Sportswriter Frank Bodani wrote this column in December 2006, and it seems appropriate to share it again here....
This is the perfect day to talk about an Olympic long-distance runner.
Christmas is for giving, for celebrating, for believing in others.
So it's the perfect time to talk about Billy Mills -- one of the world's special people you probably don't know enough about.
This is the perfect gift to my wife.
Mills is a hero to her, an inspiration and a role model and even a class project of sorts when she was a teacher.
You might have heard of him, maybe even watched the 1980s movie about him. But there's a good chance you don't know much -- that's what happens to 10,000-meter gold-medal winners from 40 years ago.
Time fades such things.
And that's unfortunate, because few stories are like his.
Mills grew up a Lakota Sioux on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was orphaned at 12.
Sports, almost literally, saved him.
It was a way to escape the ridicule he absorbed for looking different, for being an "Indian." For not having parents. For not seeming to fit in wherever he went.
"He couldn't run away, so he ran," my wife likes to say.
Mills ran for the University of Kansas. He joined the Marines and ran.
But though he qualified for those 1964 Olympics, he was so much of an afterthought. His personal best was nearly a full minute slower than the race favorite, Ron Clarke of Australia.
Mills even ran the race in borrowed shoes because the sponsors didn't have any left to give him.
And yet somehow he won that day, won the Olympic final by beating Clarke and all of the other favorites. A new Olympic record. The first -- and last -- American to win a 10,000-meter gold.
Some call it the greatest upset in Olympic history.
The grainy, black-and-white video clip of the stretch run on www.YouTube.com still sends chills.
You see the underdog rising up in those final moments, the leaders lapping the field, Mills getting pushed and stumbling. Then surging. Then charging past everyone at the end, running harder than he ever ran.
And that's only part of the story.
Mostly, what makes Billy Mills special is what he's done with the rest of his life. The way he's dedicated himself to raising money and hope for Native Americans.
He is humble and yet proud of who he is. He is not a headline grabber, not controversial.
My wife learned about him from that movie years ago and wanted to teach her students about him. How could they find an excuse to give up when Mills -- a poor orphan on an Indian reservation -- never did?
My wife still lights up when she talks about him, even though she's never met him. He still inspires her, still makes her feel good.
Still gives hope.
Now, he travels the country lecturing and fund-raising for an organization called "Running Strong for American Indian Youth."
He wants to help others who live the life that he lived.
He gives of himself all of the time.
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