Olympic Great Billy Mills

“Look at Mills! Look at Mills!” the announcer yelled, in one of those moments where professional training is abandoned to the excitement of unexpected events. At the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Billy Mills won the gold medal in the 10,000-meter run. His victory was so startling that one of the first questions the press asked was “Who are you?”

Born and raised on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the half-white, half Lakota (Sioux) Mills grew up in poverty and was orphaned at the age of 12. Running provided a positive focus, though it didn’t stop him from contemplating suicide after he was asked to step out of a photograph of his college All-America track team.

While serving as a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, Mills trained for 18 months for the Olympic track team and qualified in both the 10K and the marathon. He was an afterthought in a field of returning medalists and world record holders, led by Australian Ron Clarke and Mohammad Gammoudi of Tunisia. Both pushed Mills during the final lap, but he darted past them with a late burst of speed that triggered one of the most thrilling finishes in Olympic track history.

Billy Mills

No American had won the 10K before Mills, and none have won it since. His improbable victory inspired the 1983 film Running Brave, starring Robby Benson.

After the Olympics, Mills established more U.S. and world records in long-distance running and became a successful businessman. Today, he is the national spokesman for Running Strong for American Indian Youth, a nonprofit organization he cofounded that helps communities with self-sufficiency programs. He and his wife Patricia now live in Sacramento, California, where Mills owns and operates Billy Mills Speakers Bureau.

C&I talked to Mills from his home in California in 2011 for this interview. The article originally appeared in our June 2011 issue.

C&I: Your gold medal run was more than 45 years ago. How often are you asked about it?
Billy Mills: Oh, gosh, daily.

C&I: Clips of the race, including your amazing final lap, are online. When was the last time you watched your victory?
Mills: Probably six to seven days ago, on a plane. I was talking to this young female executive; she looked at my ring and said, “That’s nice.” I said it was from the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame. She said, “If you’re in there I can probably Google you.” [Laughs.] Then [she watches the finish] and said, “That’s one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen!” It happens in strange places.

C&I: Did you expect to win?
Mills: Four days before the Olympics I went to the practice track, to do a few 200-meter sprints. No 10K runner would do that as a warm-up. But I wanted to find out what speed I could count on coming off the final curve. I felt if Clarke takes the lead and sets a fast pace, and I could stay with the leaders, I had the speed to out-kick them at the finish.

C&I: Did the pushes from Clark and Gammoudi make you more determined to win?
Mills: It was a distraction. I stumbled and I thought my quads were going to buckle. Initially I was going to take off after Clarke and push him. But then I thought I have to get focused. You don’t want to win the battle and lose the war.

Billy Mills’ Olympic 10K finish.

C&I: Getting to the Olympics is a long shot for anyone, but in your case it was particularly surprising.
Mills: The first time I wrote down ‘Gold Medal in 10,000-meter run” was my junior year in college, when society broke me, after I was asked to get out of the photo after I made All-American. I was going to jump from the 6th floor, commit suicide. Instead of jumping I heard “Don’t’ from the voice of my dad, who died when I was 12. “Don’t” four times. Four is sacred to the Lakota — the four directions. And I got down and wrote “Gold Medal in 10,000 meter run.”

C&I: You’ve said that you felt your father’s spirit during the race.
Mills: On the final curve I’m going by runners and one steps out in front of me, a German. As I go by I look and in the center of his jersey I saw an eagle. It reminded me of when I was a boy and my dad told me that “You have broken wings, but someday you can have wings of an eagle.” Now as I’m going by him I have the strange feeling my dad’s spirit was with me. After the race I found the German, and there was no eagle there. I found out later it was on his warm-up jacket, which I had seen a week earlier.

C&I: What was the reaction to your victory like in the Native American community?
Mills: Our tribal elders honored me with the Lakota name Makata Taka Hela, which means, “love your country.” One of the elders, Oliver Red Cloud said, “I bet you got telegrams from all over the world.” I did. The first one I read was from Colonel John Glenn, who had just orbited the earth. Oliver said, “While the rest of America sent telegrams, we took the sacred pipe and had a ceremony. We prayed to the four directions, to Mother Earth, to Grandfather, our creator, not that you would win, but that you would represent yourself with dignity. Because if you did, you’d represent the Lakota, and all of America with dignity.

Billy Mills with wife Patricia Mills.

C&I: What did the gold medal mean to you?
Mills: My victory was a gift to me from the spirit world, from a higher power, but I orchestrated it, I choreographed it. When the ceremonies were over, I was on a plane with my wife, still overwhelmed by the gift. So if you feel you have been given a gift, what do you do? I went back into Lakota culture and gave back to the people who helped me. I decided I’d spend the rest of my life focusing on Lakota virtues and values. One way to do that was to take the inspiration given to me and pass it on to younger generations.

C&I: Why do you think the Olympics aren’t as big a deal now as they used to be?
Mills: That’s a very intriguing question. What you say has some credibility in America, but on a global basis the games are bigger than they have ever been. And that points out many things about us in America. We have been so sheltered from global issues, whether it’s sports, politics, economic development, we have not been plugged into that. We have this incredible opportunity to learn from a global basis to properly portray the leadership role that most of the world wants us to portray.

C&I: Now a gold medalist can endorse a track shoe and make $10 million.
Mills: That’s right. And I never owned a pair of track shoes until the night before the Olympics. [Laughs.]

Wings of an Eagle, Patricia Mills, Acrylic on canvas, 4’ x 6’, 2008, Permanent collection at Crazy Horse Memorial, Crazy Horse, South Dakota Legends Gallery.

Billy Mills’ Shoe Story

“The shoe story: I went to get shoes from the Adidas rep at the Olympic Village. They told me they were running out of my size and were only giving shoes to potential medal winners. Discouraged and upset and with no decent shoes to run in, the Puma rep told me they would provide shoes. I went to their area and picked out some shoes. When I got back to my room, there were many boxes of Adidas shoes on my bed, because Adi Dassler [Adidas] and Puma were rivals and brothers! I wore the Adidas in the race, but if you look closely, I wore the Pumas on the victory stand. That’s my story.” — From Billy Mills, on Facebook