Douglas Gary Speck (October 16, 1947 – March 4, 2010) was a high school teacher and
track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...
enthusiast. He carried his love of the sport into becoming a major promoter and source of information. Starting in 1968, he joined Doug Smith in the creation of the
Arcadia Invitational
The Arcadia Invitational is a high school track and field meet in the United States. It is considered the most competitive meet in the country and has been billed as the "Home of National Records". The meet is held at Arcadia High School in Arcadi ...
. Speck oversaw the growth of the meet, from a local spectacle to the premiere in-season nationwide invitational now called the "Home of national records."
From his office at
Arcadia High School, Speck became the ultimate researcher of the best track athletes around the United States. In order to attract the best athletes to the Invitational, he had to know who they were, so Speck tracked performances and statistics, writing columns for running publications like California Track and Running News. In the infancy of the internet, he joined Gonzalez in starting a website providing the most in depth coverage of high school track and field athletes in California. Merging with John Dye's similar site in North Carolina, they created the nationwide
Dyestat
DyeStat was a website self-described as "The Internet Home of High School Track & Field". It was founded in 1998 by John Dye, and featured his wife (Donna Dye) as the features editor, senior editor Steve Underwood, assistant editor Dave Devine, tw ...
site self-described as "The Internet Home of High School Track & Field." The California version was known as Dyestatcal.
Speck's fountain of information was not limited to print. He was the P.A. announcer at many of the top high school track and field meets including the
Sunkist Invitational
The Los Angeles Invitational was an elite level indoor track meet, held in the Los Angeles Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California. For 25 years (1970 to 1995) the event was sponsored by the hometown Sunkist Growers, Incorporated who assumed title ...
, the
National Scholastic Indoor Championships
The National Scholastic Indoor Championships or "NSIC" are, along with Nike Indoor Nationals, one of two American high school national championship indoor track and field meets. High school participants from across the country compete for the hono ...
, the
Foot Locker Cross Country Championships
The Eastbay-Foot Locker Cross Country Championships are a series of annual cross country running races held in various regions of the United States to determine the premier cross country runner in various age