By John Dye

Life is full of surprises. Who knew what would follow when I started posting national rankings in 1997 just to get my kids ranked? Who knew I would still be doing it 15 years later? Who knew that a home hobby would blossom into a national community of high school track athletes, coaches, friends, family and fans? I sure didn’t.

DyeStat forced me to retire from my day job and became a second career.

Now it ends. But I still have the memories.

Memorable Moments

DyeStat took me from coast to coast to witness memorable moments by remarkable young men and women.

Alan Webb outruns Ryan Hall in the 2001 Arcadia mile.

• Orlando, New York and Eugene, The Big 3– In the 2000-2001 school year, three young men rose to the top of high school distance running and set off coast to coast arguments that made DyeStat’s TrackTalk message board the chat room of high school running.
Webb, Ritz and Ryan.
Alan Webb of Virginia, Dathan Ritzenhein of Michigan and Ryan Hall of California. They were 1-2-3 at Foot Locker, with Ritz winning his second straight title at Disney World in December. A month later, we saw Webb run 3:59.86 at the New York Armory, the first high school runner to break 4 minutes in the mile since 1967. And Webb bettered that with his sensational outdoor record of 3:53.43 at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene.

• Stevens Point WI, the Rocket – Chris Solinsky, backed by “Pre” Jensen’s Rocket Booster fan club, rolled to victory at Foot Locker.

• Kalispell MT, Zoe the Zephyr – Little Zoe Nelson, a fresh wind from the northern Rockies, came down to California to win Foot Locker as a sophomore.

Sanya Richards as a Florida prep.

• Aurora CO, the Kaltenbach sisters – Megan gave up soccer to become one of the best in the country. Little sister Katelyn surpassed her to win Foot Locker.

• Arcadia CA, Allyson Felix - Olympic champion Allyson still looks like she is having as much fun as when she surpassed Marion Jones’ records at the famous Arcadia Invitational.

• Fort Lauderdale FL, Sanya Richards – She was top-seeded in six events when we saw her lead St. Thomas Aquinas to the Florida state championship. Now she is the Olympic 400 meter champion.

• Portland OR, Galen Rupp and Alberto Salazar – runner/coach relationship from Galen’s sophomore year in high school to 2012 Olympics. We first saw the skinny sophomore finish third at the Golden West. Alberto called us from Europe when Galen broke the 5000 meter record. Galen won silver in the 10k at London this year.

Tommy Skipper and family after his 18-3 PV USR.

• Sacramento CA, Tommy Skipper – Broke the national pole vault record at Golden West with his entire family present in honor of his late brother Art, national record holder in javelin.

• Albuquerque decathletes – We saw a remarkable string of record decathlete performers at the Great Southwest: Donovan Kilmartin, Curtis Beach and Gunnar Nixon. We can never forget home town hero Curtis Beach’s fabulous three-day performance – national record decathlon, anchor of New Mexico’s winning 4×800 relay, and fastest split of an all-star 4×400 relay squad that beat the US#1 team from New Bern NC.

• Big Matt and Little Matt Centrowicz – Family joy in the infield at Greensboro when future Olympian Matt Centrowicz Jr. won the 2-mile at Nike Outdoor Nationals to the delight of his dad, Matt, who was himself a 2-time Olympian.

Ali Barrientos anchors a USR at the Penn Relays DMR.

• Philadelphia PA, Ali Barrientos – leads San Lorenzo Valley CA to a national record distance medley at the Penn Relays with the exact times that coach Rob Collins predicted.

• Santa Rosa CA, Sara Bei – Lost with class in the Foot Locker West regional one year and came back the next year to win it all in Orlando.

• San Luis Obispo CA, Jordan Hasay – Started winning as an 8^th grader and never stopped – and never cut her golden hair.

• Pocatello ID, Simplot Games. the capitol of the sport for one weekend in February for more than 30 years. We saw national records by Elzie Coleman, Bianca Knight, Jackie Coward, Ryan Crouser and Ashley Owens.

• Rockford MI High School – Kalin Toedebusch led the girls and Dathan Ritzenhein the boys. Now they are married.

• Portland OR – Art and Linda Kranick’s Saratoga Springs NY girls validated their long time domination of the cross country polls by winning the first Nike Team Nationals.

• Manlius NY, Fayetteville-Manlius HS – Bill Aris’ girls are a dynasty for the ages with six straight Nike Cross Nationals (nee NTN) titles, and they are still going.

• Red Oak TX, Michelle Carter – joined her father, Michael, as national shot put record holder. Michael, of course, was an NFL superstar with the San Francisco 49ers.

Francena McCorory stuns with her USR at 2006 NIN.

• Landover MD, Francena McCorory– cured the banked track envy of the Nike Indoor Classic with her fantastic national record in the 400 on the flat track at the Prince George’s County Sportsplex.

