William Mervin Mills or "Billy" Mills, also known as
Makata Taka Hela (born June 30, 1938), is the second
Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
to win an
OlympicThe Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
gold medalA gold medal is typically the medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture...
.
He accomplished this feat in the
10,000 meter runThe men's 10,000 metres was the longest of the seven men's track races in the Athletics at the 1964 Summer Olympics program in Tokyo. It was held on 14 October...
at the
1964 Tokyo OlympicsThe 1964 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Tokyo, Japan in 1964. Tokyo had been awarded with the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subsequently passed to Helsinki because of Japan's...
, becoming the only
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ever to win the Olympic gold in this event. His 1964 victory is considered one of the greatest of Olympic upsets. A former United States Marine, Billy Mills is a member of the
OglalaThe Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people; along with the Nakota and Dakota, they make up the Great Sioux Nation. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the...
Lakota (
SiouxThe Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
)
TribeA tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...
.
Biography
William Mervin Mills was born in
Pine Ridge, South DakotaPine Ridge is a census-designated place in and the most populous community of Shannon County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 3,308 at the 2010 census. It is the tribal headquarters of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.-History:By 2011, a gang culture...
, and was raised on the impoverished
Pine Ridge Indian ReservationThe Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is an Oglala Sioux Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was established in 1889 in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border...
for Oglala Sioux people. He was orphaned when he was twelve years old and was raised by his grandmother. Mills took up running while attending the Haskell Institute, which is now known as
Haskell Indian Nations UniversityHaskell Indian Nations University is a tribal university located in Lawrence, Kansas, for members of federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States...
in
Lawrence, KansasLawrence is the sixth largest city in the U.S. State of Kansas and the county seat of Douglas County. Located in northeastern Kansas, Lawrence is the anchor city of the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County...
. Both a boxer and a runner in his youth, Mills gave up boxing to focus on running.
He attended the
University of KansasThe University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...
on an athletic scholarship. He was named a
NCAAThe National Collegiate Athletic Association is a semi-voluntary association of 1,281 institutions, conferences, organizations and individuals that organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States...
All-AmericaAn All-America team is an honorary sports team composed of outstanding amateur players—those considered the best players of a specific season for each team position—who in turn are given the honorific "All-America" and typically referred to as "All-American athletes", or simply...
cross-country runner three times and in 1960 he won the individual title in the
Big EightThe Big Eight Conference, a former NCAA-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football, was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association by its charter member schools: the University of Kansas, University of Missouri, University...
cross-country championship. The University of Kansas track team won the 1959 and 1960 outdoor national championships while Mills was on the team.
After graduating with a degree in
Physical EducationPhysical education or gymnastics is a course taken during primary and secondary education that encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting....
, Mills entered the
United States Marine CorpsThe United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
. He was a First Lieutenant in the Marine Corps Reserves when he competed in the 1964 Olympics.
1964 Olympics
Billy Mills qualified for the
1964 Summer OlympicsThe 1964 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Tokyo, Japan in 1964. Tokyo had been awarded with the organization of the 1940 Summer Olympics, but this honor was subsequently passed to Helsinki because of Japan's...
on the U.S. Track and Field Team in the 10,000 meter and the
marathonThe marathon is a long-distance running event with an official distance of 42.195 kilometres , that is usually run as a road race...
. The favorite in 1964 for the 10,000 m was
Ron ClarkeRonald William "Ron" Clarke, MBE is a former Australian athlete, writer, and current Mayor of the Gold Coast. He is one of the best known middle and long distance runners in the 1960s, notable for setting seventeen world records.- Early life and family :He attended Melbourne High School...
of
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
who held the world record. The runners expected to challenge him were defending champion
Pyotr BolotnikovPyotr Grigoryevich Bolotnikov is a former Soviet athlete, one of the world's best stayers of the early 1960s, winner of 10,000 m at the 1960 Summer Olympics....
of the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and
Murray HalbergSir Murray Gordon Halberg, ONZ, MBE is a former New Zealand middle distance runner who won the gold medal in the 5000 metres event at the 1960 Olympics. He also won gold medals in the 3 miles events at the 1958 and 1962 Commonwealth Games...
of
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, who had won the 5000 m in
1960The 1960 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held from August 25 to September 11, 1960 in Rome, Italy...
.
Mills was a virtual unknown. He had finished second in the U.S. Olympic trials. His time in the preliminaries was a full minute slower than Clarke's. Clarke set the tone of the race. His tactic of surging every other lap appeared to be working. Halfway through the race, only four runners were still with Clarke:
Mohammed GammoudiMohammed Tlili ben Abdallah , also known as Mohamed Gammoudi, is a former Tunisian athlete, and winner of 5000 metres at the 1968 Summer Olympics....
of
TunisiaTunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
,
Mamo WoldeDegaga Wolde was an Ethiopian long distance track and road running athlete and was winner of the marathon at the 1968 Summer Olympics....
of
EthiopiaEthiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
,
Kokichi Tsuburayawas a Japanese athlete who competed mainly in the Marathon. He competed for Japan in the 1964 Summer Olympics held in Tokyo, Japan, where he won the bronze medal, and was overtaken within the final 100 meters by Basil Heatley of the UK.After the Tokyo Olympics, Kokichi suffered from lumbago...
of
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and Mills. Tsuburaya, the local favorite, lost contact first, then Wolde. With two laps to go, only two runners were still with Clarke. On paper, it seemed to be Clarke's race. He had run a world record time of 28:15.6 while neither Gammoudi nor Mills had ever run under 29
minuteA minute is a unit of measurement of time or of angle. The minute is a unit of time equal to 1/60th of an hour or 60 seconds. In the UTC time scale, a minute on rare occasions has 59 or 61 seconds; see leap second. The minute is not an SI unit; however, it is accepted for use with SI units...
s.
