By Mike Newman

We sometimes wish things would last forever. Unfortunately in this world, it is just not the case.

I am writing this with a tear in my eye. In the last few years, I have had the duty of making sure that results from track & cross country meets were input into our TFX system. I was the one that you coaches, athletes, or proud parents would write to make sure a meet was input or a mark that may have been missed would be put in.

For a track stat geek like me, this was a dream. To input a meet and then see where an athlete would rank in the given state or nationally was neat to see.

I would first like to thank Bob Geiger for the opportunity to do stats for Dyestat Illinois. That opened the door to fulfill a passion of writing and covering track & cross country meets.

This led to my position as one of the administrators for the TFX site for Dyestat and then the National director for TFX for Dyetrack.com. I cannot begin to thank John Dye for giving me the opportunity to do this. I will always be grateful for giving me a chance.

Like I said, it was a dream job. Thanks also to Derek Dye for creating this “stat monster” that I got to play with. There will never be another system like this to capture stats for high school track.

I would also like to thank my staff for the past season: Kristina Slacum-Jones, Will Drinkwater, and Eric Hoffman. You made my life easier for getting more and more results into TFX. Your sacrifices of your time that you gave me and Dyestat were beyond the boundaries of your duties. Thank you.

Also thanks to Steve Underwood and Doug Binder who would give me advice when I would tend to ramble on in some of my articles. I will never forget what I learned from you two professionals. A special thanks also to Rich Gonzalez, who now has his own website in California and was the editor of Dyestat California. Your passion for the sport is incredible and rubbed off on me. Thanks to all three of you.

I was part of a great team at Dyestat. We were all interested in one thing: making sure high school athletes got the exposure that they deserved. It is a great feeling to receive a letter from a parent or an athlete thanking you for doing what you do. I am sure everyone that was associated with Dyestat got that same feeling.

My high school coach Joe Newton would always tell us this Vince Lombardi saying after I or one of my teammates would have a bad race. “The greatest accomplishment in life is never failing, but rising again after you fall.”

Yes, Dyestat is closing its doors. But where one door is closed, another door is set to open. There will be an opportunity that has not been presented to me yet, but I do know that there is something out there for me to share my passion for running with you. There is a plan. There is always a plan. There are still races that need to be covered, races that need the results published, and performances that need to be rated.

I will still be covering running in Illinois at ilprepharrier.wordpress.com.

Thank you for letting me serve you in this sport.

Michael Newman