Pre's Rock

Steve Prefontaine grew up in Coos Bay, on the Oregon coast, and came to Eugene to run. He arrived at the University of Oregon in the autumn of nineteen sixty-nine, a freshman who ran like something was chasing him. His coach, Bill Bowerman, watched him train and noted the way he ran from the front, pushing the pace from the first lap rather than saving himself for a finishing kick. It was an act of will as much as tactics. Prefontaine believed, publicly and loudly, that racing should be painful for everyone, not just the runner who fell behind.

Over four years at Oregon, he never lost a collegiate race at any distance longer than one mile. He set American records at every distance from two thousand to ten thousand meters. He became, by the time of his final year, the most prominent distance runner in the country and one of the most recognized athletes in Oregon.

His relationship with Eugene was specific and mutual. The crowds at Hayward Field were loud for him in a way they were not for anyone else. He ran his last race there on May twenty-ninth, nineteen seventy-five, a five-thousand-meter invitational he won. He was twenty-four years old.

After the race there was a party at a teammate's home. Late that night, driving alone down the narrow curves of Skyline Boulevard east of the campus, Prefontaine's nineteen seventy-three MGB convertible left the road. The car struck a rock outcrop and overturned, pinning him underneath. Paramedics arrived and found him there. The cause of death was traumatic asphyxiation. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Questions about whether Prefontaine had been drinking that night have been raised by journalists and biographers. The record on this point is incomplete and disputed. This account names the question without resolving it, because the evidence does not resolve it cleanly.

A granite memorial called Pre's Rock was dedicated at the crash site in nineteen ninety-seven. Runners and visitors from around the world leave flowers, race numbers, and worn-out shoes there. The Prefontaine Classic, a major international track meet at Hayward Field, has been held in his name every year since nineteen seventy-five, renamed in his memory two days after his death, with Bill Bowerman's approval.

He was twenty-four.