Billy Mills

I thought I might add a bit to the Billy Mills story from class. Mills, an Oglala Lakota, was born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Mills grew up in poverty and was orphaned at the age of 12. Soon afterwards, he moved to Lawrence to attend the high school at Haskell and began his running career (Mills didn’t even make the freshman track team!). Mills received 18 scholarship offers and ultimately chose KU. Even though Mills was a two-time All-American, the Big 8 cross country champion and a member of 1959 and 1960 outdoor national championship teams, Mills faced racial discrimination from his teammates and even Coach Bill Easton. I remember hearing Mills tell a story about how at a team picture of all the Kansas All-Americans, the team took two pictures; one with Mills and the team, and one without him in it. Mills had suicidal thoughts after this incident but fortunately decided to channel his anger and frustration through running.

After graduation, Mills enlisted with the Marines where he continued his running and in 1964 he made the US Olympic team in the 10,000 meters. Once in Tokyo, Mills was barely noticed. When he tried to pick up a pair of running shoes from the company rep with the American team, he was told, “We only have shoes for potential medal winners.” Mills said quietly, “But I think I’m going to win.” To which the rep replied, “That’s a bunch of bull.”

Despite all of this, Mills went out with the leaders during the race. He passed through the halfway point (5000meters) faster than he had ever run a 5000meter race before. Despite this, Mills kept up with the leaders and with one lap to go he was one of four men that still had a chance to medal (if you watch the video on youtube, which I highly recommend, all of those other runners are being lapped). With about 300meters to go, Australian Ron Clarke elbowed Mills which knocked him almost out to lane three. Mills regrouped and made a heroic sprint towards the finish, winning in an Olympic record of 28:24.4. Many track and field experts still consider Mills’ victory the greatest upset in Olympic history. To this day, no other American has ever won an Olympic gold medal in the 10,000meters. A year later, Mills set a world record for the 6mile run and retired shortly afterwards.

Besides Mills’ ferocious training (he ran up to 90miles a week), he also maintained a traditional Lakota diet that was based on a 4 day cycle. One day, he ate something from “on the ground” (buffalo, deer, lamb, or beef); the next day “from the water” (fish); the next “from the air” (birds, chicken, or turkey); the next day from “in the ground” (vegetables). Each day, the diet also required foods of five colors: red, green, yellow, brown, and white; and they had to be “live” foods like fruit and grain.

Today, Mills travels the country giving various speeches. He works for Running Strong for American Indian Youth and with Wings of America, which promotes Native American running. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend attending one of his speeches. They are truly inspirational. There is a movie about Mills’ struggles called Running Brave that covers his struggles as a Native American all the way through his Olympic victory. Mills has also written two books, “Lessons of a Lakota” and “Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding”.

(Sorry for such a long post, but I am a huge Billy Mills fan and I find his story truly remarkable and inspiring. I got most of this info from Marc Bloom’s “Run with the Champions”. In the book, Bloom ranks Mills as the 6^th greatest American runner ever.)