Tri State
Billy Mills sends message to runners: pursue your dreams
1964 Olympic Gold Medalist speaks to hundreds before Race for the Nation 5K
By Kevin Spradlin
Tristaterunnur.com
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. – After nearly 73 minutes of presentation, Billy Mills gave the crowd inside the Chambersburg Area Middle School gymnasium a chance to leave if they so desired.
After all, the South Dakota native had promised only 50 minutes of his time on Friday night, the eve of the 1st annual Race for the Nation 5K. Proceeds from the race are to be split equally between the Chambersburg Steelers Youth Football team and the Southwest Indian Foundation’s Housing program.
Almost everyone stayed. They weren’t about to pass up a chance to hear more from Billy Mills, the last American to win gold in the 10,000-meter run in the Summer Olympic Games.
1992 Olympic marathon Steve Spence encouraged members of his Shippensburg University cross country team to attend on Friday night, one night before the Raiders were to compete in their first meet of the fall season. Spence said he wanted his runners present to witness something special, something inspirational.
“I don’t think we were disappointed at all,” Spence said.
In fact, Spence, who won the 1991 World Championships Marathon, had a special dialogue with Mills and Shippensburg University’s own aspiring Olympian, Neely Spence. Neely, an 18-year-old freshman for the Raiders, had a standout high school career divided by two home schooled years and two more running with Shippensburg High, where she earned two consecutive state championships.
“It was really, really neat,” Neely Spence said of talking with her father and Mills before the presentation.
Spence was unable to compete in the high school-sanctioned state championship meets as a freshman and sophomore. It might have been four in a row. It’s “one of my biggest regrets,” she said, of not being able to pursue the first two titles.
She has her sights set on this year’s cross country season and, perhaps as early as next year, transferring to a Division I school in a move designed to prepare her for bigger and better things. Spence sees herself training for the 2012 Olympic Trials but, beyond that, “I don’t know if I have the aspiration to continue on.”
The good thing is that she doesn’t have to know what lies in store four years or more down the road. The great thing is she knows that. So, Friday night, she was able to lean forward about midway up the bleachers and listen intently to Mills’ message of hope, determination and, above all, commitment to a better self and community.
“‘The Indian guy won.’”
Lesson No. 1, Mills relayed, was never give up.
“The moment was very, very special for me. I truly felt as if I had wings on my feet,” Mills said, describing the final seconds of the 1964 Olympic 10,000-meter run as he passed two competitors in the final 12 strides to win gold.
Mills talked quite about stereotypes, or perceptions, and how many people can come to a conclusion about something long before researching an issue and making sound, fact-based decision.
On the way to Olympic Stadium in Tokyo in 1964, Mills said he sat beside a female Olympian from Poland. She asked what event he was in. He answered.
Female: Who’s going to win?
Mills: (on his second or third attempt, reaching from the gut): I’m going to win.
Female: What’s your name?
Mills: Billy Mills.
Female: Oh.
Mills said the conversation stopped, leaving the crowd under the impression the Polish athlete didn’t feel Mills was a legitimate contender.
And nearly halfway through the 6.2-mile race, he didn’t, either. At the 3-mile mark, Mills said he was one second slower than his personal best mark at the distance. With 3.2 miles still to go, he knew it was going to put a strain on his body to just finish, much less contend.
“There was no way I could quit,” said Mills.
On the final lap, Mills was boxed in but a German competitor moved into the fifth lane and let Mills out. It was just the opening Mills needed to motivate him the final 100 meters to the finish line.
“That one fleeting moment, I was the best in the world,” Mills said.
Billy Mills was 26 years old that year and retired shortly after winning Olympic gold. And as much of a feel-good story Mills’ is, he nearly didn’t make it.
His mother died of cancer when he was 8. Four years later, his father passed. But before leaving Mills an orphan, his father challenged his son to excel in sport.
“I had a challenge to pursue a dream,” Mills said.
As a high school sophomore at an Indian boarding school in Lawrence, Kansas, Mills broke a number of high school track records. But success didn’t come easy. He worked building grain elevators from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and slept in the back of an abandoned Hudson Hornet.
“I always found 45 minutes to 60 minutes a day to run,” Mills said, between homework and his full-time job.
Mills’ life nearly ended one night early in his life. From the window of a hotel room, Mills heard a quiet voice telling him to “let go” and leave the earthly world behind. Lucky for him – and the millions he’s inspired since – a second voice whispered, then boldly stated his orders. They were simple. “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”
He didn’t. Instead, he left the window’s ledge, grabbed a pencil and wrote the following words while forming what at that point was likely considered a highly improbable goal: “10,000 meters. Gold. Believe.”
Mills has since received numerous awards, honors and recognition as having run one of the top distance runners in Olympic history. But the sport, and his success in it, is now just a vehicle for his message of global unity and “unity through diversity.”
The race he will preside at on Saturday will, in part, benefit other Native Americans who could be, by pursuing their own dreams, the next Billy Mills. Now 70, Mills’ competitive running days are long over. But his inspiration can reach into the hearts of everyone at the starting line.
Neely Spence is one of those runners he might reach. While yearning to make her own mark on the national and, perhaps later, international scene, she’s content to soak up the sport’s history in between training runs and benefit from it alls he can.
“He’s the reason we’re here tonight,” she said. “I think everyone in the arena” can take advantage of what he said.
