National Scholastic Athletics Foundation

Each year at the New Balance Nationals Indoors, the NSAF selects four individuals who have made remarkable contributions to the sport for its most prestigeous awards.  These individuals will be recognized during our Opening Ceremonies at 12:10pm on Sunday, March 10th.

This year's honorees are as follows:

Walt Murphy - The Allen Dawson Award for Contributions to Track and Field

John Dye - The Soug Speck Award for Excellence and Innovation

Devon Hind, Hoover High School - The Mike Byrnes Indoor Coach of the Year

David Zemsky - The John Chaplin Honorary Referee

For a list of prior awardees please visit our Awards page.

Walt Murphy- The Long Sprinter

Allen Dawson Award for Contributions to Track and Field

 Walt Murphy has won three Emmy Awards as an associate producer for NBC and has worked on televised track meets for years, not only for NBC, but also for ESPN, ABC, CBS and TBS. He also is the publisher of Walt Murphy’s News and Results Service, which produces Eastern Track and XCountry XPress. Walt also puts together the XC Yearbook with American Track & Field. Walt’s series, “This Day in Track & Field,” has become very popular and he also is well known for his annual Penn Relays Preview.

Walt Murphy became fond of track watching his older cousin, Tom Murphy, compete in high school for St. Augustine’s in Brooklyn, and then for Manhattan College in some memorable Penn Relays outings. Tom went on to win the Olympic Development 1/2-mile races in 1959 and 1960. He also won the 800 and ran on the winning 4x400 relay in the 1959 US-Soviet Union meet. Then, he made it onto the 1960 U. S. Olympic team in the 800 meters.

The next member of the Murphy family after Walt’s cousin Tom to run in the Penn Relays was Walt himself. Walt was a “long sprinter” at St. Augustine's and he says he “plodded along” during his career. His senior year, he got to run in the mile relay at Penn.

Since those days of following his cousin Tom, Walt has attended ten Olympic Games, starting with the 1964 Tokyo Games when he signed up for an Olympic tour coordinated by Track and Field News. In 1980 Peter Diamond, senior vice president at NBC, asked Walt to join the team working on that year’s Olympic Trials. Walt now has worked seven Summer Olympic Games with NBC.

John Dye - Finding His Niche at 60

Doug Speck Award for Excellence and Innovation

 John Dye was born in Maryland, but grew up in Indiana where March Madness referred to the Indiana state high school basketball tournament. He was at the famous game in 1954 that inspired the movie Hoosiers – that culminated in tiny Milan’s victory over mighty Muncie Central at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. John went on to became a newspaperman, a CPA, and a government auditor, but his real career started at age 60 when his kids, Derek and Natalie, went out for track at Middletown High School in Middletown, Maryland. Putting his computer and journalism skills to work, Dye started a weekly newsletter for 20 high school track coaches in western Maryland.

 Dye’s motivation was always to keep track of his kids’ competition. As Derek and Natalie got better, the area of interest grew larger. In 1997, Derek (high jump) and Natalie (pole vault) won their events at the Maryland state meet. Now, Dye wanted to know how his kids ranked nationally, so the following year he started national rankings – 100 deep per event – and published the rankings on a new web site called DyeStat. Dye also started covering national championships and other major meets from coast to coast.

 DyeStat quickly became the “go-to” web site for high school track in the United States. The power of the internet created a national community of athletes, coaches, parents and fans who met almost daily in the DyeStat club room – the TrackTalk message board. In 2000-2001, DyeStat fanned interest in the rivalry of the “Big Three” distance runners – Alan Webb of Virginia, Dathan Ritzenhein of Michigan and Ryan Hall of California. 

 A single race at the New York Armory cemented DyeStat’s cult status. In January 2001, Alan Webb ran 3:59.86 in the New Balance Games for the first sub-4 minute mile by a high school runner in 34 years. Naturally, DyeStat was there.

 After Derek and Natalie graduated from high school, John’s wife, Donna, accompanied him to meets and started the hugely popular “Donna on the Side,” photo features of all the sideline scenes.

  In 2004, DyeStat assisted in launching the Nike Team Nationals cross country meet, the first true national team championship in U. S. high school sports.

 In a 2005 profile in Running Times, John Dye noted, “I once interviewed Colonel Sanders [of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame] and he said he hit his stride after age 60, and I kind of compare myself to him." John Gerweck, Running Times, December 1, 2005, http://www.runnersworld.com/high-school-profiles/john-dye, retrieved February 16, 2013.

