Hello everyone,
After almost a three month hiatus I’m back and I’m here to stay. After the last newsletter which focused on a player who had everything to make it big time only to falter in the most significant moment, today I decided to switch things up and write about the exact opposite. A person who, against all odds, achieved his biggest dream, even though everybody counted him out; I’m, of course, talking about Olympic Runner Billy Mills.
Billy Mills was born on June 30th, 1938 (Just 2 months later, former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain would deliver one of the worst takes of all time after signing the Munich Pact, saying he had just achieved “Peace for our time”, that angry moustache man really tricked him eh). As the year he was born wasn’t bad enough, he was born in South Dakota and was of Indian heritage (not a great way to start off, to be honest). Named Oglala Lakota by his parents, which roughly translates to “respect the earth” (I don’t know how they wound up calling him Billy Mills, but I guess Billy’s are respectful or something of the sort), he grew up on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a small area of South Dakota with around 20 thousand inhabitants.
Treatment of the local Indians by Americans in the past wasn’t the best (a slight understatement, but moving swiftly on), as he was constantly abused by racist remarks from people outside his community. To make his childhood much more difficult (because being extremely poor and frequently used isn’t hard enough), both his parents, unfortunately, passed away before his 13th birthday and had to live with his older brothers in severe conditions.
Instead of tunnelling his rage and sadness into alcohol or drugs like many besides him, he focused all this energy on running and boxing. In the midst of his life, filled with uncertainties and question marks, one thing stood out: our boy Mills could run. He attended the Haskell Institute, an Indian school in Lawrence, Kansas, where he quickly became a state sensation, breaking all the long-distance records in the running. With this prowess, he received several scholarship offers and ended up enrolling at the University of Kansas. There, he levelled up to country sensation, earning 3 straight all-American awards (given only to the top runners in the country). Still, the racial prejudice continued, as Billy was constantly verbally abused and discriminated against. There is a very famous event that almost led Mills to suicide after qualifying as an 18th-year-old for a track competition in Brazil. He went to take a picture with his colleagues, only for the photographer to stop and order him to step aside. (Racism in the 60s was different). This hit Mills hard as he proceeded to go to his room, get on top of a chair and jump. Fortunately for us, as he was about to jump, he reminded himself of his late father’s words and his dream and stepped down and consequently wrote on a piece of paper, “Gold Medal, 10000m race”. (The heart of a true champion, the definition of trusting the process and shutting down the critics).
With a fire burning inside him, Billy joined the Marine Corps after he graduated college. Back then, the Olympic Committee asked, for whatever reason, for the competitors to be amateur, so he decided to join the Marine to keep himself in top shape. Between the harsh life in the Marines (where he rose to the rank of First Lieutenant) and a strict training regime, he improved considerably, ending 1962 ranked as the 8th best 10000m racer in the world. (Not bad, but definitely not good enough to achieve gold). At the beginning of 1963, he made a troubling discovery: he suffered from hypoglycemia, which causes blood sugar levels to drop below average, as well as borderline type 2 diabetes, which elevates glucose levels. (Not the most remarkable thing for a long-distance runner, as you might figure). During the Olympic trials, where he easily qualified for the Olympics being the top runner in the country, he had a scary incident where, after finishing the race, he completely blacked out and only recovered after drinking a cup of Coca-Cola. (The drink of the actual athletes). This scared Mills, who contemplated stopping there before realizing that this was his one shot at realizing his lifelong dream. It was now or never.
Knowing this was his only shot, Billy was obsessed with giving it all during the Olympics, and to provide himself with even more dedication, he put up a piece of paper with the number “28:25”, the time he was aiming for. There was a slight problem, however, that time was 50 seconds faster than his career best. (Cutting 5 seconds is already huge; 50 seconds is unthinkable). Still, he worked his ass off and left en route to Tokyo with nothing more than a dream.
The day was October 14 1964, and more than 35 runners lined up for a chance to be immortalized in history with a gold medal. For all the marbles, Billy’s lifelong dream was going to be decided in the next 30 minutes. The cameras, whoever didn’t even acknowledge Mills’ existence (little did they know that the skinny Indian was 30 minutes away from celebrity status) instead, focused on the 2 significant favourites, Australian Ron Clarke, the world record holder at the time (who recorded times faster than Billy by more than a minute) and Tunisian Gammoudi. It was essentially a two-horse race for gold.
The sound went off, and all of a sudden, all the runners were off. As expected, after just 1000m, two clear groups would form, the one created by Clarke and Gammoudi and then everybody else. Whoever, it seemed like a specific Indian fella hadn’t received the memo that it wasn’t his race to win and decided to join the first pack without any prior warning. (How rude of him). Both the Australian and the Tunisian stepped up their pace to separate themselves from their fellow competitor, but they would eventually figure out that this scrawny man was not here to come in 3rd. He came all the way from South Dakota with gold in his mind. The race was on. Laps came and went, and as the bell rang, which signalled the 5000m mark, all three runners were stuck together like gold. Billy looked at the time and noticed an interesting fact: that was the fastest 5 km he had ever run. Big-time athletes rise up to the occasion, and Mills was doing precisely that.
The gold medal was going to be decided in the final lap, and when the bell rang, signalling the last lap, it was on. The three racers picked up their pace even more and started lapping the other’s competitors. In the beginning, it seemed that the speed that the other two runners were at was unreachable to Mills, and he would have to settle for 3rd place as he fell behind. But, as I have previously stated, Mills made the trip in search of gold. It was all or nothing. Mills was applying his own strategy, which was to save some energy and then make a final big push. 120m from the finish line, he was a few meters behind his opponents. Everything seemed over. Then, the magic happened. Somehow, Billy had saved enough energy for a final legendary sprint, which will be remembered forever, mainly thanks to the colour commentator losing his mind, screaming at the top of his lungs, “Look at Mills!” as he passed the other two racers before crossing the finish line. He had done. Billy Mills was officially an Olympic Champion. The crowd cheered in pure awe as they had just witnessed one of the most improbable gold medals in Olympic History. To put the cherry on top, the time was announced to the whole stadium: 28:24, 55 seconds better than his previous career best, and more importantly, 1 second faster than the paper on his wall.
After all that he went through, be it the constant abuse or the death of his parents, this poor little North Dakotan had done the impossible to achieve his lifelong dream. From that point on, Billy became a US celebrity and an Indigenous hero. He used the fame to his advantage to create several foundations to help his fellow Indians and became a famous motivational speaker. He is currently retired at 85 years of age. Now, he lives in Sacramento, California, but his legacy of fighting adversity lives on, especially in the Indian territories, which he regularly visits to motivate the youth. This is the story of one of the most unlikely gold medalists ever, who fought through a lot of difficulties to reach his lifelong dream, the man, the myth, the legend, Billy Mills.