Everywhere we went, DyeStat fans made Donna and me feel like celebrities.

Leaders of the Sport

DyeStat also put us in touch with leaders in the sport who became friends:

• Walt Murphy – publisher of Eastern Track and stats man for virtually all national track telecasts, and he does a mean karaoke.

• Jack Shepard – the absolute guru of high school track records, publisher of the HIGH SCHOOL TRACK annual, now in its 54^th year.

• Vic Sailer – former New York City fireman now in his own second career as a globetrotting photo journalist at track meets from Long Island to the Olympics.

• Josh Rowe – galvanized the Nike bureaucracy into creating Nike Team Nationals (cross country), the first true national team championship in high school sports.

• Norb Sander –kicked the homeless out and turned the New York Armory into the mecca of indoor track with more than 100 high school meets a year.

• Peter Walsh and Dave Hunt – transformed neighborhood bar Coogan’s, one block from the Armory at 168^th and Broadway, into the greatest track hangout in the country. Check out the wall with every Sports Illustrated cover of track stars.

• John Haaland – coach and school teacher – brought the Great Southwest Classic from Phoenix to Albuquerque and made it one of the best meets in the country.

John Dye at 1999 Foot Locker Finals in Orlando.

• Steve Schoenewald– boxing announcer and track nut – one-man gang as director of the Mobile Challenge of Champions, one of the first DyeStat featured national meets.

• Marc Bloom – the quintessential high school track journalist; his Harrier magazine crowned the unofficial national cross country team champions for many years until the advent of Nike Team Nationals settled the issue face to face.

• Doug Todd, Mt. SAC – director of the biggest high school cross country meet in the country with 90 races – three on the famed hill course at one time.

• Jeanine Zocks, Foot Locker – gives Foot Locker finalists royal treatment at The Del in San Diego.

• Ian Brooks – track announcer whose British accent and dayglo trousers enliven meets everywhere; he makes race walk exciting.

• Jim Spier and Mike Byrnes – Long Islanders who founded the indoor and outdoor national championships and the Great American Cross Country Festival, the first major face to face meeting of the majority of national top 20 cross country teams. Their National Scholastic Athletics Foundation (nee NSSF) is the most influential force in high school track.

• Other NSAF leaders – Joy Kamani, David Mitchell, Tracy Sundlun, Fred Steier, and Larry Rawson.

Derek Dye’s high jump state title in the mid-90s inspired his dad, John Dye, to start DyeStat.com.

The DyeStat Crew

I can’t close without giving credit to the DyeStat crew, who made the site great.

• Donna Dye – who refused to be a track widow and joined me on the road to create “Donna on the Side”

• Derek Dye – high jumper, Navy officer, and creator of the great TFX database.

• Natalie Dye – pole vaulter, scientist (PhD, Stanford Medical School), who climbs rocks in Europe now instead of pole vault bars in Maryland.

• Doug Speck – Arcadia CA High School teacher, coach and meet director. His California newsletter, the model before DyeStat, morphed into DyeStatCal. Unmatched race announcer with total recall of stats. Died way too young.

• Steve Underwood – You knew him as SteveU on TrackTalk before he joined DyeStat and became our best analyst.

• Dave Devine – multi-talented editor; guided DyeStat through the difficult transition to ESPN; gave us SI-quality features before moving on to bigger challenges at the University of Portland.

• The “Track Junkie” – I first met the indefatigable John Nepolitan when he took Don Bosco NJ high school kids to Ireland on a weekend to see the World Cross Championships without missing a day of school. John took photos and became our lead photographer for the next 10 years.

• Rich Gonzalez – who took the stick from Doug Speck in California and never lost the lead.

• Doug Binder – former newspaperman in track-mad Oregon became our best deadline writer/editor.

• Nicole Haynes – statuesque heptathlete who could have been a cover girl; our best video interviewer and anchor of the DyeCast weekly news show.

• DyeStatIL – Mike Newman, Bob Geiger and Tony Jones covered Illinois like the dew; Mike was also tireless in managing TFX input the past year.

• Rob Monroe – the youngest but one of the smartest of our crew; his cross country team rankings were based on every piece of minutia he could find on the internet.

• John Sullivan – another track dad who stayed interested long after his son graduated from high school; John was an amazing one-man show in Texas.

• Marc Davis – Foot Locker champion, Olympic finalist, and superstar video man for DyeStat.

• Moses Galindo – avid track fan, great video man.

• Mike Kennedy – another invaluable behind-the-scenes stats man who supports writers and announcers.

• Student Sports – Andy Bark and Rudy Chapa elevated DyeStat from a home hobby to a professional organization in 2004. Kirsten Leetch, Jan Stayberg and many others helped in myriad ways.

My apologies to all of those I left out.

To everyone across the country:

Thanks for the memories!