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Steve Prefontaine
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Steve Roland Prefontaine (nicknamed Pre) was an American middle and long-distance runner. Prefontaine is considered to be among the greatest and most inspirational runners of the modern era by many of his fans. Prefontaine helped inspire a running boom in the 1970s along with contemporaries Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers. Born and raised in Coos Bay, Oregon, Prefontaine was primarily a long-distance runner who once held the American record in the five distance track events from the 2000 meters to the 10,000 meters. He is known for his extremely aggressive "front-running" racing style and for always believing in giving a full effort. Prefontaine died at the age of 24 in a car accident.
Marshfield High School (1966–1969)As a freshman at Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, Oregon, Prefontaine found some success in cross country running.
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Timeline
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1951 Born
1975 1972 Olympic runner Steve Prefontaine dies in a car accident.
1975 Died
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Encyclopedia
Steve Roland Prefontaine (nicknamed Pre) was an American middle and long-distance runner. Prefontaine is considered to be among the greatest and most inspirational runners of the modern era by many of his fans. Prefontaine helped inspire a running boom in the 1970s along with contemporaries Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers. Born and raised in Coos Bay, Oregon, Prefontaine was primarily a long-distance runner who once held the American record in the five distance track events from the 2000 meters to the 10,000 meters. He is known for his extremely aggressive "front-running" racing style and for always believing in giving a full effort. Prefontaine died at the age of 24 in a car accident.
Marshfield High School (1966–1969)As a freshman at Marshfield High School in Coos Bay, Oregon, Prefontaine found some success in cross country running. With help from the Marshfield cross country coach, Walt McClure, he placed 53rd in the Oregon state meet. During his freshman year, Prefontaine established relatively modest personal bests of 5:01 in the mile and 10:08 in the two mile. Determined to improve, Prefontaine undertook a high-mileage training plan during the summer, and placed sixth in the year-end state meet.
His sophomore season was unspectacular, with the exception of the district cross country meet, where Prefontaine stayed close with the state mile and cross country champions. He followed up with a 4:31 indoor mile, but his fourth-place finish in that spring’s district track meet failed to qualify him for the high school state meet in his primary event, the two-mile. He continued rigorous training at the end of the cross country season in preparation for track. However, his training might have been too strenuous because Prefontaine failed to qualify for the state meet.
Prefontaine's junior and senior years proved highly successful. He won every meet, including the Oregon states, and set a national high school record his senior year in the two mile race with a time of 8:41.5 (breaking Rick Riley's 8:48.3 from 1966) a record that would stand for many years until an athlete broke the record by half a second, who was quoted saying he was unimpressed he only broke it by a half a second while Pre broke the old one by 6.8 seconds.
Overall, Prefontaine set 19 National High School Records in track.
University of Oregon (1969–1973)Following high school, Prefontaine enrolled at the University of Oregon to train under coach Bill Bowerman (who in 1964 co-founded Blue Ribbon Sports, later known as Nike shoe company). Pre joined the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity as an undergraduate. After his freshman year, in which he finished third in the NCAA Men's Cross Country Championships, he suffered only two more defeats in college (both in the mile), winning three Division I NCAA Cross Country Championships and four straight three-mile/5000-meter titles in Track and Field.
Prefontaine was an aggressive runner, insisting on going out hard and not relinquishing leads, a tactic that his fans and fellow competitors admired. He was quoted as saying, "No one will ever win a 5,000 meter by running an easy two minutes. 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". A local celebrity, chants of "Pre! Pre! Pre!" became a staple at Hayward Field, a mecca for track and field in the USA. Fans wore t-shirts that read "LEGEND." Prefontaine gained national attention, and then appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age nineteen.
Prefontaine set the American record in the 5000 meters race, the event that took him to the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich. However, Prefontaine was passed with 150 meters remaining by eventual winner Lasse Viren and silver medalist Mohammed Gammoudi. He lost a third place position to Britain's hard-charging Ian Stewart in the last 15 meters of the race, after having led nearly the entire last mile in a toe-to-toe battle with Viren.
Returning for his senior year at the University of Oregon, Prefontaine ended his collegiate career with only three defeats in Eugene, all in the mile. It was during this year that Pre began a protracted fight with the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), 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 athletes drew large crowds that generated millions of dollars. At the time, the AAU was taking away amateur status if athletes were endorsed in any way. Because Prefontaine was accepting free clothes and footwear from Nike, he was subjected to the AAU's ruling.
