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Umm why? No world records set or Olympic medals won. Sounds like he had some potential but that's about all really. Lisiate 23:43, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Greatest runner of all time?? Did Prefontaine hold any world records, or just American records? Compare this to someone like Ron Clarke, who held 17 world records distances from 2 miles to 20,000m, and this makes this claim simply fanciful. Just because they don't make a movie about it, doesn't mean there aren't dozens of other athletes elsewhere achieving far greater things on stages much bigger than American track meets. Mike2680 21:43, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
How bout we call a compromise on this one folks? Okay, there is no way to call any runner anywhere "The Greatest of all Time". Favoritism and changes over time make it an endless circle of arguing. Instead, how bout we say this, "One of the greatest in modern history", because he was a great runner. Lets face it, they did make two movies about him. That alone says something. Maybe he is a real life Rocky Balboa. However, he died before he could really truly make his mark. Records are not everything. I'm a student of UOregon, so I might be biased in his favor, but that does not mean I think him the greatest. History has already told us that he will be remembered for a long time. Ryoga-2003 (talk) 05:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
What makes a great runner is not based on the records they hold. Steve Prefontaine was not only an incredible athlete, setting American records in almost every running event on the track. He also understood that running was about more than talent or speed. It is about heart. He didn't want to run a way the strategic way - drafting behind the other runners and then out-sprinting them at the end. He felt that winning like that wasn't worth running in the first place. To Pre, the race was about the wind in his face, running fast, and being the best. Being the best not just at the end when he broke that tape. Being the best for the whole race. I would suggest to anyone who cannot understand how Pre can be the best runner of all time without a gold medal to his name to watch WITHOUT LIMITS again. It's only a movie about him and Pre is still inspiring. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jladsit (talk • contribs) 20:43, November 27, 2005
I added what kind of car Pre was driving when he died. I have a source for the info (which I included) but I'm pretty sure I didn't cite it right. Sorry about that.Worldtravller 23:33, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
The article says that Luke Williams was identified as the driver of the car that a witness saw close to the accident that killed Pre. The article says "No charges were made against Williams because he passed a lie detector test (Eugene Register-Guard, May 26, 1985, p.5B)." I'm just confused because "lie detector tests" (actually called a polygraph) are inadmissible in court cases because they don't actually tell if a person is lying, they can tell if you are nervous, bu they aren't really "lie detectors," that's a nickname. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the use of polygraphs (I would never take one, because they are misleading and inaccurate, if you answer a question honestly but exhibit nervousness it could be regarded as a "lie" by the conductor) So how is a possible vehicular manslaughter let off because of a polygraph? There is a citation for a Eugene, OR newspaper, but I still think this guy Williams got off because of other, more legit reasons. I can't believe that a polygraph alone would clear someone. Although, it was the '70's so maybe people put more stock in polygraph test results. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.2.242.61 (talk • contribs) 07:20, April 11, 2006
First of all, polygraphs certainly do measure deception. Their results are inadmissible in court not so much because of unreliability but because they invade the province of the jury (or the judge in a trial to the judge). It's the jury's job to decide who is and who is not being truthful, not some test. That said, when properly administered and interpreted polygraphs are valuable investigative tools and are widely used that way.
