John and Donna Dye.  
John is the founder and editor-in-chief. Donna takes photos on the sidelines at meets for her popular feature, Donna on the Side.

DyeStat 5.0, more than just a pretty face

by John Dye, founder and editor of DyeStat

PORTLAND OR 3/8/2006 - Today we launch DyeStat 5.0, a totally redesigned web site. We think it's pretty cool. But it's much more. It's better for you and better for us, with expanded features and a streamlined delivery system. Best of all - it's still free!

Better for you

• Easier navigation
• More interaction, so you can customize what you see
• More content
• The Pit - personal home pages where athletes can tell their own stories.
• Stats - DyeStat Elite will still tell you who the best athletes in the country are, but a new universal database will include all performances from meets. An athlete of any skill level can find out how he or she rates among all performances.
• More content produced by diversified teams - words, photos, video - with more live reporting, original features and webcasting.
  
• Regional home pages, with more news from the states.

Better for us

• New content management system - makes pages faster and easier to prepare, allowing us to use more editors and deliver more news on time.
  
• New performance database - automated data entry, more complex analysis, on-time delivery, interactive access - all with less manual work. Instead of 8,000 elite performances a year in the past, the new system is expected to include more than 100,000 performances a year.
  
• New advertising system - allows delivery of ads by page view on all DyeStat pages, greatly expanding the volume of advertising that can be sold, while preserving the majority of page space for news.
  
• New server - a dedicated set of three computers for faster page loading and five times the storage space.

A Better Future

This is the fifth major change in DyeStat's look and feel since we started our first web site in Maryland in 1996. We are evolving rapidly from a home-based hobby to a full grown business. Our new owners, Student Sports, are investing in the future of DyeStat by way of the new computer system and more and more staff resources. We believe that the new DyeStat can be funded by our great sponsors and advertisers, making it unnecessary to ask you to buy subscriptions.

And so we go into the second decade of DyeStat.

The First 10 Years

"It all started in 1995 when high school freshman Derek Dye announced to his dad, John Dye, that he had joined the track team at Middletown MD High School. Dad was only a casual fan of track at that point, but he was a lifelong sports nut, computer nut and stats nut. Dad put the three together along with track parent instincts and started a stat service (results and rankings) for coaches in western Maryland. Daughter Natalie, a year behind Derek in school, joined the team the next year.
Dad's hobby was always about keeping track of the kids' competition. As the kids got better, the sphere of interest grew wider -- county, region, and state. In 1997, Derek (high jump) and Natalie (pole vault) each won Maryland state championships. Now, Dad wanted to know how they ranked nationally, so he compiled national rankings from state meet results for boys high jump and girls pole vault. DyeStat became a web site the following year, with coast to coast coverage and national rankings.
DyeStat faced a big fork in the road in 2000. Derek and Natalie were both off to college, so track parent instincts were no longer in play. But Dad was hooked on high school track by then and wanted to keep the site going if sponsors could be found to cover the growing expenses. First Rivals and then Nike met that need, along with the National Scholastic Sports Foundation and other meet sponsors such as the New York Armory, Mt. SAC, Simplot, Great American, Golden West, FootLocker, Mobile AL, Sugar Bowl LA, Portage MI, Hilliard Davidson OH, Great Southwest, Golden South, the Indiana All Star Running Club and Iolani HI.
Site traffic soared each year, making DyeStat the most popular source in the nation for news of high school track and field and cross country. The hobby became a full time occupation, and a family affair. Derek regularly put his computer science skills to use in behalf of DyeStat. Mom, Donna Dye, started talking to people on the sidelines at meets and her page, Donna on the Side, became one of the most popular features of DyeStat."

DyeStat Gets New Resources

"2004 brought exciting times for DyeStat!

Donna and I sold DyeStat.com to BC Sports, the company that owns Student Sports. Student Sports is a print and online publishing company with longstanding and deep relationships with high school football, basketball and soccer players through the publications and special events it promotes.

