Tyson, Cross Country Team Headed Into Oregon Hall Of Fame
9/21/2012 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
SPOKANE, Wash. - Pre.
Nothing more need be said when talking about the still-bigger-than-life icon of the running world. And yes, his influence spans the world.
Friday and Saturday the University of Oregon will induct its latest Athletic Hall of Fame class. Steve Prefontaine will be there in spirit when the NCAA Cross Country Championship team of 1971 - the Ducks' inaugural NCAA Cross Country Championship team - is inducted along with the title teams of 1973 and '74.
Phil Knight, who along with Bill Bowerman, coach of that 1971 cross country team, helped build Nike into its own icon, will also be inducted.
So how, you ask, does Gonzaga University figure in the equation?
The spokesperson representing the '71 team will be a walk-on from Lincoln High of Tacoma who would go on to become one of the most respected high school cross country coaches in the Pacific Northwest and today is the cross country and track head coach at Gonzaga.
Enter Pat Tyson, who was the number three runner on that '71 squad behind Prefontaine and Randy James, the latter a graduate of Spokane's Ferris High and currently a teacher at Spokane's North Central High.. Prefontaine, whose life ended tragically in an automobile accident in Eugene, Ore., May 30, 1975, at the age of 24, once held seven American distance records from the 2,000 meters to the 10,000 meters. He competed in the 1972 Munich Olympics, redshirting the 1972 cross country season following the September Olympics.
"We would have won in '72 if Pre had run," Tyson states matter-of-factly about Oregon's NCAA cross country chances that season.
Pre's legacy has been compared to that of Muhammad Ali or Elvis. It's a legacy that hasn't been pushed out of the limelight by time as new generations come forth. It's a legacy that has not died, but, in some ways, may have become even stronger.
"It's pretty cool," Tyson said when asked about the upcoming weekend festivities. "I'll be the spokesperson for the '71 team and I have some great stuff to share about that team that was beaten by the Cougars (Washington State University) in the Northern Division Meet and beaten again by the Cougs two weeks later at the Pacific-8 Conference Championship at UCLA."
Normally, that would have ended any hopes the Ducks had of advancing to the NCAA Championship as a team. But Prefontaine made a stand.
"It had always been the policy (at Oregon) if you don't win the (team) league championship you don't go to the NCAA," Tyson recalled. "Prefontaine said 'if the team doesn't go then I don't go.' He put a little bit of lobbying power into it. So we went and we pulled it off. You have to say it was an upset. Nobody put Oregon in. We only sent six guys back (to Knoxville Tenn.). Oregon wanted to save a little money so they sent the six pack. What was really meaningful about that victory was even without Prefontaine in the line-up, with just our five, we still would have won. The glory days, you don't want to worship the past, but when you do something that's really significant and Oregon's very first NCAA cross country championship with Oregon's storied history certainly was significant, I'm proud to say I was a part of it."
Prefontaine won the 6-mile race in 29:14 on that 35-degree November day, James was 19th in 30:15 and Tyson was 31st in 30:34 to help the Ducks to a team score of 83 points to exact revenge on second-place WSU which scored 122.
It was a month later when Tyson's life changed again. He became Pre's roommate.
"I guess you might say I won him over," Tyson chuckled. "After that fall of 1971 when we won the title I must have gained a little bit of respect from my teammate. In December he called me over to his trailer and said 'I need a roommate. You'd be the perfect roommate, what do you think?'
"At $7.50 each per month for our rental space for the trailer, and I think it was $2.50 each per month for our heat from Ed's Propane and with the Langendorf day-old bakery within three blocks of our place where you got 10 loaves of bread for a buck, it was just too good to pass up," Tyson explained.
But Tyson looked at Prefontaine differently than most.
"I never looked at him as the best in the world or the best in America. I looked at him as a teammate I could shadow, that I could get out with in the morning, somehow some of him is going to rub off on me and make me better and, hopefully, someday I can beat him. That's why you do it. You ultimately have those goals you want to wear the U.S. jersey and go to the Olympics and that sort of thing. I wouldn't call it wildish dreams," Tyson said of his relationship with his roommate.
Tyson didn't have any childhood dreams of being a Duck, running for Oregon and being a part of a legacy.
"I was a good high school runner. I was not a great high school runner. We're recruiting kids here that are 9:20 (for 3200 meters), 4:20 (for 1600 meters) guys. I was a 4:20, 9:20 guy so I guess I can say if I can do it, you can do it. I wasn't blessed with a lot of speed, but I had a lot of heart. I cracked the line-up and ended up being number three before I graduated my last two years," Tyson said.
