It all started his Freshman year at Marshfield High when Pre thought he would give Cross Country a shot; Since he was too short to play any other sports according to the coaches. Prefontaine wanted to be the best, so with this in hand his first year of CC he trained hard and by the end of the season became the second best runner on the team. Under the coaching of Walt McClure Prefontaine made his first appearance at the state cross country meet finishing 53rd. His next season was Track & Field. He would work hard and push himself to be better, to be the best.

His sophomore year he came back with high hopes. The summer followed his track season and with that followed high mileage training. Steve's hard work paid off qualifying for the the district and state meet. At his district meet he stayed with the state mile and cross country champions. This time he finished 6th at state. 6th place still wasn't good enough for Pre. He set his eyes on the gold. The ending of Cross Country meant the beginning of hard vigorous training. But all the hard work had burned him out and in track he didn't make it to state running a 4:31 indoor mile which put him in 4th place. Now that Pre was starting to show he was athletically worthy he wanted to show everybody that he was the best. Steve was told that it is better to be under trained than over trained and with that Steve came into his Junior year stronger than ever. He would take first at every meet including the state meet. His senior year followed in the footsteps of his junior year finishing first everytime and again bring home the gold at state. In track he set a new national high school record in the 2 mile with a time of 8:41.05. All in all Steve broke 19 national high school records. Steve was interested in going to the University of Oregon because not only was it his home town but the coach was one of the best. The coach, Bill Bowerman also took notice of Pre and recruited him heavily.

Pre arrived at the Oregon University the fall of 1969 and ran that fall. Steve finished 3rd in the NCAA National Cross Country meet and from then on in college Pre would only lose 2 more times, in the mile. Steve came out of college with 3 DI NCAA Cross Country Championships and four straight titles in the mile for track in field. Steve was the first person to win 4 consecutive titles in one event. He set 8 collegiate records and his times for the 3 mile and 6 mile have not yet been broken. Steve's running days did not end after college, he set the American 5000 meter record which made which made him on the Olympic 5000 meter team. In the Olympic race in Munich Steve pulled ahead the last mile but died at the end and finished 4th; One place out of the medals. Steve returned for his senior year, ending his collegiate career with only 3 defeats. Steve Prefontaine set American records from the 2000 meter all the way to 10000 meters.

On May 30, 1975 Steve Prefontaine was killed. He had swerved and hit a rock wall. The car was flipped and Pre was under all the mess, pinned to the ground. A nearby neighbor heard the crash and ran out to see what happened. There he found Pre pinned under the car. He tried to lift it but the car was too heavy so he went for help. When he came back Pre was dead. He was only 24 years old. His death is controversial whether it was alcohol related or not. His alcohol content level was 0.16. Pre's death was called the end of an era.

Resources; gopre.com, ezinearticles.com, wikipedia.com, stevepre.com

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