Mills and Clarke were running together with Gammoudi right behind as they entered the final lap.
They were lapping other runners and, down the backstretch, Clarke was boxed in. He pushed Mills once, then again. Then Gammoudi pushed them both and surged into the lead as they rounded the final curve. Clarke recovered and began chasing Gammoudi while Mills appeared to be too far back to be in contention. Clarke failed to catch Gammoudi, but Mills pulled out to lane 3 and sprinted past them both. His winning time of 28:24.4 was almost 50
secondThe second is a unit of measurement of time, and is the International System of Units base unit of time. It may be measured using a clock....
s faster than he had run before and set a new Olympic record for the event. No American had ever before won the 10,000 m, nor has one come seriously close since.
American television viewers were able to hear the surprise and drama as NBC expert analyst Dick Bank screamed, "Look at Mills, look at Mills" over the more sedate play-by-play announcer Bud Palmer, who seemed to miss what was unfolding. For bringing that drama to the coverage, Bank was fired.
After the race, Mills talked with Clarke and asked if he was straining as hard as he could on the final straightaway to the finish, to which Clarke replied, "Yes." Mills has stated that he tried to be relaxed during his final kick to the finish line and felt that helped him to pass both Gammoudi and Clarke. Both Clarke and Mills ran the marathon at the 1964 Olympics after the 10,000 m event. Clarke finished in 9th place, and Mills finished in 14th, in a respectable 2:22:55.4, approximately two-and-a-half minutes behind Clarke.
Post-Olympics
Mills later set U.S. records for 10,000 m (28:17.6) and the three-mile run, and had a 5,000 m best of 13:41.4. In 1965, he and Gerry Lindgren both broke the
world recordA world record is usually the best global performance ever recorded and verified in a specific skill or sport. The book Guinness World Records collates and publishes notable records of all types, from first and best to worst human achievements, to extremes in the natural world and beyond...
for the six-mile run when they finished in a tie at the
AAU-Education:* Aalborg University, in Denmark* Academy of Art University,in San Francisco* Addis Ababa University, in Ethiopia* Allied American University, brand used by Allied Schools in California, United States* Alpen-Adria-University of Klagenfurt, in Austria...
National ChampionshipsThe USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships is an annual track and field competition organized by USA Track & Field, which serves as the American national championships for the sport...
, running 27:11.6.
Legacy and honors
- 1976, Billy Mills was inducted into the United States National Track and Field Hall of Fame
The National Track and Field Hall of Fame located within the Armory Foundation at 216 Fort Washington Avenue, between 168th and 169th Streets, in Washington Heights, in the New York City borough of Manhattan, is a museum operated by The Armory Foundation in conjunction with USA Track & Field...
in 1976,
- 1984, he was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame
The United States Olympic Hall of Fame is an honor roll of the top American Olympic athletes.The Hall of Fame was established by the United States Olympic Committee in 1979; the first members were inducted in 1983. Between 1992 and 2003, the Hall of Fame went dormant, with no induction of new...
. *He has also been inducted into the National Distance Running Hall of FameThe National Distance Running Hall of Fame was established on July 11, 1998, to honor those who have contributed to the sport of distance running...
, the Kansas Hall of Fame, the South Dakota Hall of Fame, the San Diego Hall of Fame, and the National High School Hall of Fame.
- Mills is the subject of the film Running Brave
Running Brave is a 1983 movie based on the story of Billy Mills, a North American Indian brought up on the reservation, destined against all odds to become the best distance runner in the world in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics....
(1983), starring Robby BensonRobby Benson is an American film and television actor, television director, educator and singer.-Early life:Benson was born Robin David Segal in Dallas, Texas, the son of Freda Ann , a singer, actress, and business promotions manager, and Jerry Segal, a writer...
.
- Mills also serves as the spokesperson for Running Strong for American Indian Youth, an organization that helps support projects that benefit the American Indian people, especially the youth.
Books
- 1990, Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding, written with Nicholas Sparks
Nicholas Charles Sparks is an internationally-bestselling American novelist and screenwriter. He has 16 published novels, with thematic ideas that include cancer, death and love. Six have been adapted to film, including Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe,...
.
- 2005, Lessons of a Lakota.
See also
- Olympic medalists in athletics
This is the complete list of men's Olympic medalists in athletics from 1896 to 2008.- 100 metres :- 200 metres :- 400 metres :- 800 metres :- 1500 metres :- 5000 metres :- 10,000 metres :- Marathon :...
- Jim Thorpe
Jacobus Franciscus "Jim" Thorpe * Gerasimo and Whiteley. pg. 28 * americaslibrary.gov, accessed April 23, 2007. was an American athlete of mixed ancestry...
External links