But he owes it all to his high school coach.
"My high school coach at Lincoln-Tacoma, Dan Watson, always wanted somebody to go to Oregon. I didn't know if I could pull it off. Out of state tuition, walk-on, the whole works. First kid in my family to go to college and I came from a real boot-strap upbringing on Tacoma's south side. I really did it for my coach. So I guess I owe him," Tyson said. "I just went down, shadowed all the guys and little did I know it was such a golden age with Prefontaine coming in, Bowerman creating these weird shoes that would evolve into what they call Nike and all the energy one gets in a storied program, much like Notre Dame football or what's going on here with Gonzaga men's and women's basketball. It becomes larger than life," Tyson said.
The risk of leaving home and going to Oregon turned out to be one of the best decisions he made.
"I think me being a walk-on and taking that risk is probably one of the things instilled in me and the way I coach. I use the Oregon philosophy, but I also know I was one of those guys that probably weren't supposed to make it. I don't know if it's a diamond-in-the-rough story or not, but I made it. I believe that testimony is one I have to share with the kids coming into Gonzaga that are probably more like me, although they are really bright in the sense of engineering degrees. I was just a blue collar, scrappy guy who was trying to pick up something where I could better myself. It paid off. Obviously, I wouldn't be at Gonzaga University today or Mead High School in the past if it wasn't for that experience."
Most people remember where they were in major moments in their life - the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the tragedy of 9/11, man stepping foot on the moon, etc.
Tyson is no different in recalling that sunny day May 30, 1975, in Seattle.
"I was in Seattle teaching junior high. It was a Friday morning. I was living with family. They had heard the morning news and I had just come back from my morning run. They came out on the deck. It was a nice, sunny May morning in Seattle. They told me. I remember going up to my room to shave thinking this didn't really happen. I think I cut myself, so I knew I wasn't dreaming; this was really happening," he said in a slow, deliberate voice. "I went to school - he (Pre) had done an assembly at our school for the kids - and the administration and everybody came by to give hugs and that sort of thing."
Somewhat ironically, Tyson was headed to Eugene that afternoon to be with Pre and other teammates.
"I was only going to work a half day that day anyway. I was going to Eugene to stay with Pre on that Friday evening. We were going to celebrate a Norwegian Independence Day party. One of our ex-teammates was Norwegian so we always celebrated Norwegian Independence Day. Pre loved the Nordic countries. He brought the soft-surface sawdust trails to America. What you see around America which might be sawdust trails - which a lot of cities do have - is a result of Pre borrowing that idea from running through Scandinavia," Tyson said as his mind wandered back to that tragic day. "I went down and met up with my old teammates and we went up to the wreck site that Friday afternoon. I remember getting the Eugene Register-Guard that afternoon - it was the era of the afternoon paper - and over by Hayward Field was the picture and a big picture of Prefontaine, so it was real. Like John F. Kennedy, 9/11, your mom or dad or a loved one, those are memories that stick with you and no matter what was happening you'll never forget it."
Since Prefontaine's death, it's been kind of the mission of his teammates to keep the spirit of Pre alive.
"One of our messages has been keeping Pre alive, his spirit, and he is still the most popular runner of all time in America. If you go up to any high school kid, college kid or Olympian, they'll say the man who influenced them and gives them the inspiration is Pre. He's a little larger than life now. When Phil Knight built the Nike campus, the first building on the campus was the Prefontaine, it is the centerpiece, and then they put the statue of Pre. There is no Nike without Pre and Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman. You needed all three for this thing to really pop," Tyson predicted of what started as Bowerman making waffle-soled shoes with a waffle maker in his garage and selling the shoes out of the trunk of his car.
It's always difficult to be around such an icon and not gain something from it. Tyson is forever indebted and thankful for his time with Pre.
"The greatest thing to remember about Prefontaine was his ability to be so much fun loving and so relaxed with all the pressure, being the favorite and the target on his back all the time. He knew how to turn it on at the right time and when to turn it off. He was a master at controlling the energy that is necessary to have at the right time. And he was so fun-loving about it. He knew when to have fun and he knew when to get serious," Tyson recalled. "I remember he always told me I was too stressed out, he told me to relax, it's just running. That's something I share with the athletes because it is so true. Once I began to take that from him, learning how to turn it on, which means when you go to bed you don't worry about the next day. The next day the adrenalin starts to roll when you're rolling out of your house on our way to Hayward Field in our case or out of the hotel on your way to compete on a cross country course. That's what I took out of Prefontaine was this fun-loving, cool, charismatic energy that he let me be a part of. I love that."
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