Two men who have devoted a good part of their lengthy lives to our sport are currently in NY area hospitals.

Stan Saplin, for years the "voice" of the field events at meets at Madison Square Garden, and one of the sport's great historians (he's on Track and Field News' masthead as the mag's historical editor), slipped into a coma last week, suffering from water on the brain. He has since regained consciousness, but is still in the intensive care unit at NYU Medical Center.   It's still not certain what was the cause, but Allen Dawson is still in a coma at the North Shore University Hospital on Long Island. As the story below states, Dawson coached NFL Hall of Famer Jim Brown at Manhasset H.S. in the 1950s. He also appeared as the "Marlboro Man" in print ads.  In addition, he was the assistant coach at Long Island's C.W.Post College during the early 1970s when the team included a young runner named Vin Lananna, now the successful coach at Stanford.

Dawson took over the head job t Post from Roy Chernock in 1975 and immediately hired Lananna as his distance coach. The two worked side-by-side until 1980, and retained a very close relationship through Lananna's coaching moves to Dartmouth and Stanford. Said Lananna, "He's been my right hand man since 1980".

In a year that will always be remembered for September 11, there has also been a startlingly vast number of sad stories in our small world of track and field. Please remember Stan Saplin and Allen Dawson, two of our unsung heroes, in your prayers as they struggle to regain their health.

Walt Murphy FROM NY's NEWSDAY (Reprinted With Permission)  By Bart Jones December 3, 2001 A legendary athletic coach at Manhasset High School whose prot�g�s include football Hall of Famer Jim Brown was critically injured when he was hit in the head with a shot-put shot during a freak accident at practice, authorities said yesterday.

Allen Dawson, 80, was knocked unconscious when he was struck on the back of his head by the 12-pound iron shot on Friday during practice at the high school, Nassau County police said. He was taken to North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, where he was listed in critical but stable condition yesterday.

Police said the accident occurred when Dawson, who is retired but working as a volunteer coach, was measuring a throw by one of the girls on the team about 4:10 p.m. He apparently wanted to measure the throw because it was one of the girl's best efforts. Another team member proceeded to make a throw, but Dawson apparently did not hear the athlete's warning that he was about to release the shot. "Evidently he threw it and it hit him in the head," said Detective Jeffrey Grossof the Sixth Precinct. "It was a horrible accident."

Police did not identify the team member who threw the shot because he is a minor, but said no charges have been filed because they believe what happened was an accident.

"I know he felt terrible about the incident," Gross said, referring to the athlete. Dawson's family, however, said they were uncertain as to precisely what happened on the field. They said that, according to medical personnel, Dawson may have simply suffered an aneurysm on the field at the time the student was throwing the shot.

"It was a sudden event," said Dawson's wife, Mary. "It could have been coincidental."

The family said the last thing they want is for the student to feel guilty about what happened, because Dawson's entire life has been about encouraging young people. Dawson's wife said his prognosis was not good, though the family and numerous friends, colleagues, students and former players were praying for his recovery.

"He has not regained consciousness and we do not know if he will," she said. "He's in a coma."

The couple, married 55 years, live in Westbury. Messages of concern about Dawson began pouring in quickly. Reached at his home in Los Angeles yesterday, Brown, the former star running back of the Cleveland Browns whom some consider the greatest athlete America has ever produced, said he was saddened by Dawson's misfortune.

"He's an unbelievable human being, just a beautiful man. I remember him as always having one of the greatest attitudes you would ever want to see in a person. He never coached in the negative," Brown said. "He was an integral part of Manhasset when I was there. He was Mr. Manhasset. He was always a part of the community," he said.

Dawson coached Brown in both football and track and field at Manhasset in the early 1950s (Brown was a high jumper). When Brown was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he mentioned Dawson in his speech, Dawson's family said. The North Shore hospital was jammed with well-wishers on Saturday, including many of the athletes Dawson is coaching now.

In a remarkable career that has spanned more than a half-century, Dawson coached football, basketball and track and field at Manhasset. He also coached track and field at C.W. Post campus of Long Island University in the 1970s, turning a relatively small school into a major track and field power, and producing a string of All-American athletes.

Dawson became a leading track and field official as well, working such major competitions as the Penn Relays at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden. He also officiated at some of the U.S. Olympic trials, his family said.

Another of his prot�g�s at Manhasset was Ken Howard, who later starred in the television series "The White Shadow," which ran from 1978 to 1981. The show was about a white man who coaches a team of black inner-city boys.

Sports wasn't the only area in which Dawson excelled. By age 18 he was a successful model, appearing on billboards in places including Times Square for advertisements that hawked everything from Listerine to cigarettes, his relatives said. A health nut who also worked for years as a lifeguard at Jones Beach, Dawson never smoked or drank.

"He often joked it was the only time he put a cigarette in his mouth - when he had to pose," said one of Dawson's sons, John.

James Herbert, 39, who was an assistant track coach at Manhasset from 1991 to1996, said "he was a super athlete, a physical specimen, a good-looking guy."

As recently as last week Dawson was coaching at a track and field meet at Bethpage State Park.

A World War II veteran who served four years in the Pacific and captained his own ship, Dawson started coaching in Manhasset in 1947 when he landed a job as a physical education teacher in the district's Munsey Park Elementary School. He went to C.W. Post in the early 1970s and "retired" a decade later. But his love of sports would not let him stay away from the playing fields, so he continued as a volunteer.

His wife said that if he does not survive one small consolation will be that his downfall came as he was doing what he had devoted his life to. "That's the way he'd want to go, doing something he loved," she said, adding: "The shot put was one of his favorite events."

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