ok, this is really so silly. he did have sciatic nerve problems near the end of his life and these kinds of physical problems often do not go away completely.
Pre would not have been able to affect the outcome of the US Olympic Boycott. Thinking he would have been able to do that is silly and thinking he would have been allowed to go and compete on his own is ridiculous. There is no way the IOC/IAAF would have let him go complete on his own.
He was absolutely NOT instrumental in the AAU losing the IAAF track franchise (which happened in 1979 five years after he died) and the end of amateurism. There were many many other athletes that were far more active than Pre in opposing AAU rule and amateurism. If you take away the Finland meet in organized HE ACTUALLY DID ALMOST nothing to oppose the AAU. He talked a lot about it. People like Hal Connolly, Dwight Stones, Jack Kelley, Don Kardong, Herb Lindsey, Tom Jennings, Frank Shorter, even Jim Ryun and, and a host of others did far far more in organizing athletes and challenging the AAU. Pre was very much an individualist, not a collectivist, by all accounts. To be fair he was headed in that direction, but he had done not all that much. Connolly had been organizing athletes for over a decade, since the 1961 US-USSR meet boycott.
He knew marketing well? What marketing campaigns did he direct? Evidence of this? he was charismatic and popular but I'm not sure that equates to being a marketing guru.
I am familiar with his work in prisons. It was certainly noble work.
I actually have no vitriol toward Pre. He accomplished more than most of us will in a drunk driving shortened life. That is a fact. I have hostility toward the hagiography that continues to build and build to mythic proportions and seems completely unstoppable.
He could have ended up like someone like Salazar, over trained, hurt, but still active and respected in the sport and attached to Nike. He could have ended up like Jim Ryun, fighting valiantly to produce at high levels with his body not cooperating and then moving on to be successful in other areas. (Although I disagree strongly with Ryun's politics, he has been an exemplary ex-athlete as a politician. If Ryun had died at 23/4 people would be writing much more complementary about him. I think his athletic career is disrespected routinely.) He may have ended up like, Shorter or Rodgers, having lengthy and successful competitive running careers that extended into his 30s. Or, he could have ended up like Henry Rono, battling alcoholism for most of his adult life and desperately trying to make a living while spending time in prison for unfortunate transgressions. (I wish the great Henry Rono only the best of luck in his current carnation as a high school coach. Although you all think I am a young kid who could not understand Pre because I was not alive, that is not true. I followed Rono's accomplishments in the late 1970s with awe and glee.)
The point of my silly original post is that you have no idea either what would have happened, but assume almost biblical proportion success in everything Pre would have touched, which is a silly exercise in sainthood. Beware all those who admit that Viren was almost the exact same age and a better racer and competitor, which is the point, to win the race, afterall. Oh, I know, Viren blood doped so Pre was indeed unbeatable and prefect as all saints and idols need to be. More accusations with no evidence all in an effort to bolster Pre to unbeatable sainthood status.
I'm getting tired and I have work to do. You can all go back to genuflecting and praying to St. Pre. I pray to no one. He was just a person, imperfect and with a messy life, just like me and you.