When Nike built a statue of Pre and named a building after him, did they pay is family/estate for the rights to his likeness (and do they still pay royalties)? Or did they just do it to "honour" his memory?
How long after someone is dead can you use their likeness without paying their family/estate for it.
Irrespective of the answer to the above, if I am a corporation, am I allowed to honour someone's memory publicly without asking permission from their family/estate to honour them?
I think some of it has to do with how Prefontaine is often portrayed as the only star of American distance running during its boom. That is obviously not fair to the rest of the athletes of that era who were even more accomplished.
But the power of his personality, his American records, his stand against the AAU, his tragic death (and the cultural flaws that "70s partying" represented), and the fact that he looked and acted like the counter-culture that was flourishing on the West Coast made him stand out from people who were "just runners."
The cultural and narrative aspects of Pre's life are why he is given this iconic status. Not because he outperformed Dave Wottle, Billy Mills, Bob Schul, Frank Shorter, Jim Ryun or any of the other icons of that time.
But when we mythologize our past, we often just pick one person to load up with all the good and bad from that time. We do it because it allows us to keep a simpler narrative about who we are (as a sport or a nation or whatever).
p.s. Bob Schul got Olympic gold in Pre's favorite event (the 5000m) just 8 years earlier. Why don't we celebrate him? I don't mean that disrespectfully; I think the answer reveals a lot about us as a culture.
You make some excellent points. Also when people die young (see James Dean whom, to me, is the acting equivalent of Pre) it is easier to mythologize (is that a word?) them.
I think a lot of this is that almost everybody who disses Prefontaine wasn't around then.
They don't appreciate what he did... how he did it... and under circumstances under which he did what he did. And the fact that most of what he did being a college age kid.
However, all that being said... the dying young part is likely the biggest thin. As you mentioned...he is often said to be running's James Dean. But he is also running's "Jim Morrison" or running's "Buddy Holly". Or running's "Tupac"...
I don't keep up with more recent cultural icons who "died young" anymore. But I'm sure most of these guys who diss Pre have somebody of their generation who died young that they hold in reverence.
But it isn't those of us who grew up with Pre are crying our eyes out about some celeb who died in the 1930s or 1940s... so it is understandable
I totally understand the myth of Pre, but the myth is a getting faded and tired at this point. Since Pre, the US has had other guys run brilliantly and win Olympic races wire-to-wire (e.g., Centro).
Centro got 4th in the Olympics before he won. The tragedy of Pre is we never know what he could have done in 76 which feeds the myth and legend a bit.
The guys an utter chump. Why are people obsessed with celebrating a serial loser who died while smashed out of his skull driving home. Average runner and terrible human being
That would be epic, bro! Prefontaine Pilsner, but make it an imperial with 8% ABV.
What would be epic would be if the losers could just stop complaining that an actual cool distance runner MAY have had a couple too many beers and was killed in an accident.
Remember:
Frank Shorter said that he wasn't afraid to let Pre drive.
His blood alcohol content was low.
I get that there were/are other runners to celebrate but I actually started running during the Pre era. He really was an inspiration. There was no social media so we weren't aware of any excessive drinking. We just knew that he was a tough, dedicated runner.
As far as drinking, it was the culture at the time- college kids drinking (the drinking age was 18 in most states) and runners getting together to run and having a few beers after was common.
I even remember on your birthday running your age in miles and drinking your age in beer being very common.
WE SHOULD be celebrating and hyping more runners past and present. But we should NOT be complaining about celebrating one runner.
get ver yourself you wet wipe. no other nation would give a t0ss about a 3:38 1500m and 13:21 5000m guy, stop embarassing yourself!! 1 olympic 4th place is nothing to be excited about, there are plenty of other more deserving runners
Sorry, don't want to offend anyone, but I'm totally over anything to do with Steve Prefontaine. Accordingly, not interested in whatever may be coming.
Time to let him go people and move on away from the myth.
I’m not sure Rojo was soliciting responses from people who aren’t interested. And at this point the hackneyed calls to tear down the myth of Pre are no less tired and familiar than the deification. Let fans be fans. And if you’re not one, move on.
get ver yourself you wet wipe. no other nation would give a t0ss about a 3:38 1500m and 13:21 5000m guy, stop embarassing yourself!! 1 olympic 4th place is nothing to be excited about, there are plenty of other more deserving runners
Bruh, you’re like, so awesome bruh! How’s your 16:00 5k training going? Please let us know. We’re, like, so interested bruh.
get ver yourself you wet wipe. no other nation would give a t0ss about a 3:38 1500m and 13:21 5000m guy, stop embarassing yourself!! 1 olympic 4th place is nothing to be excited about, there are plenty of other more deserving runners
Get a literate person to read to you you illiterate moron.
I said there are others and they should be celebrated too, you whiny little jealous child.
You just proved my point you emasculated loser- get over it. Accept that there is more to this sport than winning medals. Let's not forget that he also ran in an era where the only major medal was once every 4 years. No Indoor worlds, no outdoor worlds, no road racing championships, just International Cross (in which EVERYONE ran) and the Olympics.
But I can clearly see that trying to explain something to someone as illiterate and whiny and wimpy as you is just a waste of time. What a panty wipe.
Yes, let's have Shorter, who drank two liters of beer the night before winning the Olympic marathon, be the arbiter of how much is too much.
I am a modern person living by modern norms, but from talking to people from previous generations, the stigmas we have today simply weren't around back then.
I am glad we've progressed and moved on, but I also don't like to look back 50 years and tell those people to "be better" retroactively.
They were not perfect people and they were living in very imperfect times (just like we are now).
Drugs, drinking, smoking, some forms of sexual harassment, sexism, bullying, drinking and driving, some forms of racism, and many other things were not only more common back then, they were also not considered "especially bad."
People back then had to put up with more of that crap and it sucked, but the majority of society just considered it "normal" to act that way.
When I was a kid in the 1970s, all our parents smoked in the house, nobody knew what a designated driver was, and it was a given that every party would have people who were "sauced" getting in cars. It was a worse time in many ways, but to single out Steve Prefontaine is completely unjust.
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