What bothered me about this entry is that it may be a bit of a whitewash. I live in Oregon and I met Prefontaine once. I was sports editor of my high school newspaper and I interviewed him before a high school track meet in his junior year in 1968. As a result I closely followed his career, and his unfortunate death. Here's the whitewash: My recollection is the Pre had left a party that evening where he had consumed alcoholic beverages. My recollection is that subsequent investigation established that his blood alcohol level was above the legal limit. Also that accident reconstruction seemed to indicate he was traveling too fast around that curve. I do not say these things to disparage Pre or his memory. But facts are facts and facts are stubborn things. If Wikipedia has any desire to be an accurate and authoritative source then it needs to guard itself from filtering out unpleasant truths. Besides, this way Pre's death is not in vain. It becomes a testament to the dangers of drinking and driving. LouietheIV (talk) 05:38, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Can someone add to the article how his nickname "Pre" came to origin, how he got it and who gave it to him? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.122.208.157 (talk • contribs) 17:12, May 7, 2006
Did Pre really say this? "How does a kid from Coos Bay, with one leg longer than the other win races? All my life people have been telling me, 'You're too small Pre', 'You're not fast enough Pre', 'Give up your foolish dream Steve'. But they forgot something, I HAVE TO WIN." Isn't that only from the movie? I don't recall ever reading him actually saying that. sharpdust 22:55, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Its funny you should ask that, recently in Coos Bay we did a series of plaques with various quotes from Pre; that was one of the quotes we considered using but when we ran the list by his sister; she asked us to forego using that quote as she didn't believe Steve ever really said that, that it was a line used for the purposes of a movie. Coos Bay - North Bend VCB. Coosbay (talk) 10:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
"He is known for his extremely aggressive racing style, disliking the tactic of sitting and kicking, and always believing in giving a full effort. Prefontaine was killed on May 30, 1975 at the age of 24 in a car accident." What is "the tactic of sitting and kicking"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.157.208 (talk • contribs) 16:53, August 4, 2006
I visited www.gopre.com It appears to be nothing more than a short blurb with a bunch of amazon links and advertisements. Why is it listed in external links? Seems like self-promotion to me. Anyone agree that this should be deleted? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.8.30.69 (talk • contribs) 17:30, August 25, 2006
This is my opinion, but this point of view is missing from all articles about Steve Prefontaine, Bill Bowerman, Avery Brundage, Nike, the AAU and the Olympic Games. Like it or not, Steve's winning case against the AAU set a precedent for the Olympics that inevitably led to several things, among which:
The last item is admittedly a controversial statement. I believe Harding wouldn't have gotten as far if there were no financial rewards at the end of the journey. The sad part is, Americans under the Avery Brundage rules were 'pure athletes', and we constantly complained about having to compete against athletes from nations that sponsored their athletes in a manner we weren't allowed to. In spite of that, we had a lot of winners. The other sad part about it is Brundage's stand for amateurism was tainted by his support of the Nazi regime before WWII, and for his lack of recognition of the felled Israeli athletes in Munich. In this way Brundage's taint and Prefontaine's court case against the AAU destroyed the spirit of the Olympics. I would appreciate someone with knowledge adding this footnote to the above articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.82.9.83 (talk • contribs) 14:39, September 2, 2006
"Prefontaine ran a personal best time of 5:01 in the mile his freshman year." That is hardly spectacular is it? He would have nearly been lapped at the recent world standard under 17's meets, let alone the under 20's. Should this not read 4:01? Its been there so long I'm loath to change it without a source. --LiamE 10:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
"Prefontaine established relatively modest personal bests of 5:01 in the mile and 10:08 in the two mile." This could be true, but it seems highly unlikely to me that young Pre could string together two 5:04 miles, yet only achieve a 5:01 one mile. Could this possibly be a mistake and mean 11:08? That seems a lot more likely to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.128.113.204 (talk) 22:04, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Pre set his first State Record in 1968 as a junior in high school with a 2 mile time of 9:01.3. the following year he shattered the National Two-Mile Record with an astounding time of 8:41.5. Two weeks later he ran the mile in 4:06.9; a time that still stands as the Coos County Track Meet Record. - source is the local Steve Prefontaine brochure from the Prefontaine Memorial Committee in Coos Bay. Coosbay (talk) 11:07, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
Is it appropriate in an encyclopedic article to refer to someone by a nickname? I.e., should statements like "Pre's Rock became the newest of all the memorials to Pre when it..." be edited to read "Pre's Rock became the newest of all the memorials to Prefontaine when it..." Opinions please. If there are no responses, I'll make the changes in a couple of days. Otherwise, I'll wait till we've reached agreement. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AidanBC (talk • contribs) 00:49, April 16, 2007
This article needs a major overhaul. It's important enough because Prefontaine is an American track legend. I tried to clean this up a bit, but it's lacking in encyclopedic quality and is/was written biased. No need for bias either, Prefontaine's records speak for themselves. Also, the article needs several citations at some obvious pointsLindsayLindsay —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 01:55, 30 September 2007 (UTC) This is aoutoassinghned bro —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.45.94.134 (talk) 18:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
