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| Family photo as we moved to Tokyo, Japan (left to right) brother Randy, mother Joan, dad Steve Jr, and me |
I was born in Tennessee, started kindergarten in Japan, and
graduated high school in Spain. I lived in ten cities and three countries over
those years, and I was in different high schools my sophomore, junior, and
senior years.
Ah, the life of
an Air Force kid.
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| My mother bought a pair of size 11 Wilson red leather spikes, several sizes too big, but my mother was happy that there was plenty of room for my feet to grow. |
The meet drew athletes
from all the military base schools in Europe; the biggest schools were in
Germany and England. In the prelims alone, I realized how good the competition
was. I had to run a school-record 1:59.2 just to advance to the finals, the
lone member of our team to get past the semis.
A coach from one
of the larger schools in Germany told my coach how impressed he’d been with my
effort. Then he saw my spikes.
“You ran under
two minutes in those?”
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| In Bill Dellinger's Office, left to right, Bill Dellinger (face blocked), Jim Ryun, Phil Knight, Steve Prefontaine |
Once I’d found my Dunn Hall dorm and unpacked, I headed out on campus to take some photos to send back to my parents. Not only did I feel like a tourist, I was acting like one. The Oregon basketball team played in McArthur Court, an aging, ivy-clad arena that dated to 1926. Next to “Mac Court,” I discovered, were the shoe-box-sized offices of all the university’s athletic coaches, including the man I was supposed to check in with, Dellinger.
His door was open.
Dellinger, it turned out, wasn’t alone. He’d been chatting with three others,
two of whom I’d seen in magazines and newspapers. I tried not to gawk but it
was like a folk-music fan suddenly seeing Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. There sat
Prefontaine and Ryun, along with some other guy, a little older, who did not appear
to be cut from quite the same athletic cloth as the other two.
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| 1000 yards Indoor Race (this in Seattle), left-to-right, Hailu Ebba (OSU), Dale Scott (WSU), Greg Gibson (UW), Steve Bence, Art Sandison |
I had a great
indoor season, even if it was short: only eight days. I placed second at the
Portland Invitational meet in a 1,000-yard race that I should have won. On the 165-yard
plywood track, with less than two laps to go, I let Washington’s Greg Gibson
and Oregon State’s Clay Lowery pass me. It was a tactical blunder. I wasn’t
tired at the end, I just wasn’t sure of the pace for a distance that I’d only
run once before, and didn’t push the pace at a critical moment when I had the
lead.
With the steeply
banked corners that kill momentum, it had been almost impossible for me to pass
that late in the race. I got beyond Lowery, but not Gibson, finishing in 2:10.7,
a tenth of a second behind the Husky. It was a UO indoor school record.
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| I was especially reenergized for the 1973 track season when I found myself sharing the cover of a track program with Prefontaine |
As my 1972 track season came to end, I qualified and ran in the Olympic Trials. Midway through my first qualifying heat I was gassed. I realized that the clock had struck midnight and Cinderella’s time at the ball was over. The season had just gone on too long; this six-month stretch was twice as long as my high school seasons. I had nothing left in the tank.
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| In front of Feng Tay factory, (left to right) CH Wang, Ron Nelson, Phil Knight, Steve Bence, Del Hayes |
The year 1978 was
a turning point for Nike manufacturing.
“Our factories in
Taiwan and Korea are humming along,” Phil said at the time. “Industry watchers
point to our new factories, and our sales, and say we are unstoppable.” Phil
and his leadership were delighted with how everything was going.
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| As we walked in the front door—me carrying a box of supplies, and Mary carrying the baby—Woody had his camera and caught the moment |
The Bences and
Woodmans got into a routine of playing mahjong Sunday afternoons at our house,
with gin and tonics. During one such sesson, the phone rang, a rare occurrence.
Mary answered; it was a fellow American acquaintance. “The priest wants to meet
with Steve and me,” she said. “They don’t have a phone at the church.”
“You two must be
in deep trouble,” Woody joked. “You better go; we’ll wait here until you get
back.”
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| Two hours after leaving Mary’s hospital room on my mission, I returned with a bottle of gin, a gift, in hand. |
A co-worker asked what had
been the most romantic thing I’d ever done for Mary. I didn’t have an answer.
So that evening I
asked her, “What’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever done for you?”
“You?” She laughed. “I don’t know. The first thing that comes to mind is when you went to get me a sandwich when I was in the Busan Hospital.”
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| Tom Cruise at the August 1998 Without Limits movie premiere in Eugene, Oregon Mary and Cory Bence, on the left, "photo bombed" the picture |
In late August
1998, a premiere for Without Limits was held in Eugene, delayed a year to distance itself from the
other Prefontaine movie, which released in 1997; Warner Brothers wanted to wait
for its own moment in the sun. Cruise was greeted by swarms of screaming fans.
On September 8,
1998, the main premiere was set for the Mann Theater in Los Angeles; Marckx,
Mary, and I packed our formal wear and flew to L.A. There was a large turnout,
including many celebrities we recognized: Jenna Elfmann, Cuba Gooding Jr, and
Kevin Bacon. We were invited to the party afterwards, for which we decided to
arrive fashionably late and disappear into the crowd to people-watch.
As we checked in
at the desk, hoping our names were actually on the list, a support staff member
recognized Marckx.