Post-collegiate (1974–1975)Following his collegiate career at Oregon, Pre prepared for the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, setting American records in every race from 2000 to 10000 meters. Coincidentally the young Canadian who carried the torch into the stadium on Opening Day at the Montreal Olympics was named Stefan Prefontaine.
DeathOn May 30, 1975, returning from a party and after dropping off friend and distance champion Frank Shorter, Prefontaine was driving down Skyline Boulevard, east of the University of Oregon campus near Hendricks Park, when he swerved his 1973 MGB convertible left to avoid crashing into an oncoming car and hit a rock wall along the side of the street. It is believed that Prefontaine bought a blue MGB because he had so many "blue ribbons" to go with it, but it is often falsely believed that the car was gold because of an inaccurate depiction in the movie Without Limits. The overturned car trapped Prefontaine underneath it. The first witness on the scene, who lived nearby, heard two cars, and then a crash. When he ran outside he was almost run over by the second car. The witness found Prefontaine flat on his back, still alive but pinned beneath the wreck. After attempting to lift the vehicle, the witness ran to get help. By the time he returned with others, the weight of the car had crushed Prefontaine's chest, killing him.
Whether his death was an alcohol-related fatality remains controversial. His blood was tested posthumously by a mortician rather than by a medical examiner. Because the process of decomposition can create alcohol, Pre's blood-alcohol content may have been compromised.
Prefontaine is buried at Sunset Memorial Park in Coos Bay, Oregon.
AftermathThe Eugene Register-Guard called his death "the end of an era".
By the time of his death, Prefontaine was a popular athlete who, along with Frank Shorter and Bill Bowerman, is credited with sparking the running boom of the 1970s. His life story has been detailed in two films, 1997's Prefontaine and 1998's Without Limits, as well as the documentary "Fire on the Track". An annual track event, the Pre Classic, has been held in his honor since 1975.
At the mere start of his running career, Pre held every American track and field record from the 2,000 to the 10,000 meters. Over his career, he won 120 of the 153 races he ran (78 percent). Prefontaine liked to say, "To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the Gift." Many years after his death, Prefontaine remains an icon to many.
MemorialsPre's Rock is a memorial at the site of the roadside boulder where Prefontaine died. It is located on one of the hill's "blind" curves which resulted in Pre's fatal car accident. It is not uncommon for runners inspired by Prefontaine to leave behind memorabilia to honor Pre's memory and continued influence, such as race numbers, medals, running shoes, etc. Pre's Rock was dedicated in December 1997 and is maintained by Eugene Parks and Recreation as Prefontaine Memorial Park. The rock is just across the Willamette River from the east end of Pre's Trail, the memorial features a plaque with a picture of Prefontaine that reads:
In Prefontaine's hometown of Coos Bay, there is a plaque-on-a-boulder memorial featuring a relief of his face, records, and date of birth.
The Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay contains a section dedicated to Prefontaine. This section includes medals he won during his career and the pair of spikes he wore when setting a record for the 5,000 meters at Hayward Field.
In 1983, Prefontaine was inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame, where several exhibits showcase his shoes, shirts, and other memorabilia. Nike used video footage in a commercial titled "Pre Lives", advertising his spirit for their product. On the thirtieth anniversary of his death, Nike placed a memorial in Sports Illustrated, and aired a television commercial in his honor.
Personal records| Distance | Time | Date | Location |
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| 1,500 meters | 3:38.1 | 28 June 1973 | Helsinki, Finland | | 2,000 meters | 5:01.4 | 9 May, 1975 | Coos Bay, Oregon | | 3,000 meters | 7:42.6 | 2 July, 1974 | Milan, Italy | | 5,000 meters | 13:21.87 | 26 June 1974 | Helsinki, Finland | | 10,000 meters | 27:43.6 | 27 April 1974 | Eugene, Oregon | | 1 mile | 3:54.6 | 20 June 1973 | Eugene, Oregon | | 2 miles | 8:18.29 | 18 July 1974 | | 3 miles | 12:51.4 | 8 June 1974 | Eugene, Oregon | | 6 miles | 26:51.8 | 27 April 1974 | | 5000 meters (H.S.) | 13:39.6 | 1969 |
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