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Caring about distance running is a little like opening a rock club and finding out that the rest of the country has just gotten wind of this new outfit from L.A. The only distance runner in America who might qualify as a household name is Prefontaine, who died in 1975. Over the past 40 years, as runners from East Africa have become increasingly dominant at every event from the 1,500 to the marathon, people like my father have watched the heart of the action in their sport move further and further from home. I just couldn’t picture him on the starting line at the Olympics, let alone at the finish.įollowers of American distance running are as pessimistic as any group of people in our culture. But he wore a frickin’ Breath-Rite strip, and had those goofy ears, and a coach who got more press than he did, and when he wasn’t running he had actual bangs, like the straight-across-the-forehead variety. Yes, his blond hair flowed satisfyingly behind him when he was in motion. Yes, he finished his races off with a wicked combination of strength and speed. Yes, Rupp floated angelically above the track. If I, Michael Heald, have a creed, it’s this: I want to have been there. You’ll want to be able to tell people you were there, he insisted. Being compared to one of the only martyrs in American sports cannot be easy, especially when you look and behave like Galen Rupp.Įight years ago my father urged me to fly up from California to catch Rupp’s final high school meet. Whose mustache continues to make Nike millions. Whose arrogant pre-race chatter has been silk-screened on t-shirts. Who lives on the walls of hungry teenagers. Prefontaine, who occupies the same kind of psychic terrain as Che Guevara. Here he was, finally, the boy who could do what Steve Prefontaine could not: medal in the Olympics and stay alive. Rupp happens to be a Portlander, like us, and since his first race he’s shouldered the expectations of the small but passionate community of people in America who care about running. It was late 2002 or early 2003 when he first told us of the golden-haired choirboy from Central Catholic named Galen Rupp. My brother and I went online, sick to our stomachs, telling ourselves, as long as they’re not running the 10,000, but of course they are, it’s happening early Saturday afternoon, less than 24 hours after they cut into my father’s spine and attempt to fuse it with three new cadaver bones in his neck.įor almost a decade now, my father has been looking forward to this race. August third? Are you fucking kidding? That’s exactly when track and field starts. When they scheduled the surgery a month ago, it was the first thing out of our mouths. Okay, maybe not, but what you are missing out on is the biggest moment… for my father. SO YOU’RE MISSING out on the biggest race of the Olympics. The Straight-Across-the-Forehead Variety by Michael Heald For Part 1 of the “We Can Be Heroes” Olympics series, click hereįor Part 2 of the “We Can Be Heroes” Olympics series, click hereįor Part 3 of the “We Can Be Heroes” Olympics series, click hereįor Part 4 of the “We Can Be Heroes” Olympics series, click here