Feelings Still Run Deep Over Prefontaine's Legacy

Even the 20th anniversary of his death seems to have more life, energy and even controversy about it than the sport of track and field he so prematurely left behind.

He held no world records nor won any Olympic medals, but the legend of Steve Prefontaine thrives today as it did in the early 1970s, when he attracted huge crowds wherever he ran.

But especially in Eugene, Ore.

Next Saturday's Prefontaine Classic meet there is chock full of world-class track athletes. CBS will intersperse its live coverage of the meet with a one-hour documentary on Prefontaine's life, which was snuffed out May 30, 1975, when he piled his sports car into a rock wall near the University of Oregon campus. Pre was 24.

Two separate movies about him are on the drawing boards, one by Warner Brothers, the other by Disney. The former hopes to have Tom Cruise play the part of Pre; the latter Brad Pitt.

I'd pick Pitt, who is prone to gritty, audacious parts. There was nothing pretty about Pre.

The documentary "Fire on the Track" was funded originally by Nike, the shoe company that traces much of its spirit, if not success, to Prefontaine, who chose to wear its shoes in the 1972 U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene when no one else would.

Nike paid Prefontaine, a violation of athletic codes then, but Pre did it anyway. He was always at the center of controversy, even as he is today as Eugene's track community is split over these two pending movies. The Disney film is supported by Nike and Pre's family; the Warner Brothers version by his longtime friend, runner-writer Kenny Moore.

This past week, I've been interviewed by several writers across the country who are trying to explain the Pre phenomenon, his popularity then and now. Because I was the sports editor at the Eugene Register-Guard during Pre's reign, I was also interviewed at length for the documentary. Whether I survive the editor's cuts remains to be seen.

Prefontaine grew up in the lumber-longshoreman town of Coos Bay, a rough and tumble little kid, at 5 feet 9 too small for football, but with a gift for running. He set a national high-school record in the two-mile and decided to go where good runners went, to the University of Oregon, where he could train under Bill Bowerman.

In the fours years he ran for the Ducks, he never lost a race, winning four NCAA titles and the hearts of a city used to watching its football and basketball teams get beat up by USC and UCLA.

He was the original mailman; he delivered.

He won his first NCAA championship despite an injury the week of the meet that required six stitches in his right foot. He was goofing around on a diving board when he hurt his foot.

Pre played as hard as he ran. He was intoxicated the night he died. But in four years he never missed a workout. He once promised he would run a sub-four-minute mile in a hastily organized meet to raise money to send him to Europe, and did it even though Eugene was enveloped in black smoke from burning grass fields.

He spit up blood after the race.

He would run against anybody at almost any distance. To raise money to renovate Hayward Field, he was put in a mile against Olympic champion Dave Wottle. Prefontaine wasn't a miler, but he agreed to face Wottle even though his only chance was to lead wire-to-wire. In the end, of course, he was an unwilling rabbit in a great race, more courageous in defeat than most runners are in victory.

Pre was a warrior.

The track crowds at Oregon -Pre's People - loved him, hanging over the rail for a glimpse of their hero before and after every meet, clapping rhythmically for him as he ate up distance with every stride during a 5,000-meter race, his chest out, his head cocked to the left.

At one point, he held every American record from two miles to 10,000 meters. He had gone off to the Olympics and finished fourth in the 5,000 at Munich, but the fans back home understood because Pre had run to win.

He took the lead with a mile to go and although he covered the distance in 4 minutes, 1 second, lost ground in a stretch run by the great Lasse Viren of Finland. A more conservative race would have gotten him a medal. Pre wasn't conservative. He was also only 21 years old.

I'll never forget his last race, in Eugene, when he won a 5,000 meter race against Frank Shorter. He ran with a assuredness and a sense that his best days were to come.

At 6 the next morning, the phone rang and an Associated Press reporter told me about the automobile accident.

"What hospital is he in?" I asked, brushing aside the early morning hour. "You don't understand," the caller said, "Pre is dead."

And so was a love affair with a runner and his sport. Want to comment or pass on an idea? Contact Blaine Newnham at 464-2364.