Me and Pre
By
S.A. Modée
Written February 1997 after the release of the movie Prefontaine
I never called him “Pre.” That was a name his fans called him. I never called him World” or “World Famous” as did Mac Wilkins, who would one day become a world-renowned discus thrower. I just called him Steve, or Prefontaine if I were referring to him. He maybe became Pre to his friends in later years. However, I only knew him during my freshman year of college in 1969 when we both entered the University of Oregon, both new to the track team—I, a little known state champion half-miler, Steve Modée, a middle distance runner—he, a world-famous distance runner, Steve Prefontaine, holding the national high school record in the two mile.
One of the first things we learned upon our arrival at the university was that our coach Bill Bowerman had isolated all his freshman athletes to the top floor of Douglass Hall, overlooking the track at Hayward Field. He said he wanted to protect us from the corrupting influence of “the hippie element” that seemed to him to be all around the campus in those years—the drugs, the music, the anti-war movement. I still remember his words, “the hippie element.”
I still remember when Mac named him World. He showed some of us an article on Prefontaine he had clipped out of the Eugene Register-Guard and had highlighted in yellow some of the choice phrases in it. I remember chuckling over the line in the article about Prefontaine being a B student. As far as we knew, Steve seldom went to class. I don’t know if this still goes on, but at the time certain athletes were able to take classes from “cooperative” professors who guaranteed a passing grade just for signing up for their classes. I mean usually an athlete had to take some real classes in order to graduate, but you could pad your credits and grade point enough to give yourself the extra time you needed for training.
Now I think most people will remember Prefontaine in his running shorts and jersey, whereas I picture him in his running sweats. He seemed to be in training and in them at all times. I rarely remember seeing him in real clothes. In fact, I remember thinking he looked kind of funny anytime I saw him in street clothes, somehow less impressive. Besides what would have been the point of changing into his street clothes, when such a big portion of his day was spent running? He didn’t have time to go to class; he had to run.
One of the phrases Wilkins found in the article and grabbed onto, out of resentment, I think—we all resented Prefontaine for his early fame—was the phrase about his being world famous. That’s when Mac started calling him World Famous, which at first seemed to really irritate Prefontaine—then later, just calling him World for short. I never called him World. I didn’t really like everything about Prefontaine either, but I respected him enough to call him by his name. That’s the way I was brought up. Steve Prefontaine was not friendly, and we all resented his fame. Maybe it was just our competitive nature as track athletes, but, after all, we were a bunch of eighteen year old boys, just out of high school, with our whole futures out ahead of us, except for Prefontaine who was already famous and sadly enough, unbeknownst to any of us, had already reached his future—his life being almost over way too soon.
Entering the dormitory, I used to kiddingly announce my arrival by pressing the intercom to broadcast on the fourth floor: “Rejoice. Rejoice. The Holy Modée Man is here.” It was a joke and everyone else took it as a joke, but I remember Steve coming out of his room one time—he might have been taking a nap—and saying, “What the **** is this Holy Modée Man ****?” I admit it made me feel stupid for a minute, but then I realized it was just Prefontaine, and that’s the way he was, almost always serious, especially about running, but everything else too.
I know Prefontaine was always known for how brash, even rude, he could be, but I read in the paper the other day that some of the people who knew him and saw the recent movie, thought the portrayal of him seemed real, but they didn’t remember his being quite so harsh. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I think I can see how this could have happened. If you just read on the page what he said sometimes, you would imagine it being said in a snarling tone. In reality, even though his words might appear harsh, he always said them in a gentle, matter-of-fact way, totally confident that he was right.
When I think about it, I only remember having one political discussion with him. On the topic of that era, the Vietnam War, he said, “We should just send the Hell’s Angels into Vietnam. They’ll have things cleaned up there in a couple weeks.” I think at the time the Hell’s Angels had made this naïve suggestion themselves. Now when you think about this, you might imagine Prefontaine coming off as this raging redneck. I remember thinking he sounded like an idiot. I couldn’t imagine anyone attending college could think something so stupid. After thinking about it though, I decided, he only thinks about running and has no idea about anything else in the world. It certainly was a statement that sounded offensive. He certainly could offend just about anyone, and in this case, would have offended everyone. It wouldn’t matter if you supported or opposed the war; it was a terrible thing to say. He didn’t think our troops could do the job, which would offend the supporters, so we should win the war with murder and mayhem, which would offend those opposed to our involvement in Vietnam. Even though the words themselves sound harsh and stupid, he said them to me in a gentle way, with just a hint of a smile, although totally serious. You watch any interview with him, and you’ll know what I mean. He almost always spoke seriously, but look closely, and there is almost always this look like he might start smiling and then he never does.
