01-26-2019, 02:17 PM
Posted this elsewhere but want others to see it:
On my regular 1970’s afternoon runs in Eugene, Oregon, I often came upon the famous Steve Prefontaine. On the night of May 29, 1975, at a party hosted at the home of Geoff Hollister, and on behalf of a new running shoe company called Nike, I finally met the legend who, as a mere college freshman, had appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. “America’s Distance Prodigy,” the magazine called him.
Nike was sponsoring the event to honor the several visiting Finnish Olympic stars who had come to Eugene to compete in a meet that afternoon, held at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field. But the Finnish team, conspicuously and suspiciously, was one star short; the reigning 5000 and 10000 meter Olympic champion, Lasse Viren, had plead an excuse not to come.
No one in my temporary town was buying it.
Fortunately for the fans that were filling every vantage point--I looked for the students who might have shinnied up the wooden electric polls looking over the track's far turn--Pre had been able to land an exciting replacement. He had telephoned the 1972 Olympic marathon gold medalist and reigning US 10,000 meter champion, Frank Shorter. Shorter was training in Boulder, Colorado, and felt an allegiance to Pre, thanks to Steve's efforts to improve the status of amateur track and field athletes in America. Shorter agreed to fly in.
To no one's surprise, Pre won the duel; Shorter was not an elite 5,000 meter runner. Before, during, and after the race, the Eugene crowd’s response screamed of Pre’s status in Eugene; think Mick Jagger plus Muhammad Ali and then amplify all that roar with the force of local pride.
Hollister's spiffy soiree was a typical 70's track and field party: ample supplies of beer matched by heroic displays of restraint, and the boy:girl ratio you notice in hunting lodges. I left around eleven, sober and alone.
I was staring at a bright Oregon morning the next day, through the wall-to-wall and floor-to-floor window of my law review office--law was cushy back then, even if you hadn't yet taken the bar--when I heard a voice cry out. It was coming from my due right.
“You hear about Pre?’
I looked to see Jon Fussner, our managing editor, stopped just inside the office door, attired, as always, in khakis and long sleeved button down shirt.
“Of course," I yelled out to him. "I was there. He smoked Frank.”
“No,” Jon called back. “He died. Car accident last night”
This memory is so clear it might have occurred this morning, and it shakes me still. Pre’s utter aliveness made his death seem so stark by contrast. I’ve said this often in retelling this story: Steve Prefontaine was so alive you could feel the heat coming from him.
So many of us felt that from Pre, not least of all among them the two men who wrote and produced one of the four films that have been made about Pre’s life. Almost inevitably, they called their tribute to this force of nature, who would be 68 years old today, Fire On The Track.
On my regular 1970’s afternoon runs in Eugene, Oregon, I often came upon the famous Steve Prefontaine. On the night of May 29, 1975, at a party hosted at the home of Geoff Hollister, and on behalf of a new running shoe company called Nike, I finally met the legend who, as a mere college freshman, had appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. “America’s Distance Prodigy,” the magazine called him.
Nike was sponsoring the event to honor the several visiting Finnish Olympic stars who had come to Eugene to compete in a meet that afternoon, held at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field. But the Finnish team, conspicuously and suspiciously, was one star short; the reigning 5000 and 10000 meter Olympic champion, Lasse Viren, had plead an excuse not to come.
No one in my temporary town was buying it.
Fortunately for the fans that were filling every vantage point--I looked for the students who might have shinnied up the wooden electric polls looking over the track's far turn--Pre had been able to land an exciting replacement. He had telephoned the 1972 Olympic marathon gold medalist and reigning US 10,000 meter champion, Frank Shorter. Shorter was training in Boulder, Colorado, and felt an allegiance to Pre, thanks to Steve's efforts to improve the status of amateur track and field athletes in America. Shorter agreed to fly in.
To no one's surprise, Pre won the duel; Shorter was not an elite 5,000 meter runner. Before, during, and after the race, the Eugene crowd’s response screamed of Pre’s status in Eugene; think Mick Jagger plus Muhammad Ali and then amplify all that roar with the force of local pride.
Hollister's spiffy soiree was a typical 70's track and field party: ample supplies of beer matched by heroic displays of restraint, and the boy:girl ratio you notice in hunting lodges. I left around eleven, sober and alone.
I was staring at a bright Oregon morning the next day, through the wall-to-wall and floor-to-floor window of my law review office--law was cushy back then, even if you hadn't yet taken the bar--when I heard a voice cry out. It was coming from my due right.
“You hear about Pre?’
I looked to see Jon Fussner, our managing editor, stopped just inside the office door, attired, as always, in khakis and long sleeved button down shirt.
“Of course," I yelled out to him. "I was there. He smoked Frank.”
“No,” Jon called back. “He died. Car accident last night”
This memory is so clear it might have occurred this morning, and it shakes me still. Pre’s utter aliveness made his death seem so stark by contrast. I’ve said this often in retelling this story: Steve Prefontaine was so alive you could feel the heat coming from him.
So many of us felt that from Pre, not least of all among them the two men who wrote and produced one of the four films that have been made about Pre’s life. Almost inevitably, they called their tribute to this force of nature, who would be 68 years old today, Fire On The Track.