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Legacy of Prefontaine Still Lives On - ESPN.com

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DyeStatPRO.com   Sep 13th 2013, 7:50pm
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Steve Bence has driven up to Pre's Rock countless times over the past 38 years. Every visit is different.

Some days it's quiet and he feels the presence of Steve Prefontaine, his former University of Oregon teammate. On other days, the little spot at the bend of the narrow road in Eugene, Ore., is crowded with visitors taking pictures and leaving tributes -- track shoes, race bib numbers, singlets, hats, medals and heartfelt handwritten notes -- around a granite monument to Prefontaine.

It's a shrine, and people from across the country and the world visit just hoping to get a little closer to the dynamic distance star who set every American record from 2,000 to 10,000 meters by the time he died at the site in a late-night car crash in 1975. Bence, a longtime Nike executive, sometimes brings company employees to Eugene from Beaverton to learn about Nike's roots.

On those trips, he usually stops at Pre's Rock to give them an idea what "Pre" was like.

"I try to tell at least one personal story with him, just to make him real," Bence says. "It's not just some mythical guy. He was a runner and a friend."



Read the full article at: espn.go.com

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