I remember once partying with some of the boys from fourth floor Douglass, and some of us linking up with Prefontaine, who seemed to have had quite a bit to drink himself that day. We all got into his car, and we cruised up and down Willamette Street back in the day when that was what you did. After some more futile cruising, Steve suggested that we go to Coos Bay, his home town. I calculated in my mind that we would get to Coos Bay about three in the morning. I said I thought it was a stupid idea. If nothing was happening in Eugene, a college town, at one in the morning, why would anyone think something would be happening in Coos Bay, a little lumber town, at three in the dark morning?
My roommate Steve Englegau shushed me and said, “But, Steve, Steve Prefontaine is like their local hero. If we go there, we’ll be sure to find some girls.”
That shut me up; I was ready to go. After all I had seen the inside of Steve Prefontaine’s closet which he had plastered with pictures of girls who had sent him their pictures, some in very suggestive poses. At one point I remember Steve bragging he had fifty-six of these photos of groupies. But you know what? At three in the morning, the only women we saw in Coos Bay were the middle-aged waitresses in the all night diner we stopped in to sober up with coffee. At three in the morning, even in Coos Bay, Prefontaine wasn’t famous enough to be recognized at that time, still early in the morning of his brief career.
You know, memory is a funny thing. My ten-year-old daughter has a friend who asked me, when she was told by my daughter that I knew Prefontaine, if I thought I would be portrayed in the new movie about him. I chuckled and joked, “Well, if there’s a scene in the movie where Steve comes into my dorm room and looks down on the track and says the track should have yellow stripes on its green surface (the University of Oregon’s colors) instead of white lines, and I say no, they can’t be yellow because both N.C.A.A. and A.A.U regulations only allow white lines, then I will be in that movie.” I mean, memory is a strange thing. I probably saw Prefontaine every day, and what do I remember? A discussion about the color of the lines on the track. I suppose I remember this seemingly insignificant event, because if I couldn’t beat him on the track, at least I was aware of some obscure regulation about track and field that he apparently hadn’t a clue about.
I may have run against Prefontaine more times than I’m aware of, perhaps in some road run or something, but I only know of one time I actually ran against him—when I was a junior in high school. Our events didn’t cross much. I ran the shorter distances, the quarter and the half-mile, and he usually ran the two-mile. The time we matched up was the event in between our events: the mile. I hoped to move up to the mile, the status event, once I got to college. The race was on a portable indoor track in his hometown, Coos Bay. I had never heard of Prefontaine at this point, nor really had anyone else. By that spring he’d make his mark, blooming and bursting onto the field as an extraordinary runner, but this was still the winter of our junior years, and he was a nobody.
He took the lead from the start. I followed him, letting him lead the pace. I figured in those days that I could outkick anyone in the last hundred yards, but I had never run indoors before. It was ten laps to a mile. I swear, every time I tried to pass around the outside of him on the short straightaway, we would hit a corner, and I would have to fall back. I couldn’t get past him. I lost the race, and I chalked it up to my own lack of experience and judgment in how to run indoors. I figured he’d had an advantage running on a track he would have been mighty familiar with. My coach Jim Crumpton looked his name up in the records and found that up to that point he’d been a pretty mediocre runner. Back then I was hoping someday to get a rematch and run the race the right way. However, by that spring I had a different perspective. It may be that I won the state half-mile, but Prefontaine was trying out for the 68’ Olympics, and we both were only seventeen years old—he, on the way up in his career, and I had gone about as far as I would. Today I must admit I’m not gunning for that rematch anymore, even up in runners’ heaven, because I think I know now why he beat me—quite simply, he was the better runner. It was just that simple.
I do remember making Prefontaine mad once. I told him that I felt I had way more natural ability than he did. If I trained as hard as he, I’d definitely be better. I knew I had more speed, and I could simply get the endurance though training as hard. There may have been some truth to what I was saying, but I realize now I was really missing the mark. He was better than me, yes, because he trained harder and could train harder, because he had the guts it took. It was not in me to train like that, thus it was not in me, nor was I destined to be the runner Steve Prefontaine was. That guy deserves the fame he achieved, the way he achieved it, the hard way. I, like other runners, may have resented him for his fame and the attention, not to mention the girls, but I respected him, and probably respect him more now than I did then. He was right to walk away from me in a huff. I was intolerable, insufferable, and I was mistaken. Like him, I was eighteen years old, invincible, immortal, self-confident, but I was wrong.