BC Sports approached Donna and me because they would like to establish the same strong connection to the high school track & field athlete that they have with the other sports. They asked us to continue to manage DyeStat.com for the next four years (at least) while they explore ways to help us make DyeStat.com bigger and better.
When we started DyeStat 8 years ago, we had no idea what it would become. I sometimes called it a hobby gone berserk. It has certainly come to dominate my life. I had to consider that at my age (a very healthy 68, but 68 nevertheless), I couldn't keep doing DyeStat seven days a week indefinitely. In order to have other people take over some of my duties, we needed new revenues or outside investors. Fortunately for all of us, BC Sports stepped up. They pledged to continue everything we now provide and to add even more features. Donna and I will continue to cover all the big meets for years to come."
--John Dye

2005: At long last-- staff

In 2005, DyeStat announced the addition of Marc Davis and Steve Underwood as senior editors. Davis holds national championships at all three levels -- high school (Foot Locker cross country), college (NCAA 5000m and 3000m steeple) and national (steeplechase) and was an Olympic finalist in steeplechase in 1996 at Atlanta. Underwood is a veteran journalist who is well known to DyeStat readers as "steveu," author of The Distance Gods series in the days of Ritz, and the webmaster and administrator of the TrackTalk message boards.
Davis and Underwood now assist DyeStat founder John Dye in all aspects of DyeStat. Dye continues as editor in chief. He and his wife, Donna (Donna on the Side), continue to cover DyeStat Featured Meets on-site.

Marc Davis

Marc Davis comes to DyeStat after a 13-year running career with Nike. Highlights of his running career:

• 1986: Kinney/Foot Locker National High School Cross Country Champion
• 1989: NCAA 5000 Meter Champion
• 1992: NCAA 3000 Meter Steeplechase Champion
• 1993: USA Track & Field 3000 Meter Steeplechase Champion
• World Championship USA Team Member, Steeplechase
• 1994 Goodwill Games 3000 Meter Steeplechase Champion
• Waikiki Mile Road Champion (First sub 4-minute mile in Hawaii)
• 1996: USA Olympic Finalist, 3000 Meter Steeplechase
• American Record, 5000 Meters/ Road (13:24)
• 1997: USA 5000 Meter Road Champion
• 1998: World Cross Country Championships, 7th Place
• USA Track & Field 5000 Meter Champion
• Goodwill Games, USA Team Member, 5000 Meters
• Ranked #1 U.S. Road Runner (Source: USA Track and Field)
• 1999: Chiba Ekiden U.S. Team Member (Fastest 5k leg of the day)
• 2000: USA Olympic Trials Qualifier - 5 th place finish at 5000 meters
• Personal Records:
• 1500m 3:36.24
• Mile 3:54.30
• 3000m 7:38.04
• 2-Miles 8:12.77
• Steeplechase 8:14.30
• 5000m 13:27.05

Steve Underwood

Steve Underwood, of St. Ignace, Michigan, has been a track and cross-country nut for more than 25 years. He first discovered DyeStat in 1999, becoming "steveu" on the message boards. In 2000, he wrote a series of profiles on Dathan Ritzenhein, Don Sage, and other prep distance standouts during that resurgent era which became "The Return of the Distance Gods" The series turned into what has been 5 years of occasional big meet coverage for DyeStat, with reports from 17 national or regional-level events. Steve has also written numerous book reviews, previews, profiles, and other pieces for DyeStat. After some informal work on the boards for a few years, Steve became Track Talk's primary administrator in 2002, and ever since has worked on new registrations, board redesigns, technical problems, and that nasty thing called "post" and "thread deleting" and "banning." With the new board rules and more time available, he will continue in that capacity. Steve ran for East Lansing, Michigan HS (Class of 1980) and Hope College (D-3, Class of 1984) track and CC, then ran for Reebok and Brooks state-level teams for several more years. Some of his PRs as an All-State and All-American runner were 4:17.2 mile, 9:14.6 2-mile, 14:37 5k, and 30:46.8 10k. He still has some school and conference records sitting around, but unfortunately, he is sadly out of shape now (it's never too late for a comeback, though ... right?). Before becoming senior editor, Steve's "real jobs" the last 11 years have been in writing, editing, and page design for local newspapers in Michigan and Georgia, a national sporting goods magazine, and as a college sports information director. Before that, he had several years in running footwear retail. After 16 years in the Atlanta, Georgia, area and Huntsville, Alabama, Steve returned to his home state of Michigan in 2003.