 In 2008, DyeStat was acquired by ESPN as part of the media giant’s venture in high school sports, RISE and ESPNHS. Although DyeStat continued to flourish, the other sports did not, and ESPN closed the high school division in September 2012. DyeStat is now owned by Ross Krempley of RunnerSpace, who plans a relaunch soon.

 Ten years after he retired from the U. S. government to make room in his life for DyeStat, John Dye is now truly retired. The 2013 New Balance Nationals Indoor is the first national championship in 13 years in which he is not among the working media. He was the ONLY working media person at his first national championship, the National Scholastic Athletics Foundation’s outdoor nationals in Raleigh in 1999.

 John Dye found his niche in life at age 60!

Devon Hind - Success at Many Levels

Mike Byrnes Coach of the Year

Devon Hind was born and raised in Michigan. He attended Avondale High School in Auburn Hills, where he ran cross country and track. His senior year, he was runner-up in the Michigan state cross country meet and state champion in the two mile in outdoor track. Devon’s best high school two mile time was 9:17.6.

Devon attended Michigan State University as a freshman and then transferred to Jackson Community College as a sophomore. He was runner-up in the NJCAA Men’s Cross Country National Championships in 1975. He also scored 1st in the mile and 2nd in the two mile in the NJCAA Men’s National Indoor Track and Field Championships and was voted the meet’s most valuable performer. He then placed 3rd in the three mile in the NJCAA Men’s National Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Next, Devon transferred to the University of Alabama where he was a five time All-SEC performer with best finishes of 2nd in the steeplechase and 2nd in the mile at the 1976 SEC Men’s Outdoor Track and Field Championships. His best times while running for Alabama were 4:03.1 in the mile, 8:45.2 in the two mile, 13:40.4 in the three mile and 8:48.5 in the steeplechase.

In 1978, Devon was named head cross country and track coach at Berry High School in Hoover, Alabama. Coach Hind’s cross country team first won the Alabama state championship in 1982. Coach Hind left coaching for a bit to start a lawn service company that he ran successfully for 23 years, but in 1993, he began to coach again as a volunteer at Simmons Middle School. After volunteering for three years, he went back to full-time teaching and coaching at Simmons where he stayed for seven more years before taking over for the retiring Coach Mary Birdwell at Hoover High School in 2003.

Under Coach Hind’s guidance, Hoover’s boys and girls teams have brought home 16 state championship trophies and 21 runner-up trophies in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. The 2013 indoor boys team is his most recent state championship. This spring, Hoover will attempt to repeat as the girls state outdoor champions while the Hoover boys will be looking for their fifth straight outdoor championship.

Coach Hind has been married to Mary for 36 years. They have three daughters, all teachers, and three grandchildren.

David Zemsky - Tutelage

John Chaplin Honorary Referee

David Zemsky was born and raised in North Bellmore, New York. He attended W. C. Mepham High School and ran cross country, and indoor and outdoor track for three years under the tutelage of the legendary coaching duo of Paul Limmer and Gerard “Gerry” Hughes.

 During David’s time at Mepham, the track team won the Nassau County title which usually was dominated by Uniondale High School. Captain of the track team his senior year, David marks beating the legendary Joe Toles of Uniondale in the 440 yard race in a dual meet at Mepham as one of the highlights of his high school track career. David usually watched the back of Joe’s jersey when they competed together. (Joe went on to become a track star at Auburn University.)

 Another high point for David was running the lead-off leg on Mepham’s winning two mile relay team in the 1977 Nassau County Indoor Championships. The team went on to place fifth in the New York State Meet, and then came back in the spring to almost win the Nassau County Outdoor Championships, getting nipped at the finish line by Hempstead High School by just a tenth of a second.

 David attended the University of Maryland and graduated in 1981. During his freshman year he met his future wife Lora. They now have been married for over 31 years.  David received his law degree from Claude W. Pettit College of Law in 1984. He is currently a partner in the law firm of Zemsky & Salomon, PC located in Hempstead, New York.

High school track remains very important to David. He now is instrumental in raising funds for the National Scholastic Athletics Foundation’s annual New Balance Nationals Indoor held at the legendary Armory. David helps raise the funds in honor of the memory of Coach Hughes who passed away in 2010 after his long battle with ALS.

David and Lora currently reside in Plainview, New York, where they raised their three sons, Jason, 28; Evan, 25; and Joshua, 22.