To honor what would have been his 60th birthday, TrackFocus presents Pre Week, Jan. 23-39. Seven days of untold stories and new interviews centered around Steve Prefontaine and his enduring legacy.
I will start this off by saying I fully understand those who don’t get the Steve Prefontaine mystique or can’t fathom why anybody still talks about him. Or to those who can’t get past the unforgivable sin of drunk driving.
Some people don’t like him, for whatever reason. But that’s not me, and it’s not most of you.
I will attempt to describe why he matters to me, and throughout the rest of the week I will attempt to bring to light some of the not-so well-known details of Pre’s life, and memories from some of the people who knew him best. Please accept my invitation to comment and share your own thoughts and stories.
I grew up in Portland and was not yet four years old when Steve Prefontaine died. So I have no first-hand memory of him. I was at least 10 before I ever knew who he was.
I was in high school, and learning what cross country was, when I found Tom Jordan’s book “Pre!” in the Multnomah County Library. I checked it out a half dozen times. And I was hooked.
For me, Steve Prefontaine, already dead for a dozen years, came back to life. As a runner, he became the ideal. Tough. Talented. Cool. And from my home state.
Even though I grew up in the city, my family’s roots are in rural southwestern Oregon. My mother grew up on a family farm almost exactly half way between Eugene and Coos Bay. Prefontaine would have seen it repeatedly when he drove back and forth between home and school.
When you grow up in Oregon and have a particular fascination with sports, as I did, you soak it up. It’s not a big state. The historical high points are usually spaced out by a few years. You learn about Terry Baker’s Heisman Trophy season at Oregon State. And the 1977 Trail Blazers. And also, the roots of Nike and what made Eugene “TrackTown.”
You learn that Prefontaine was the centerpiece of that time and place. He was a pop star in a track singlet. And the things he did, at Marshfield High School and the University of Oregon, set a standard of excellence so high you wondered if you or anyone you knew would ever come close.
In the mid-1990s I lived in a house half a block from the Corvallis High School track where Prefontaine broke the national two-mile record in 1969. On a few summer nights, my brother or I would go there, do eight laps in lane one and try to inhabit the same space he did.
I went to the Eugene premiere of “Prefontaine.” I was an extra in “Without Limits.” Both of them were OK movies. I preferred the documentary that preceded them, “Fire on the Track,” because the real Pre was more compelling than the actors paid to portray him.
Over the last six years, I’ve been fortunate to know Pat Tyson and have conversations with him. He keeps Pre’s eternal flame alive, and his spirit, as well as anyone I know. Tyson’s life became, in some ways, an extension of Pre’s legacy. I’ll explore that more this week.
In 2008, prior to the Olympic Trials, there was a panel discussion on the campus of the University of Oregon devoted to Prefontaine. It was organized by a professor there. It featured a showing of Fire on the Track, and also a chance to ask questions of people like Geoff Hollister and Linda Prefontaine (Steve’s sister) and, of course, Tyson.
It’s fascinating to me how a life such as Pre’s is remembered over time. How it becomes larger-than-life. How it comes to embody the ideals of a state. And how new generations of fans take it up and study it for inspiration.
For all of those people who have and hold dear actual memories of Prefontaine, and the many more who find something compelling about his story, the spirit lives on.
On Tuesday, Prefontaine would have turned 60 if he had lived to 2011. That’s why we’ll remember him all week on the blog. Thanks for reading.
