THE MYSTERY PERSISTS
A Review of Paul C. Clerici’s Oregon Running Legend Steve Prefontaine
& Steve Bence’s 1972: Pre, UO Track, and My Life with Them All
by Scott F. Parker
Two recent books have me thinking again about the legend and legacy of Steve Prefontaine. The first is Paul C. Clerici’s Oregon Running Legend Steve Prefontaine, a research-driven retrospective of Prefontaine’s career that offers as dense a packaging of Pre arcana as even a devoted fan is likely to need. I’d be surprised if there were a race result or an address change that Clerici fails tio note. It doesn’t make for the liveliest reading, but the coupling of information and archival photos will make this book a useful resource for track historians.
One of the sources Clerici quotes is the blog of Steve Bence, a former teammate of Pre’s, who is also the author of 1972: Pre, UO Track, and My Life with Them All (written with veteran journalist Bob Welch). The book is exactly what its subtitle suggests: a whimsical, good-natured, scrapbook of a read.
Bence’s humble narration feels authentic. And the awe-shucks style makes Bence something like a
transparent lens through which to recall the storied events he witnessed: Bowerman’s tenure at the University of Oregon; Prefontaine’s transcendent life and tragic death; and the rise of Nike, where Bence made his career. The portrayals are warm and simple. But the innocuousness that Bence aspires to is threatened by his employer’s regular controversies, some of which he raises only to dismiss, others of which (Alberto Salazar, the Vaporfly 4% “super shoes”) he ignores entirely. Needless to say, Bence manages to find his way to Phil Knight’s side of every issue, even if the defenses wear thin.[1]
But the reason to pick up 1972 isn’t to read about Bence or Nike but to read about Prefontaine. Pre is such an enthralling figure that having been in his proximity is enough to warrant a book. And Bence was right there time and again. Most memorably, when Pre pulled him away from studying for his final exams to play cards before what would be Pre’s last race. At that same fateful meet, Bence would race in the 800m with a broken jaw. A photo taken before the race shows Pre offering tender assurances to a nervous Bence. According to Bence, Pre told him “I don’t think I could do what you’re doing, so why not make it worthwhile?”
Anecdotes like this bring Pre into focus more effectively than Clerici’s accumulation of data. Still, neither of these books, nor any other, can sate our curiosity about him. In the same way that another Dylan biography only confirms the need for still more Dylan biographies, a book about Prefontaine scratches an itch only to make the itch more compelling. The intrigue of Prefontaine only deepens.
And at the heart of the intrigue is the mystery that lurks behind every consideration of Pre: What accounts for genius? And what but genius can we call his example? Genius for Emerson is self-reliance, the courage to “believe your own thought,” which Pre embodied as well as anyone. And so, like Emerson, he calls upon us to become better versions of ourselves. I dare the most sober and rational thinker to read one of the books or watch one of the movies about Prefontaine and not feel greatness inside themself.
And yet, the mystery persists: what accounts? We might name here Pre’s charisma or his success or his confidence or his look or his personality or his Munich result or the timing and circumstances of his death and say that each is necessary but that even all of these together are not sufficient. I think of what Greil Marcus said about Dylan: that if effects like these had causes, there’d be genius on every corner.
The mystery persists. And we are left in wonder. Wonder that there ever was a person such as Pre. Wonder that wholes sometimes are not reducible to their parts. Wonder that the depths of us are never reached. Wonder that one runner could teach us so much about ourselves. Wonder that no matter how many times we hear the story it never gets old but that, as Molly Huddle (quoted in Clerici) describes running at the old Hayward Field, it’s “like an old memory is happening now.”
[1] And please don’t get me started on Nike’s attitude toward Hood to Coast, which Bence relates in a remarkably self-unaware chapter. What can you do with someone who comes away from that race saying “No more of this ‘winning-isn’t-everything’ stuff” but pity them and maybe keep your distance?
Scott F. Parker is the author of Run for Your Life: A Manifesto and The Joy of Running qua Running, among other books. His writing has appeared in Runner’s World, Running Times, Tin House, Philosophy Now, the Believer, and other publications. He teaches at Montana State University and is the nonfiction editor for Kelson Books.