforced on the server, not only in the app.

Roster and team information is never used to track anyone across other apps or websites. Other companies handle parts of it only to run the service: Google stores it, Apple and Google deliver game alerts, and Apple provides the weather and map search. The developer also gets private alerts in Discord when an account, a team, a game or a subscription changes; those carry ids and team names, plus the email address of a brand-new account, of a team's owner when the team is created or a game starts, and of a person who joins a team as a fan, but no player names and no one's name. There are no ads, and the app keeps no record of which screens a person opens or how long they spend in it. About once a month it reports which scoreboard style a phone showed, without any account or sign-in; the server keeps only a count. It does send a crash and error report when something goes wrong, so problems can be found and fixed; those contain no names, no team names and no invite codes, and only a few error reports include an account id. The privacy policy describes exactly what they hold, and who receives what, when and why.

On Google Cloud, through Firebase Authentication and Cloud Firestore. Google acts as the hosting provider; the data isn't shared with Google for its own advertising or marketing. Apple provides the map search for a game's field and the game-day forecast; the field you pick is stored with the game, and the forecast is not stored by us. The app also keeps an offline copy on your device so it works on a field with no reception.

Those are yours to follow, and the app doesn't override them. Enter the minimum you need to run a game: name, number, position, grade.

The privacy policy spells out exactly what is stored and who can reach it, in plain language, if you need to hand it to an athletic director.

No. The only pictures in the app are team and opponent logos. The developer looks at every logo before anyone else can see it, and a logo that shows people is turned down. The App Store lists “Photos or Videos” in its privacy details because of those logos.

You'd be told first, on this site and by email to the addresses on active accounts, with time to export your reports before any team data is deleted. Games and the whole season export as spreadsheets any time you want them, and the privacy policy has the details.

A player comes off the roster with a swipe. A game deletes with every play and score in it. A whole team can be deleted by its owner, who has to type the team's name to confirm. That one is permanent in the app, and it takes the roster, playbook and every game with it. Copies stay in backups for up to 98 days, and a few short records stay afterwards, as the privacy policy explains. You can also delete your own account entirely.

Step-by-step instructions are in the privacy policy. If you'd rather not do it yourself, or you can't sign in, email [email protected] from the address on the account.

Email [email protected]. Include the version you're running and, if it's a bug, what you were doing when it happened. Replies usually come within a few days.

Send anything that made you pause, re-read or tap twice. You don't need a reason. "I couldn't find it" and "I didn't trust that number" are useful on their own, and a stat that looks wrong is the most valuable report of all.

Jeffrey Feely. One person, coaching and building it at the same time, and that's why it's shaped the way it is. Everything in it is there because a real sideline on a real Friday needed it.