http://www.europa.com/~bence/pre/pd.htm
On this website appears a color photo of Pre standing next to a reddish colored MGB bearing the same license plate number as the car that appears in the accident photos. A roll bar is visible through the rear window, which would lead me to believe that this is likely the same auto referred to in the article, but it is most assuredly not blue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xlr8tor64 (talk • contribs) 18:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
How did such a great athlete, finisihing high school in the very peak draft years of the Vietnam War, manage not to be conscripted? This infor would add valuable historical context. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.49.27.38 (talk) 01:53, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
Not trying to be picky, but the section on his high school years is murky and unclear at best. I'm not an expert on Prefontaine, and I believe that it should be overhauled and clarified. Otherwise I think its a great article! Runningguy (talk) 01:52, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Anyone know the coordinates of the actual memorial rock? --208.65.188.31 (talk) 20:11, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
A lot of this article is unsourced so folks think they can also add the part about Prefontaine's blood alcohol level (or, more crudely, say he was "driving drunk") without citations. Since this is a controversial subject, the references to alcohol get removed, since they aren't cited. Because we should make sure we aren't whitewashing the facts, I did a quick Google News search for reliable sources regarding alcohol as a factor in the accident (took me about 5 minutes). I've listed them below in no particular order. Note that several of these are reviews of one or both of the movies. Some sources definitively state that his BAC was .16 others hedge. Here's a quote from a website not listed below, which I haven't checked to see if it was reliable: "Whether his death was an alcohol-related fatality remains controversial. His blood was tested posthumously by a mortician rather than by a medical examiner. Because the process of decomposition can create alcohol, Pre's blood-alcohol content may have been compromised." Other sources (see below) say that the man liked his beer, but friends who saw him before the crash said he couldn't have been that intoxicated. In any case, if we want something in the article about his drinking, we need to use citations. A well-written sentence without weasel wording that states the nature of the controversy needs to be included.
Likely more like these can be found. Books would be good too, if anyone reads books anymore. ;) Katr67 (talk) 00:22, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
Because Prefontaine was not only a cult hero, but also one of the best distance runners of his era, I think we need a section for his personal bests. They seem quite common on articles about athletes or ex-athletes. I've heard that he got pretty damn close to the then WR in the 10 000m. His personal bests can be found here: http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=30594 I'd do it myself if I wasn't afraid of effing it up. I'm no good at editing pages. ~Kilu~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.145.79.221 (talk) 08:52, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Prefontaine didn't hold the lead until the final 150. Viren took the lead just before 4200m, then slowed just enough for another runner to pass him, and for Prefontaine to make a bid for the lead on the backstretch of the 2nd-to-last lap. Prefontaine couldn't complete the pass before the turn and had to settle into second through the turn, wasting energy on the pass attempt. He surged again on the bell lap but didn't have enough kick left to maintain it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.170.64.187 (talk) 07:12, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
I just edited the memorials section. Let me explain my edits.
First, I broke out "Pre's Rock" and "Other memorials." I believe this was justified because the information on Pre's Rock is equal in length and substance to all others combined. Further, I plan on uploading a picutre showing the memorabilia that spectators at the Olympic Trials have left at the rock. Having a seperate Pre's-Rock section will facilitate that picture.
Second, I re-arranged the information, moving important information to the top (description, practices), moving less-important information toward the bottom (maintenance, etc.). Piratejosh85 (talk) 13:25, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Uesr MIdown removed the reference to BAC and DWI with these summaries:
"It turned out that police had deviated from standard procedure when they had taken blood sample...The normal practice was for the county medical examiner to do a blood alcohol test...Wilson had never done it..." P. 332 Bowerman and the Men of Oregon)"
"The toxicology report that was done during the autopsy would naturally show a spike in blood alcohol level after death. This is a point of contention and should be left off page."
So, if there is a credible source who discuss this incident including expert analysis the aforementioned points, we should remove it, but such analysis is not something to be made by a wiki editor. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 05:24, 10 January 2013 (UTC)
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How is that the case when it clearly shows otherwise a few lines up? Are there other races he did before that one that we can't see?
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Get the name right. It wasn’t “Steven.” 2600:100F:B12C:93:4F8:E2FA:C681:C510 (talk) 05:06, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
c 64.98.80.71 (talk) 20:27, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
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