Old Timers, How popular was Pre?

The interview at the end of this video reinforces how personable, and even humble and self-effacing, Steve could be:http://youtube.com/watch?v=X_e-KvaHDz4&search=Prefontaine

bootsy wrote:

a friend of mine met pre when pre was running nationals in miami in 1969. he followed pre's career closely but only talked to him a couple of times.

my friend says pre hated being called "pre", he wanted to be called steve. all the hot shot stuff that people either praise or criticize prefopntaine about is embellished. my friend doesn't believe nike has promoted the legend (their is a point of view that is never accepted) and is amazed that prefontaine's life is still examined with the scrutiny that exits. he feels everyone has a wrong opinion of who steve prefontaine is.

just food for thought.

For me, he was a big hero. That's why I wrote this article.

And, yes, I really did adhere PRE to my practice singlet.

yes! that is the steve prefontaine he knew and others refuse to see.

Thanks for posting up that video.

Never seen Pre run or heard him speak beffore. Not the image I had of him at all, actually seems like a genuinely normal guy not the arrogant loudmouth I had imagined.

Thanks!

Great video.

I live in Eugene and remember my dad taking me down to the track and I watched Pre do a workout through the chainlink fence on the southside of Hayward. I went home, put some more shoo goo on the old Adidas I inherited from my sister, and went for a run.He inspired us all. I remember which tread my left foot hit on the staircase I descended the second I heard the news. It was MY JFK moment.

The Olympics were a must see, every event. I remember most Frank Shorter and Dave Wottle. Wottle and the hat. I was only about 10 at the time. No hat made more distinction FOR ME until Shawn Crawford in the first round of the 100m in Athens!

Yeah, these guys had my attention. They defined sport for me and I always read the results in the paper. Moses, Nehemiah, and DQ were the names I looked for the most. Then I would study the times that the distance runners posted and the time differences between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, trying to picture what it looked like at the tape.

I paid attention and I still do. Last night my son read aloud the LR.com "running in November" article from last week. I think he gets it. At least he's running in November this year.

Now that I live in the USA I can understand why Pre is so admired, but back in the day in Britain and probably Europe he was regarded as a loud, boastful and arrogant American who was not as good as the best Europeans. This opinion was probably fostered by the British press. More admired among the middle and distance runners were Shorter and Wottle.Even the jingoistic British press found it hard to denigrate an Olympic Gold medallist.

If he lived he's be cursing Viren.

The network televised world class track meets each summer were a great motivator for me as a high school runner. I'll never forget how surprised I was at the bulkiness of Ron Clarke and his earth pounding stride. He was a definite hero of mine. Then I read how he did it... 3 runs per day, mostly at 5:00 pace.

The US distance revolution was in full force in the 1970's. The rest of the country (non running people) respected distance runners because they saw that hard work led to great achievements. The thing that they couldn't understand was WHY or HOW can these skinny athletes push so hard and not be paid for it?

Then money did come into it and the money has changed everything....Better? Not for me. I'm not putting the money or Kenyans or anyone else down...I just wonder what would have happened if the REAL runners kept working at normal jobs and just fit the training and racing in. Ron Clarke set 17 world records and worked for a global company. He took very little time off from work and yet traveled to the US and Europe every year and raced prolifically (He worked in sales meetings between meets).

Do you remember how the athletes would take oranges from the cardboard containers and toss them to the spectators? I got one from then freshman Cherri Williams of U of Oregon. I was smitten.

I remember a news program doing a feature on Pre, it may have been 60 Minutes. That's pretty big. I remember Pre picking up a container of margarine and reading, "It says here that this margarine is found on Olympic training tables. I've been to the Olympics, but I've never seen an olympic training table in my life. This margarine company wants to get some of the glory off Olympic athletes. We're the ones making the sacrifices. They aren't helping us. I've never been helped by any of them. Why do they get to come in for this kind of glory?" [paraphrase, not an actual quote]

I also remember Pre saying before the Olympic 5000 final in '72 that if anyone wanted to win it, they'd better be prepared to run the last mile under 4 minutes. Pre ran his last mile in 3:59. I think Viren's was 3:57. Pre took 4th place.

When Pre died, we heard it on the news on the radio driving in the car. So Pre was somewhat famous if radio news between an Osmond Brothers song and a Bay City Rollers song would care to mention it.

One other big thing: The networks only showed the two laps around the track of the marathon. Nothing more. In '72, they decided (was it ABC's Roone Arledge?) to show the whole race for the first time. No one knew who Frank Shorter was before that race--before he built that huge lead and won it all. The next day Frank was on the front page of the NY Times, and millions were suddenly jogging in tennis shoes, bermuda shorts, and plain white T-shirts--and they called it the day that Frank Shorter "invented" running. It doesn't get any sweeter than that.

I personally think Steve (who DID NOT like to be called "Pre") would have been mortified by Nike's shameless promotion of his namesake.

And a lot of people who knew Pre would disagree with you...

Blah-bla-blah. Standard NIKE insider party line. Steve never would go for this over the top promotion of his namesake. He wouldn't want that much attention.

They were virtually unknown to the public at large, particularly Pre. I doubt if more than a couple guys on our track team even knew who he was. Track in the United States even back then was very much a second rate sport. Most of what little attention existed was given to the sprinters and hurdlers.

i think you are exaggeratingpre was on the cover of si - most sporting fans know people from the cover of si

Fat Boy wrote:

They were virtually unknown to the public at large, particularly Pre. I doubt if more than a couple guys on our track team even knew who he was. Track in the United States even back then was very much a second rate sport. Most of what little attention existed was given to the sprinters and hurdlers.

Wow, you were out of it. Everyone on my track team knew him, just like they knew other sports stars.