At the end of fall term, I told Steve I was quitting track. Perhaps I had finally been corrupted by the hippie element. I did become involved in the antiwar movement. Or perhaps I just felt like I had peaked in high school. I know the enthusiasm just wasn’t there anymore. In high school I had had some trouble with my knee my senior year. In fact, the doctor doubted I would run again. But I did, and my knee didn’t give me any trouble, but my heart was just never into it again. Sometimes I would be in the middle of the race, and I would wonder: why am I doing this? It’s a lot of pain, and for what? Just to beat some other guy? What for? Why? I will tell you I would not recommend this kind of intellectual cynicism to any runner, especially during the race; it messes up your concentration. I’m surprised I continued to win any races at all with that kind of attitude. As it would turn out, the big time was not mine to be had, it was Prefontaine’s. Perhaps I was quitting because of Prefontaine. How could I look at this guy with all his intensity and his will, and think that I could measure up. I knew this even then.
He tried to talk me out of quitting. In fact, he even said, “You are not quitting. I’m going to knock on your door tomorrow morning at six, and we’re going to train together.” I told him no way, but he kept insisting. I truly believed—because he convinced me—that he was going to knock on my door in the morning, and I was going to have to hit him or something to get rid of him. But when the next morning came, I was relieved when that knock never sounded on my dorm room door. Honestly though, there was a side of me still that would have wanted to get out of my bed and run through the cold morning with Steve Prefontaine, and maybe, just maybe, I would rise to the same heights. Fortunately, he never knocked; my decision stood, and I have few regrets about that. I was at the end of my running; he was at the beginning. Unfortunately, by the time he died in a tragic car wreck, for him the beginning was also his ending. I at least got to close that chapter in my life; he left his unfinished.
I can say I only knew and associated with Steve Prefontaine for one short year. I have not had the luxury of culling through a bunch of my memories and writing the ones of greatest significance, as will others who knew him longer and knew him more personally than I did. I have actually written just about everything I can remember about him. Do I think people who write about him now, people who are researching him, should interview me? No. I meant nothing to Prefontaine, and actually he’s meant nothing to me in my life. Once I quit track, I had nothing to do with it anymore. I never watched him run again. I never went to track meets. I never watched him on TV, even the Olympics. Our paths crossed briefly; we ran by each other, nodding hello slightly as we passed, or is it that we nodded as he passed me going the same way, before my veering off onto another trail in another direction?
So why then have I written this? I have nothing to add to his story or to mine. Sure, I can’t help thinking about him somewhat with the recent filming and release of the first of two feature movies about him. But why go back in my mind now to that one year of my life on the fourth floor of Douglas Hall? Is there any point to trying to remember what life looked like, who I was, and who Prefontaine was, through my eyes as a young man with my own dreams, but also with my embarrassingly petty, competitive jealousies of Prefontaine?
Perhaps it is that I will understand something more about who we were then—all of us—in 1969 and 1970—who I was, who I am, and who I will be. This writing exercise may explain nothing or something, but I know it won’t add anything to the history of Prefontaine. I know my memories for the most part are not complimentary to him, but what can you expect? When I knew Steve Prefontaine, I knew him as a human being, not as an idol. And this is all that I can remember. This is everything. I mean. some of my memories may even be distortions, twisted by the intervening years, where I thought nothing about Steve Prefontaine or anything about that period of my life. But these are my memories of him—all of them—as insignificant as they may be, perhaps not even factual.
In closing, it’s eerie. Last night I dreamed that I was running with Prefontaine. I guess he must have finally knocked on my door. It was cold, foggy, and slightly drizzling. We were running through the neighborhoods of Eugene. We didn’t say a thing to each other. We were running across Oregon, the United States, the world . . . . We were running side-by-side. There was silence all around us. I was slower, but my stride was longer. His stride was shorter, but his legs were faster, and, as it would turn out, so was his brief but glorious life, cut short, unfinished, by tragedy. And I was running with him, as it turned out, only in my dreams.
