About the Book 1972: Running
Part 1 briefly covers Bence’s childhood that leads to running at the University of Oregon, who was shaped by his friendship with Steve Prefontaine, the mentorship from Bill Bowerman, and later the leadership from Phil Knight, who applied what he learned from Bowerman.
He captures perfectly the running environment of the 70’s, taking us inside the UO Track program, when the jogging boom was starting, and Nike was coming into being.
It takes someone special to see exactly what they have right in front of them and take advantage of the opportunity to live out their passion.
Young runners will be inspired by the energy that existed in track & field; where a less than a second can make the difference of being a USA national champion, and Bence’s sixth-place finish as a freshman.
Older runners will remember the golden era of the sport; of Prefontaine, Jim Ryun, and Kenny Moore; of the first time that Eugene hosted the Olympic Trials in 1972; and the debut of the Oregon-based Nike brand at the Trials.
Part 1 ends with Bence’s last UO races, and the death of Prefontaine.
Track & Field is a blue-collar sport that relies on work ethics. A runner ultimately has to out-beat, outlast, and out-psych himself to beat his current best record.
Steve Bence on Part 1: Running
I wrote Part 1 to be about sport, which connects us across the globe. Sport is even more important today; my sport is Running.
I tried different sports in school and found myself on the bench until I found Running, or perhaps I should say Running found me. I discovered I had a talent which surprised me as much as it surprised my coaches, family, and friends.
Running is an oddity compared to most sports; it is simple, can be done alone, a blue-collar sport where disciplined, hard-work brings individual improvement and health benefits to last a lifetime.
I chose to run at the University of Oregon, improving from an unknown walk-on to a full-scholarship All-American half-miler in just one year. I had a thrilling, six-month 1972 track season starting with my first collegiate track meet in March and ending at the USA vs USSR track meet in August.
I found myself in the epicenter of a Running explosion. Bowerman had introduced Jogging to Oregon in the 1960s, a normal activity in Eugene by 1972, which would soon expand across the USA and then the world.
Nike was born at Hayward Field, the track in where I trained and competed, in Eugene where I received my first pair of Nike shoes, the Cortez, at the first Nike store during the 1972 Olympic Trials.
It all seemed so normal to me, until I traveled. On a Spring Break team trip to California we had a several hour layover in San Francisco, where a few of us went out on a long run. We were stopped by the police, suspicious of what we might be running from. In Bakersfield, while on a training run on a backroad, a pickup truck blared it’s horn at us and threw an empty beer bottle our way. I realized those experiences were not the exception, rather Eugene was the exception, a city that would change Running – and sport – across the planet.