Steve Prefontaine
Steve Roland Prefontaine was an American long-distance runner who set American records at every distance from 2,000 to 10,000 meters from a period of 1973 to 1975. He competed in the 1972 Summer Olympics, and he was preparing for the 1976 Olympics with the Oregon Track Club at the time of his death in 1975.
Prefontaine's career, alongside those of Jim Ryun, Frank Shorter, and Bill Rodgers, generated considerable media coverage, which helped inspire the 1970s "running boom". He was killed in an automobile crash near his residence in Eugene, Oregon at the age of 24. One of the premier track meets in the world, the Prefontaine Classic, is held annually in Eugene in his honor. Prefontaine's celebrity and charisma later resulted in two 1990s feature films about his short life.
Early life
Prefontaine was born on January 25, 1951, in Coos Bay, Oregon. His father, Raymond George Prefontaine, was a welder who served in the U.S. Army in World War II. Steve's mother, Elfriede Anna Marie Sennholz, worked as a seamstress. The two returned to Coos Bay after Ray met Elfriede in Germany while serving with the U.S. occupation The middle child and only son, he had two sisters, Neta and Linda, and they all grew up in a house built by their father.Prefontaine was an exuberant person, even during his formative years. He was always moving around, partaking in different activities and events. In junior high, Prefontaine was on his school's football and basketball teams but was rarely allowed to play because of his short stature. In the eighth grade, he noticed several high school cross country team members jog to practice past the football field, an activity he then viewed as mundane. Later that year, he realized he could compete well in long-distance races during a three-week conditioning period in his physical education class. By the second week of the daily mile runs, Prefontaine could finish second in the group. With this newfound success and athletic ability, he fell in love with cross country running.
High school (1965–69)
When he got into Marshfield High School in the fall of 1965, Prefontaine joined the cross country team, coached by Walt McClure Jr. McClure had run under coach Bill Bowerman at the University of Oregon in Eugene and his father, Walt McClure Sr. had run under Bill Hayward, also at Oregon.Prefontaine's freshman and sophomore years were decent, and he managed a personal best of 5:01 in the mile in his first year. Though starting as the seventh man, he progressed to be the second by the end of the year and placed 53rd in the state championship. In his sophomore year, he failed to qualify for the state meet in his event, the two-mile. However, his coach recalls that it was his sophomore year when his potential in the sport began to surface.
With the advice of Walt McClure, Prefontaine's high school coach, he took it upon himself to train hard over the summer. He went through his junior cross country season undefeated and won the state title.
In his senior year, many of his highest goals were set. He obtained a national record at the Corvallis Invitational with a time of 8:41.5, only one and a half seconds slower than his goal, and 6.9 seconds better than the previous record. He won two more state titles that year after another undefeated season in both the one and two mile
Some forty colleges across the nation recruited Prefontaine, and he received numerous phone calls, letters, and drop-in visits from coaches. He referred many of his calls to McClure, who wanted Prefontaine to attend the University of Oregon. McClure turned away those universities that began trying to recruit him late. McClure maintained that he did not sway Prefontaine's collegiate choice, except to ask Steve where all the runners went to college.
Prefontaine wanted to stay in-state for college and attend the University of Oregon. He had not heard much from Bill Bowerman, the head coach for the University of Oregon. Prefontaine only received letters from Oregon once a month, whereas other universities such as Villanova were persistent in recruiting him. As a result, Prefontaine did not know how much Bill Bowerman wanted him to attend Oregon. Bowerman stated that he did not recruit Prefontaine differently from anyone else. It was a matter of principle for him to advise recruits where to attend college, wherever it may be, and to not bombard the recruits with correspondence. He had followed Prefontaine's career since he was a sophomore and agreed with McClure in his assessment of Steve being a highly talented athlete.
