Who is the Prefontaine Classic games named after?
according to the games’ website: “The meet is named for the legendary Steve Prefontaine, America’s greatest distance runner at the time of his death in 1975 at age 24. Pre’s remarkable life was the subject of two major motion pictures, “Prefontaine”, released by Disney in January 1997 (two “thumbs up” from Siskel & Ebert), and “Without Limits”, released by Warner Bros. in September 1998 (and picked in the Top 10 films of 1998 by Time magazine and the New York Times)” Both of the movies are available from netflix.com, if you would like to know more about his life. Sources: http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?title_id=143&event_id=120&do=title&pg=1&folder_id=190&page_id=829; www.netflix.
is one of the premier track and field meets in the United States. Every year it draws a world caliber field to compete at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field. Originally started as the Hayward Field Restoration Race, in 1975 the name was changed to Prefontaine Classic on the namesake of the legendary University of Oregon distance runner and Olympian Steve Prefontaine who was killed in a car accident a week prior to the meet. The meet is also referred to as the Nike Prefontaine Classic as Nike has been the title sponsor since 1978. At the 2001 Prefontaine Classic Alan Webb ran 3:53.43 in the mile and broke Jim Ryun’s national high school record that had stood for 36 years. This also was the fastest mile by an American in three years. Sources: http://en.wikipedia.
