DyeStat Brought HS Track and Field Community Together Like It Never Had Before

By Walt Murphy

Walt Murphy's News and Results Service  ([email protected])

R.I.P.-John Dye

I was on my way yesterday to a Celebration of Life for Ed Bowes, an old friend who died in 2020, when I received an email from Donna Dye, letting me know that another old friend, her husband John, had passed away the night before.

Both men had a tremendous impact on high school track. Ed, a miler at Bishop Loughlin H.S.(Brooklyn,NY) and Manhattan College, was the long-time director of two major meets  —the Bishop Loughlin Games at NY’s Armory, and the Manhattan College X-Country Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park, an event he revived in 1973 and which will celebrate its 50th edition next Saturday. He was also a strong advocate for the development of high school track for girls in NYC in the 1970s.

John Dye, of course, was the creator of DyeStat, the ground-breaking website that brought the high school T&F community together like it never had before (with help from “Donna on the Side”, his wife’s photo displays on the site.

As we often did when John was in NY to cover a meet, we took a break from a long day at the Armory to have lunch (and a beer or two) at Coogan’s, which was right around the corner. We were walking down 169th Street when a young runner, warming up on the streets outside the Armory, came towards us and stopped dead in his tracks and said, “Oh my god, it’s John Dye”! (John had recently posted his photo on DyeStat). It was confirmation that John had become a star and an inspiration in the world of high school track.

John, a runner himself during his own H.S. days, was recognized for his contribution to the sport by being named to the inaugural class of inductees into the National H.S. T&F Hall of Fame in 2018.

Walt Murphy is one of the nation's foremost statisticians and historians for track and field and his This Day In Track and Field is sent out to his subscribers 365 days a year.