Prefontaine Documentary Tops Coverage
The words of A. E. Housman’s poem, “To An Athlete Dying Young,” have been appropriated to fit the untimely passing of virtually any sportsman, but they seem especially fitting when applied to the life of Steve Prefontaine.
Prefontaine, who won 20 straight races at Hayward Field on the Oregon campus, died at the age of 24 in a car accident in Eugene, Ore., in late May 1975, 4 hours after running the second-fastest 5,000 meters in U.S. history.
“Steve Prefontaine was a guy who couldn’t realize his potential. His story is one of those that is better than fiction,” said Craig Masback, a former distance runner and track analyst, who will call Sunday’s Steve Prefontaine Track Classic from the University of Oregon for CBS (1:30 p.m. PDT).
The meet, which will feature Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Gail Devers, Quincy Watts and Sergei Bubka, concludes a rare 4-hour showcase of track and field on network television.
Immediately preceding the Prefontaine Classic is a 1-hour documentary, “Fire on the Track: The Steve Prefontaine Story,” sponsored by Nike, which is appropriate since Prefontaine was the first athlete to wear the company’s “swoosh” logo.
The special examines Prefontaine’s brief but spectacular career, as well as his fight against the Amateur Athletic Union for increased rights for athletes.
“He had a profound political legacy. All of the changes that occurred in track and field in terms of professional opportunities started with this guy. Unfortunately, he didn’t live to see them,” said Masback, a communications attorney in Washington, D.C., who broke Prefontaine’s last American record, in the 2,000 in 1982.
And before the documentary, CBS will air the NCAA outdoor track championships from Knoxville, Tenn., at 11 a.m. PDT, in which Arkansas goes for its fourth straight team title and Louisiana State looks for its ninth consecutive women’s championship.
Weekend viewing
ESPN has the first game of the NHL’s Eastern title series tonight from the Spectrum, between Philadelphia and New Jersey, and Fox gets Game 2 of the Chicago-Detroit series at noon Sunday. A potentially ratings-boosting note for ESPN is that for the rest of the playoffs, it doesn’t have to black out telecasts, since it has nationwide exclusivity, including in the home market of the participants. The network extracted that concession as a part of the bargain to allow Fox into the game. …
USA does 3 hours live from the French Open today at 6 a.m. before analyst John McEnroe gets a chance to gargle and join NBC for its 3-hour stint, which airs tape-delayed at noon PDT. …
A weird situation arises Sunday with the NASCAR Miller Genuine Draft 500 being at 9 a.m. on the Nashville Network followed an hour later by the IndyCar Miller Genuine Draft 200 on ABC.