More Coming Later
1964 Olympic Gold Medalist speaks to hundreds before Race for the Nation 5K
By Kevin Spradlin
Tristaterunnur.com
CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. – After nearly 73 minutes of presentation, Billy Mills gave the crowd inside the Chambersburg Area Middle School gymnasium a chance to leave if they so desired.
After all, the South Dakota native had promised only 50 minutes of his time on Friday night, the eve of the 1st annual Race for the Nation 5K. Proceeds from the race are to be split equally between the Chambersburg Steelers Youth Football team and the Southwest Indian Foundation’s Housing program.
Almost everyone stayed. They weren’t about to pass up a chance to hear more from Billy Mills, the last American to win gold in the 10,000-meter run in the Summer Olympic Games.
1992 Olympic marathon Steve Spence encouraged members of his Shippensburg University cross country team to attend on Friday night, one night before the Raiders were to compete in their first meet of the fall season. Spence said he wanted his runners present to witness something special, something inspirational.
“I don’t think we were disappointed at all,” Spence said.
In fact, Spence, who won the 1991 World Championships Marathon, had a special dialogue with Mills and Shippensburg University’s own aspiring Olympian, Neely Spence. Neely, an 18-year-old freshman for the Raiders, had a standout high school career divided by two home schooled years and two more running with Shippensburg High, where she earned two consecutive state championships.
“It was really, really neat,” Neely Spence said of talking with her father and Mills before the presentation.
Spence was unable to compete in the high school-sanctioned state championship meets as a freshman and sophomore. It might have been four in a row. It’s “one of my biggest regrets,” she said, of not being able to pursue the first two titles.
She has her sights set on this year’s cross country season and, perhaps as early as next year, transferring to a Division I school in a move designed to prepare her for bigger and better things. Spence sees herself training for the 2012 Olympic Trials but, beyond that, “I don’t know if I have the aspiration to continue on.”
The good thing is that she doesn’t have to know what lies in store four years or more down the road. The great thing is she knows that. So, Friday night, she was able to lean forward about midway up the bleachers and listen intently to Mills’ message of hope, determination and, above all, commitment to a better self and community.
“‘The Indian guy won.’”
Lesson No. 1, Mills relayed, was never give up.
“The moment was very, very special for me. I truly felt as if I had wings on my feet,” Mills said, describing the final seconds of the 1964 Olympic 10,000-meter run as he passed two competitors in the final 12 strides to win gold.
Mills talked quite about stereotypes, or perceptions, and how many people can come to a conclusion about something long before researching an issue and making sound, fact-based decision.
On the way to Olympic Stadium in Tokyo in 1964, Mills said he sat beside a female Olympian from Poland. She asked what event he was in. He answered.
Female: Who’s going to win?
Mills: (on his second or third attempt, reaching from the gut): I’m going to win.
Female: What’s your name?
Mills: Billy Mills.
Female: Oh.
Mills said the conversation stopped, leaving the crowd under the impression the Polish athlete didn’t feel Mills was a legitimate contender.
And nearly halfway through the 6.2-mile race, he didn’t, either. At the 3-mile mark, Mills said he was one second slower than his personal best mark at the distance. With 3.2 miles still to go, he knew it was going to put a strain on his body to just finish, much less contend.
“There was no way I could quit,” said Mills.
On the final lap, Mills was boxed in but a German competitor moved into the fifth lane and let Mills out. It was just the opening Mills needed to motivate him the final 100 meters to the finish line.
“That one fleeting moment, I was the best in the world,” Mills said.
Billy Mills was 26 years old that year and retired shortly after winning Olympic gold. And as much of a feel-good story Mills’ is, he nearly didn’t make it.
His mother died of cancer when he was 8. Four years later, his father passed. But before leaving Mills an orphan, his father challenged his son to excel in sport.
“I had a challenge to pursue a dream,” Mills said.
As a high school sophomore at an Indian boarding school in Lawrence, Kansas, Mills broke a number of high school track records. But success didn’t come easy. He worked building grain elevators from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and slept in the back of an abandoned Hudson Hornet.
“I always found 45 minutes to 60 minutes a day to run,” Mills said, between homework and his full-time job.
Mills’ life nearly ended one night early in his life. From the window of a hotel room, Mills heard a quiet voice telling him to “let go” and leave the earthly world behind. Lucky for him – and the millions he’s inspired since – a second voice whispered, then boldly stated his orders. They were simple. “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”
He didn’t. Instead, he left the window’s ledge, grabbed a pencil and wrote the following words while forming what at that point was likely considered a highly improbable goal: “10,000 meters. Gold. Believe.”
Mills has since received numerous awards, honors and recognition as having run one of the top distance runners in Olympic history. But the sport, and his success in it, is now just a vehicle for his message of global unity and “unity through diversity.”
The race he will preside at on Saturday will, in part, benefit other Native Americans who could be, by pursuing their own dreams, the next Billy Mills. Now 70, Mills’ competitive running days are long over. But his inspiration can reach into the hearts of everyone at the starting line.
Neely Spence is one of those runners he might reach. While yearning to make her own mark on the national and, perhaps later, international scene, she’s content to soak up the sport’s history in between training runs and benefit from it alls he can.
“He’s the reason we’re here tonight,” she said. “I think everyone in the arena” can take advantage of what he said.
More Coming Later
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