Mead’s Tyson Wants Truth Told - And Garth As Him

We still want to know if there’s life after death, but no longer is it the burning question - having been replaced by, “Who’s going to play me in the movie?”

In Pat Tyson’s case, the answer is Dana Carvey. Probably.

First, a script must be finished, the studio must give its go-ahead, contracts need to be signed. Also, there is the issue of just whether the comic who gave us Garth and the Church Lady is funny enough to play Mead High School’s track coach on the big screen.

After all, when the two did lunch earlier this spring, Carvey got out with no better than a draw - or so we’re told.

This is just one in a stack of sub-plots hatched by Hollywood in its desire to get the story of the late Steve Prefontaine onto celluloid and into your neighborhood octoplex - preferably in time for the lighting of the flame for the 1996 Olympics.

The players are Warner Brothers and Disney, Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, Nike, the Prefontaine family - and especially the insular running community of Eugene, the University of Oregon and countless former Ducks who are having their loyalties tugged in different directions.

Not quite by accident, Pat Tyson is a player, too. He was Prefontaine’s college roommate.

For two years - as Pre’s legend flowered both before and after his disappointment in the 1972 Munich Olympics - the two lived together in a 36-foot house trailer on a grubby strip between Eugene and Springfield.

Prefontaine set records, warred with the AAU and became, long before anyone heard the name Michael Jordan, the feet that launched Nike into the public eye. His premature death at 24 in an auto accident - 20 years ago next week - hardly stemmed his influence on young runners.

Pat Tyson inspires on a more subtle, grassroots level. His mark is conspicuous on the seven state cross country titles Mead has won under his guidance, on the champions he’s developed - Chris Lewis and Matt Davis among them - and in the talents of Micah Davis and Skiy DeTray, who will try to lead the Panthers to another State AAA track title this week.

As a runner, Tyson was just one more loyal soldier of the Oregon infantry - the No. 3 man behind Prefontaine and Randy James of Spokane on the 1971 Duck cross country team that won the NCAA championship.

“Pre had bought this trailer and was looking for a roommate,” Tyson recalled. “When he asked me, I remember thinking, ‘Wow.’ He was probably the most popular guy on campus - and that’s something in an era when Dan Fouts was the quarterback and Ahmad Rashad was there. I didn’t idolize him, but I thought he might help me - you run around with the best and some if it is bound to rub off.

“A lot of things did. I became a much more relaxed person. I was uptight, a serious runner, a worry-wart. Pre wasn’t like that. He never talked track after practice. It wasn’t like you sat home and studied Track and Field News or read biographies of Jim Ryun.”

But not every influence was good.

“I was hurt a lot,” Tyson acknowledged. “Every workout I did, I did with Pre. His easy days shouldn’t have been my easy days - they were hard days.”

But they were days shared, making Tyson not only a necessary character in any movie treatment, but also an invaluable - and enthusiastic - adviser. He knows better than anyone how compelling Pre’s story is and how “it can be a real inspiration for our sport.”

Not that he doesn’t admit to having the normal apprehensions of Hollywood despoiling the memory. Indeed, some damage has already been done.

The Pre project is the baby of Jon Lutz, an independent producer who moved to Oregon three years ago, and veteran producer Irby Smith, whose credits include “City Slickers” and “Major League.” Things began to take off after Lutz met two former Oregon runners - Geoff Hollister, a Nike executive, and Kenny Moore, a former senior editor at Sports Illustrated.

And then the plot thickened. Smith had ties to Joe Roth, who last year became president of Disney - and just happens to be a track buff. Last October, a development deal was made with Disney’s Hollywood Pictures subsidiary. Moore, meanwhile, exploited a connection with writer and director Robert Towne - Moore appeared in Towne’s directorial debut, “Personal Best.” Towne interested Tom Cruise in the story, which led Moore and Towne to Warner Brothers.

Hollister, Nike, the Prefontaine family - and Tyson - have opted to go with Disney, which is trying to compete with Cruise’s star appeal by interesting Pitt in the title role.

“I’m loyal to the family,” Tyson said. “It’s too bad it’s worked out like this because Kenny is an Oregon guy and Geoff is an Oregon guy. It’s uncomfortable and strange for everyone.”

But now the race is on. Competitive as he was, there’s a part of Prefontaine that might even savor this.

Tyson, at least, can have a role in keeping things as authentic as possible, though he understands the limits.

“I remember the first contract I saw from Warners and basically it said they can make you whatever they want to make you,” he said. “They could make me a beer-drinking doper and they can make Pre anything they wanted.

“But I’m not worried. I don’t think you can oversensationalize this story. We all have our dark sides, whatever that means. Steve was as simple as you and I. What he had was an ability, as Kenny Moore calls it, to run close to the bone. His pain threshold was incredible.

“Gerry Lindgren talks about a race he had with Billy Mills, a 10,000-meter race when he was dead after two laps and then played games with his pain the rest of the way. Pre had that ability. He was able to push himself when he was tired at the same intensity level as when he wasn’t.”

But that wasn’t at the root of his charisma.

“He was rebellious - he was reckless,” Tyson said. “He ran recklessly - a controlled recklessness if there is such a thing. And he died recklessly, too.”

That recklessness was never more evident than in the Munich 5,000 meters, when Pre tangled with the superstar of ‘70s distance running, Lasse Viren. Though just 21, Prefontaine carried some enormous American expectations - and was “devastated” when he finished fourth.

“He could have finished second or third - if he’d run for second or third,” Tyson contended. “But he ran to win. The depth of the loss - it wasn’t so much the loss but the feeling that he’d let his people down.”

Prefontaine’s hold on the people of Oregon was downright mystical to his teammates. The son of a Coos Bay lumberman, he was at the heart of the attendance boom at Hayward Field when 10,000 fans might show for a dual meet. This, no doubt, will be conveyed in yet another Prefontaine film project - a CBS documentary set to air June 4 immediately following the Prefontaine Classic track meet in Eugene.

Look for some familiar legs in that video. To simulate Pre’s workouts, filmmakers took Matt Davis out to the Oregon sand dunes and shot him from the waist down.

And while we’re on the subject of stand-ins, what’s this about Carvey and Tyson?

Well, it turns out Carvey is a track fan, too - the son of a high school track coach and a former distance runner himself who got Prefontaine’s autograph at the Pacific-8 Conference meet at UCLA in 1971. His interest in the trusty sidekick role is genuine enough to seek out Tyson in Los Angeles in February when Tyson took Micah Davis and DeTray to the Sunkist Invitational.

“I tried to be funnier than he was,” Tyson said. “I had him laughing. I asked Skiy who was funnier and he said, ‘You were, Tyson. Actually, you both were pretty comical.”’

Of course, it was no screen test. Having played the role once, Pat Tyson will be satisfied to see someone else try pulling it off in a theater near you.

MEMO: You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review