For those of you that haven't heard of "Pre", he was a middle distance runner in the late 60s and early 70s for the University of Oregon and for the US in the Olympics. This guy was amazing. His life was cut short though, he died in a car crash around the age of 25. I don't think he EVER lost a meet in college, sometime running 2 events on the same day and setting college and American recods in both. Think of running in the 5 mile, winning and setting a collegiate record, then turning around and doing the same thing in the 3 mile. All this still under 22 yrs old, which is young for distance runners. This guy was also insanely famous for a runner. Think Michael Johnson at his most famous times 10. His coach at Oregon was Bill Bowerman who co-founded Nike. Pre was one of the first people to ever wear Nikes and help populartize them when they first started.
One of the things that keeps coming up is how determined and competitive this guy was. He had the determination of Lance Armstrong without having gone through the adversity that Lance did. I mean think about it, Lance was great before his battle with cancer, but because of the strength and determination that overcoming cancer gave him he became one of the greatest athletes of all-time. Would he have been as great if he hadn't had that adversity to overcome and make him stronger and more determined? Personally I don't think he would have. Pre had that type of determination because he knew he had a gift, and felt that not using that gift to its fullest was a waste. He always ran in the front, not drafting off of other runnners which is the norm. He felt that giving anything less than everything he had every race was chickenshit.
His legacy is still around today, Nike has a whole freakin line of Pre clothes, and every up and coming track superstar is always compared to Pre, who I think still holds a ton of HS and College and even American records. I highly recommend that you, my blog fans, check the book out. Just type prefontaine into amazon or something.
Man, what an inspiration. To have that drive every day, think how different life would be. Crazy. I love reading this kind of stuff because it motivates me to not waste my gifts. It reminds me of the parable about the Servants and the Talents in Matthew 25 (I think thats right). We all have gifts and we are meant to use them to their fuillest, anything less is a waste.
On another note we won our semifinal game in my YMCA league tonight, so we are in the finals next week. Yours truly was ballin with around 14 points, 8-10 boards, and 4-5 assists. Usually I am fine to sit back, have fun, not worry about doing anything more than board and play D, but tonight I decided to be AWESOME instead. True story. Although I think I strained my calf a little so I gotta rest that baby before next week. Even studs like me get hurt sometimes. I can't wait for the 'Ship next week though!
Speaking of awesome: Transformers. Go see it. I am trying to convince my friend Tim to name his second son Optimus Prime. I think it is a very dignified and respectable name. I mean, he's only a sentient robot that helped save the world from the Decepticons, I think the least Tim could do is honor the man, errrr robot, whatever.
Here's a pic of Pope, Carrie, Hailey and me at the Sox game.
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