Prefontaine

Director: Steve James (1997)

Cast: Jared Leto, R. Lee Ermey, Ed O’Neill, Brekin Meyer, Lindsay Crouse

Not all sports heroes come from the traditional “Team” sports like baseball, football and basketball. Some heroes excel in solo sports like Steve Prefontaine, one of our underrated long distance runners who died far too young.

“Prefontaine “ is the first of two bio-Pictures about 1972 Olympic distance runner Steve Prefontaine that was released two months apart in 1997 and 1998.

Actor/Musician Jared Leto is excellent in the title role of the young runner, who ran with passion, and would defend himself on why trains a certain way of running in front of the pack in races. Lucky for him his track coach at University of Oregon was Bill Bowerman, (played by R. Lee Ermey) a legend in the sport, who designed running shoes for his students and was about to create his shoe company called Nike.

Prefontaine respected his coach, but he was his own young man and believed in himself and the way he wanted to get to Munich and the 1972 Olympics. There he would witness the deaths of the 13 Israeli Athletes and coaches. Prefontaine still had a race. to run, the 500 Meters.  Maybe it was youth or inexperience at age 21, Steve didn’t Medal in the games. But it inspired him to be on the team in Montreal in 1976, but he was killed in a car accident in 1975. Though he never won a gold medal in his lifetime, his story lives on through biographies, documentaries and two feature films.

Fun Fact: The Prefontaine Classic is a track and field meet held at Hayward Field on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, United States. Organized by the Oregon Track Club