Boston - Other races came along in the Boston Marathon's first 90 years. With their prize money and appearance fees and flatter, easier courses luring top talent, the world's oldest and most prestigious annual 26.2-mile race had a choice to make.

Accept the changing times, or become an also-ran in the running world.

Twenty-five years ago, the Boston Athletic Association signed a sponsorship deal with John Hancock that for the first time provided prize money for the winners - and portable toilets for the masses - and acknowledged what runners had been saying for years: You can't eat prestige.

"It wasn't just the prize money," said Greg Meyer, whose victory in 1983 remains the last for an American man in Boston. "They didn't get you a hotel room. There were no Porta-Johns on the course. This was the old B.A.A. They thought, 'The marathon makes the athlete; the athlete doesn't make the marathon.'

"The partnership between the B.A.A. and Hancock has kept the race at a level that makes our victories meaningful. Without that, it would have been irrelevant. It would have been a regional race."

When Hancock signed on for the 1986 race, it was before stadium naming rights were the norm and before the Olympics welcomed the Dream Team of pro superstars at the Barcelona Games. Amateurism was still seen as the purest form of the sport, and many within the B.A.A. thought that being a Boston Marathon champion - along with the traditional olive wreath and bowl of beef stew - should be prize enough.

"It was a different time and place back then. This turmoil about amateur vs. professionalism, it had been raging for many years," said Guy Morse, who joined the B.A.A. as a temporary race administrator 25 years ago and is now the executive director of Monday's race. "It's hard to understand now, given the state of the sport."

But with the hemorrhaging of top competitors to more lucrative races like London, which sprung up in 1981, the race's organizers realized that if they didn't change something, they might have little left to protect.

"It was a tough decision," said Morse, who was brought on to modernize the race. "We had standards and values that we wanted to preserve. They really wanted to protect all the traditions, and didn't want to negatively impact the race. It became apparent to the board at the time that you can offer prize money and maintain all the values that make Boston special."

Morse said the B.A.A. was not willing to sell naming rights - "It was not going to become the XYZ Company Boston Marathon," he said - and that weeded out some of the more corporate proposals. In that, they found a willing partner in John Hancock, which is headquartered just blocks from the finish line.