To an Athlete Dying Young Trivia Quiz

Answer: Steve Prefontaine

"Pre", as he was known, appeared on the June, 1970, cover of "Sports Illustrated" at the age of 19. In his collegiate career at Oregon, he never lost a race at 5,000 or 10,000 meters, his specialties.

"The time you won your town the race" is the first line of "To an Athlete Dying Young", published by Housman in "A Shropshire Lad" in 1896.

Answer: Nile Kinnick

As a Navy pilot, Kinnick could "slip the surly bonds of earth," but it was a training mishap which cost him his life on June 2, 1943, off the coast of Venezuela. His plane developed an oil leak that forced him to make an emergency water landing, during which he died.

Considered by many to be the greatest athlete ever produced by the University of Iowa, the school gave his name to their football stadium in 1972.

The full first two lines of the third stanza of "To an Athlete Dying Young" are:
"Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay"

Answer: Sarah Burke

Sarah Jean Burke died while training in Utah. On January 10 while completing a maneuver on the superpipe, she fell on her head and went into cardiac arrest on the slope. She was flown to the University of Utah Hospital, but died of her injuries nine days later.

In June of 2012 the Canadian Olympic Committee announced that Burke would be inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame for her role in the inclusion of her specialty in the Olympic Games.

The final stanza from "To an Athlete Dying Young":
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

Answer: Israel

Mark Slavin was born in Minsk, Belarus SSR, in the Soviet Union. He had moved to Israel just four months before the Games. As a youth he had taken up Greco-Roman wrestling as a defense against attacks made on him for being Jewish.

From Housman's "Last Poems,"Number XXXVIII Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough":
Too full already is the grave
Of fellows that were good and brave
And died because they were.

Answer: Len Bias

The Celtics' president and general manager Red Auerbach said he'd planned to draft Bias for three years. Bias was twice ACC Player of the Year for basketball and his senior year was named ACC Athlete of the Year.

"When I was one-and-twenty" was also from Housman's "Shropshire Lad." The line quoted in the question was the first line of the second and final stanza.

Street and Gathers were players who passed away during their collegiate careers, Street at Iowa and Gathers at Loyola Marymount. Tribble, a friend of Bias, was indicted for complicity in Bias' death and later pled guilty to being a drug dealer.

Answer: Davey Allison

In 1987 Davey was named NASCAR Rookie of the Year. In 1998 NASCAR announced its 50 Greatest Drivers in association with the organization's 50th Anniversary and included him on that list. His father was Bobby Allison. Clifford, Davey's brother, died in a racing accident in 1992.

"Hark, the empty highways crying" is from "IV. Reveille" in "A Shropshire Lad."

Answer: Brian Piccolo

Piccolo worked his way into playing time for the Bears after first earning a spot on the taxi squad in 1965, then as a special teams player the next season, and then as a back-up to Sayers in 1967. In the '68 season he finally earned starting status as a fullback before the cancer ended his career and his life. The events leading up to his death were made into two TV movies entitled "Brian's Song."

"Football then was fighting sorrow For the young man's soul." are the last two lines of the first stanza of "XVII. Twice a week the winter through" from "A Shropshire Lad."

Answer: Ed Sanders

Sanders boxed in the U.S. Navy, winning Golden Gloves tournaments in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Berlin. At Helsinki in 1952 he was the first African American to win the heavyweight gold medal and the first American since 1904.

Sanders fought his battles for the Navy as a boxer and very successfully so. "But my day is the day of battle" is from Housman's collection "Last Poems", published in 1922. Although the poem's title is "XIII. The Deserter", there is no intention to imply anything negative about Ed Sanders. The quotation is the last two lines of the fifth stanza, "But my day is the day of battle And that comes dawning on."

Answer: Ray Chapman

Chapman's death was partially responsible for the banning of the spitball. And, although they would not be mandated for another 30 years, the tragedy also brought about calls for requiring batters to wear helmets.

The Housman line is from "Poem XXV: The Oracles", from his collection "Last Poems", published in 1922:

And from the cave of oracles I heard the priestess shrieking
That she and I should surely die and never live again.
Oh priestess, what you cry is clear, and sound good sense I think it;
But let the screaming echoes rest, and froth your mouth no more.

Answer: Bill Masterton

In the memory of Bill Masterton, the NHL established the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy. It is awarded at the end of each season to a player "who demonstrates perseverance and dedication to hockey." Tne North Stars retired his number 19, and maintained the honor after moving to Dallas as the Dallas North Stars.

Our final quote returns us to "To An Athlete Dying Young," stanza two:
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.