It was not until Prefontaine read Bowerman's letter that he decided to attend the University of Oregon. Bowerman wrote that he was "certain" Prefontaine would become the world's greatest distance runner if he decided to run at Oregon. Although it was an odd promise, Prefontaine was up for the challenge. Sometime after Prefontaine announced that he signed a letter of intent to attend Oregon on the first of May in 1969, Bowerman wrote a letter addressed to the community of Coos Bay describing his appreciation for their role in helping Steve become a great runner.
University of Oregon (1969–1973)
Steve Prefontaine decided to enroll at the University of Oregon to train under coach Bill Bowerman, the co-founder of Nike. He won the 5,000-meter title four times in a row. At this time, he suffered only two more defeats in college, winning three Division I NCAA Cross Country Championships and four straight three-mile/5000-meter titles in track. He was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.Prefontaine became known as a very aggressive front runner, insisting on going out hard from the start and not relinquishing leads, reminiscent of the renowned 1956 Olympic gold medalist Vladimir Kuts, another famous front runner at 5,000 meters. Prefontaine said, "No one will ever win a 5,000 meter race by running an easy first two miles. Not against me." He would later state, "I am going to work so that it's a pure guts race. In the end, if it is, I'm the only one that can win it". Along with his reputation for leading early instead of pacing himself until the last lap, Prefontaine had tremendous leg speed; his career-best for the mile was only 3.5 seconds off the world record at the time.
A local celebrity, chants of "Pre! Pre! Pre!" became a frequent feature at Hayward Field, a place where famous runners ran. Fans liked to wear T-shirts that read "LEGEND" or "GO PRE", though there was one instance where a group of fans jokingly put on shirts that read "STOP PRE". Prefontaine found humor in the shirts and, when offered, decided to wear one for his victory lap. Prefontaine rapidly gained national attention and appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 19 in June 1970. He was on the cover of Track and Field News's November 1969 issue.
1972 Summer Olympics
In 1971, he began his training for the following year's Olympic Games in Munich, which had special meaning for his family. Prefontaine set the American record of 13:22.8 in the 5,000 meters at the 1972 Olympic Trials in Eugene on July 9. An underdog at the 1972 Olympics in Munich in September, Prefontaine took the lead in the 5,000 m final during the last mile and ended the slow pace of the first two miles, negative splitting the race. In second place at the start of the bell lap, he fell back to third with 200 meters to go. Lasse Virén took the lead in the final turn over eventual silver medalist Mohammed Gammoudi. Finding himself struggling to keep up, Prefontaine ran out of gas with only 10 meters to go as Britain's hard-charging Ian Stewart overtook him and moved into third place, depriving Prefontaine of an Olympic bronze medal. Prefontaine later said "That was the most disappointed I have ever been. I guess I underestimated the strength of Virén and Gammoudi, and Stewart was way too good for me at the end. That last 200 metres, I felt exhausted. They didn't allow me to run the race the way I had planned to, I was chasing them all the way." Following his fourth-place finish in the Olympic Games, Prefontaine went back to the University of Oregon with a newfound enthusiasm for running after his disappointing showing at the Olympics. This disappointment in his performance drove Pre to train harder than ever for his senior year of athletics, often logging over 10 miles per morning before he started his day.In his four years at Oregon, Prefontaine never lost a collegiate race at 3 miles, 5,000 meters, 6 miles, or 10,000 meters. Returning for his senior he ended his collegiate career with only three defeats in Eugene, all in the mile. It was during this year that Prefontaine began a protracted fight with the Amateur Athletic Union, which demanded that athletes who wanted to remain "amateur" for the Olympics not be paid for appearances in track meets. Some viewed this arrangement as unfair, because the participants drew large crowds that generated millions of dollars in revenue, with the athletes being forced to shoulder the burden of all their own expenses without assistance. At the time, the AAU was rescinding athletes' amateur status if they were endorsed in any way. Because Prefontaine was accepting free clothes and footwear from Nike, he was subject to the AAU's ruling.