As I posted a couple days ago, I’m going to spend at least some of my winter working my way through some of the various sports movies that I own on DVD/Blu-Ray. You can find the entire list by clicking here.
So let’s start with a Donald Sutherland movie that is perhaps the most obscure title on the list.
Of course, the fact that Sutherland was in it doesn’t really narrow it down, I know. The guy has like 190 acting credits on his IMDB page, after all.
In 1998, Sutherland played Bill Bowerman, the famous track coach at the University of Oregon and a co-founder of Nike, in the film Without Limits.
Bowerman trained 31 Olympic athletes, 16 sub-four minute milers and his Oregon track team won four NCAA championships. Oh, he also achieved the rank of Major in the US Army and was awarded a Silver Star and four Bronze Stars during World War II. Throw in the whole co-founding Nike thing and one could make an argument that a movie about Bowerman’s career would be well worth making.
Maybe it would, but Without Limits is not that movie and Sutherland’s role is merely that of a supporting actor.
You may also recognize Monica Potter (Parenthood, Saw) in the primary supporting actress role in the movie.
On top of that, you’ll also see Matthew Lillard in this movie as one of the runners that Sutherland’s character is coaching. If you’ve watched every sports movie ever made, then you saw Lillard as Billy Brubaker opposite Freddie Prinze, Jr. as Ryan Dunne in 2001’s Summer Catch. Fortunately for Lillard, he didn’t have to rely on that movie to kick his acting career into gear for long. A year later, he starred as Shaggy in Scooby Doo and he’s ridden that wave ever since, acting in a sequel or two and doing voice work for pretty much every animated Scooby project, including video games.
It’s Billy Crudup, though, that has the starring role of Steve Prefontaine in Without Limits. Prefontaine was one of Bowerman’s star runners at Oregon and an Olympic runner at the infamous 1972 Munich Olympic Games. At one time or another, “Pre” held US records in seven distance events, from 2,000 meters to 10,000 meters.
Prefontaine was a bit of a cult hero when I was in high school, at least among my friends who ran track or were at least interested in Track & Field events in the Olympics. I was not such a person, but I had one particular friend that I can still remember going on and on about the guy.
Not only was Prefontaine one of the premier competitive runners in the world during the early 1970s, but he also was one of the most outspoken critics of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) and has been often credited with being a pioneer of improved American athletes’ rights.
After competing in Munich, where he had a disappointing performance, Pre turned down $200,000 to turn professional and continued to train for the 1976 Montreal Olympics as a member of the Oregon Track Club. Two hundred grand may not sound like a lot, given what today’s athletes make, but in the early 1970s, that was a big chunk of change! For some perspective, Prefontaine and his teammates on the USA Track & Field team were reportedly getting nothing but a $3 per day food allowance.
Meanwhile, the fatcats running things for the AAU were taking deals from event promoters to assure that Prefontaine and others like fellow runner Frank Shorter only went head-to-head with their biggest international rivals in those competitions that paid the most money to the AAU and its executives.
Unfortunately (spoiler alert!), Pre would not make it to Montreal for the 1976 Olympics.
After a post-meet party in Eugene, Oregon, on May 29, 1975, Prefontaine’s MGB convertible crossed the center line on a winding stretch of road, hit a rock wall and flipped over, pinning him underneath. He was pronounced dead by the first medics on the scene of the accident.
Without Limits is not Oscar material. It’s certainly not Donald Sutherland’s most memorable role. Heck, for me it’s not even Billy Crudup’s most memorable role (When I see Crudup, his work as lead guitarist for the fictional band Stillwater in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous is what immediately comes to my mind), but if you’re into sports-related biopics about athletes that should never be forgotten, give Without Limits a look-see and let me know what you think.
Unsurprisingly, given how infrequently I’ve posted here lately, there was very little response to the question of which movie should be next in line. I’ll add the poll again here, just in case this gets a few more clicks.
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