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I spent the last two days at the Nike Fast Lab to check out what the
brand had been working on an get a sneak peek at what's soon to come.
There is a small recap of the impressive space after the jump, but
you can have a look for yourself tomorrow:
40 years ago, a young runner received a package as he prepared for
Boston. That runner was Bill Rodgers. And the package came from
Oregon legend Steve Prefontaine. Pre sent Rodgers a short note along
with a pair of running shoes.
They were Boston 73’s, created by a company called Nike.
The shoes fit a little loose, but they were the best he owned.
Rodgers would tighten them as he toed the starting line come race
morning. Two hours, nine minutes, and fifty-five seconds later, he
went on to win the race and break an American Record.
Via
Check out this incredibly detailed flickr collection with pictures of Steve Prefontaine
Oregon junior Steve Prefontaine at Stanford Stadium, Palo Alto, CA,
May 20, 1972, for the PAC-8, 3-mile Championship.
Pre won in 13:32.2--from the cover photo for Racing Techniques booklet,
Runner's World, July 1972
Pre almost always wore Adidas through high school and most of his
college years
After
graduating from Oregon in the Spring of 1973, Pre was broke – he
was no
longer being subsidized by his University of Oregon athletic
scholarship
and he had no job. Former Oregon Track and Field head coach
Bill
Bowerman, a co-founder of Blue Ribbon Sports (to become Nike)
arranged
for BRS to subsidize Pre's training leading up to the 1976
Montreal
Summer Olympics. Pre earned a salary by working in the BRS/Nike
store in
Eugene, acting as the company liaison with other athletes, and
helping
put on clinics for high school and college kids. The modest $5000
deal
enabled Pre to move out of the trailer and into a house in Eugene.
It
was during the 1973 track season when Pre started wearing Nike track
shoes in competition.
These images were taken upon the occasion of the opening of the new
retail store for Blue Ribbon Sports (now Nike) at 855 Olive St. in Eugene,
Oregon, in the 73-74 period (the first store opened in 1968). Geoff and
Pre traveled together often, with Hollister selling shoes out of his car.
A former Oregon steeplechaser under Bill Bowerman, Geoff was the third
employee of what would become Nike, after Phil Knight and Steve
Prefontaine.
Steve Prefontaine's track shoes--an overview.
Depicted are examples of Pre's running shoes derived from various online
sources. Pre's actual shoe size is a guarded secret to prevent scammers
from selling fake "relics" supposedly belonging to Pre.
He ran almost exclusively in Adidas in high school and most of his college
meets. He wore red, white, and blue, and green and yellow Oregon color,
versions of Adidas. He wore Adidas in the 1972 Olympics even though he
had an established relationship with Bill Bowerman and Nike.
Pre set his first US NCAA record wearing Adidas shoes, the 5000m at a
US-USSR meet in Berkelry, CA, July 3, 1971 (the card on the Puma shoes
image, bottom left, is incorrect). Pre wore Pumas when he set his first
national record of any sort: the high school/prep 2-mile April 25, 1969.
He also wore them winning the Oregon prep mile record on May 9, 1969
and the Oregon Indoor Invitational in Portland January 31, 1970.
There's only one photo in the flickr album of Pre wearing Onitsuka Tigers in
competition, while winning the Pac-8 cross country championship race at
Junction City, Oregon (north of Eugene) on October 30, 1971. He also wore
a trainer version for a physiological study in 1971--a study that lasted
several years.
There's also one image in the album of Pre wearing North Star shoes, but
they were likely just casual wear. North Star was a popular brand of trainers
in the 70s and 80s. They are still in business, but don't make track and
running shoes--mostly just casual wear shoes.
Pre went almost exclusively Nike beginning in 1973 when he returned to
Oregon competition after red-shirting the fall 1972 cross country season.
The first datable photo I have of him wearing Nikes in competition is
April 27, 1973 at the Oregon Twilight meet. There is a grainy photo dated
March 3, 1973 in a Hayward Field meet, but it is too blurry for a positive
determination. Then a Feb 1, 1973 newspaper image of Pre with Cub Scouts,
wearing Nikes. Also a photo of him wearing Nike warmups and shoes
walking about a track field--it is dated from the Olympic time trials in July,
1972, but the ID is tenuous at best. He wore Adidas in this meet competition.
Nike's track shoe prototype was developed by Pre's Oregon Track and Field
head coach. Bill Bowerman, with detailed input by Pre.
In the red box to the right are three images of an original 1970s pair of the
Nike Montreal model spikes in Oregon colors--identical to the pair Pre wore
for his last race on May 29, 1975 before he was killed in a one-car accident
that same night. Someone bought this pair for well over $2000 in August 2012
on ebay.
