Billy Mills

Born William Mervin Mills on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1938, Mills was one of eight children. The reservation, then as now, was one of the poorest districts in the United States, and residents often struggled with hunger, diabetes, alcoholism, and other health conditions. Mills's family was no exception. His mother, who was one-quarter Lakota Sioux, died when he was seven years old. His father, a boxer who was three-quarters Lakota, died when he was twelve. After being orphaned, Mills was sent to the Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas. This was a boarding school run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Billy Mills

At the school, Mills became involved in sports. His father had told him to live his life as a warrior. This meant combining physical and mental toughness with assuming responsibility for one's actions, being humble, and giving back to others. Mills wanted to be like his father, so he tried out for the boxing team, and he also played football. He was small and thin, 5 foot 2 inches tall and only 104 pounds, but he liked the discipline that football involved. He was not interested in track, and thought of it as a sport for sissies. However, he eventually tried running, and found that it involved a level of discipline, training, and mental focus as rigorous as that needed for football. In addition, his build was more suited to running. He soon became a top runner, and when he graduated from Haskell in 1958, he received a full athletic scholarship to the University of Kansas.

At Kansas, Mills had little contact with his long-scattered siblings, and he was lonely and isolated. According to a writer in Contemporary Heroes and Heroines Mills later said that this loneliness fueled his running: "I was running from rejection, from being orphaned…. The Indians called me mixed blood. The white world called me Indian. I was running in search of my identity. I was running to find Billy." In his first 10,000-meter race, Mills set a conference record. In 1958 and 1959 he was All-American in cross country; in 1960 he won the individual title in the Big Eight Conference cross-country tournament; and in 1961 he was conference champion in the 2-mile. The Kansas team won the NCAA outdoor national championships in 1959 and 1960.

Despite these wins, Mills did not receive any recognition. He did not qualify for the 1960 Olympics, and he lost his motivation, running poorly, sometimes dropping out of races.

At the end of his senior year, in 1962, Mills married his college girlfriend, Pat. At the same time, he became an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, based at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego. In the Marines, his running was encouraged, and he increased his training from 40 miles a week to 100 miles a week. With this grueling regimen, he won the inter-service 10,000-meter race in Germany. His time was 30.08. He also ran 4:08 in the mile, a personal record.

In 1964, Mills went to the Olympic Trials, finishing second, behind Gerry Lindgren. His time, 29:10.4, was the best he had ever run in the event, but it was almost a minute slower than that of the other runners who qualified for the event. Although Mills made the Olympic team, no one paid much attention to him.