Track Town, USA

Perhaps because NBC has not gotten around to telling me what human interest stories I should pay atention to yet, it somehow escaped my attention that the U.S. Olympic track and field trials will be held in Eugene again this year.  For a non-resident, I have an inexplicably strong sentimental attachment to Hayward Field.  Most of it comes from my appreciation of "Without Limits," one of the Steve Prefontaine biopics that came out a decade ago.  My love of that movie (cinematic comfort food to me) undoubtedly stems from deep personal ties to the town, if not the university.  One of my most fun moments in recent years was the lap I took on the Hayward Field track, before it received a makeover that turned it into more of a fortress and less of the quaintly outdated bandbox it still is at its core. 

Here is a nice profile -- from the Sacramento Bee, of all places -- of the track and city in anticipation of the Olympic Trials, which will be upon us (or at least upon those who think about the Olympics even when Bob Costas isn't introducing a soft-focus, piano-backed profile of an athlete who overcame immense odds, etc.) before we know it.