Hero's Homecoming 'Overwhelms' Mills
Rv Glen Phillips
Billy Mills came home Saturday.
And 45,000 applauding fans let him know that Kansas was, indeed, his state.
The fans assembled for the KU Homecoming game gave the smiling Mills, the first American to capture a gold medal in the Olympic 10,000 meter run, the same warm welcome he has received everywhere. He has stopped in this state which he has adopted for his home.
AFTER THE GAME, SEVERAL HUNDRED admirers of the 26-year-old KU graduate gathered in the south lounge of the Kansas Union for the ceremony in which Mills was admitted to the Kansas All-Sports Hall of Fame. He is the 24th member of that group.
Later Saturday night Mills was honored by a program presented by his high school alma mater, Haskell Institute.
When asked Sunday evening how he felt after a weekend crammed with receptions, programs and honors, Mills said:
"I was just overwhelmed by the receptions at Coffeyville, KU and Haskell. . . I couldn't believe people thought I deserved it."
MILLS REMARKED THAT HE saw several old friends when he returned to Haskell for the reception. He said, "It was nice. They had a real nice reception . . . but I didn't have much time to talk to the people I knew."
The gala weekend was not without its hardships, though, and even by Saturday fatigue was beginning to tell on young Mills. However, the spunky young runner could still manage a smile and a handshake for all the admirers and well-wishers that gathered to meet him after the Hall of Fame ceremony in the Kansas Union.
The festivities had begun Friday when Mills and his wife, Pat, returned to Coffeyville. It had been his wife's home town and Bill had adopted it for his own. And the town went wild welcoming back the Olympic champion.
There was an early morning breakfast for Mills. Friday afternoon there was a 33-unit parade including a ticker tape shower.
SATURDAY MORNING MILLS CAME to Lawrence for a luncheon with Chancellor Wescoe and the rest of the ceremonies here. He and his college track coach, Bill Easton, have been invited to the Kansas City Byline Club luncheon Monday.
Mills has traveled from obscurity to fame.
He is a native of Pine Ridge, S.D., and was the last of six children born to Grace and Sidney Mills in a government hospital in the land of Oglala Sioux.
In 1953 Bill entered Haskell. He was 4 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 97 pounds. However, he was undaunted by his physical size and he went out for freshman football and track.
Since Billy couldn't run as fast as the other boys in track, he volunteered for the half-mile, and he won his first race over the other favored half-miler from Haskell. But it was a cross-country race later that year that was to cinch Mills' fate.
The cross-country meet was held at the university and that afternoon there were headlines about the small Indian runner from Pine Ridge. He had run the two-mile course in 9:28.1, and had broken Wes Santee's record in the event by 30 seconds.
Billy Mills was a cross-country runner for sure.
AND EVEN THOUGH HE LOST some races, Mills was the Big Eight conference champion in cross-country and the two-mile and was a member of the NCAA championship team. He set a Big Eight record in the 10,000 meter run of 31 minutes that still stands.
Mills did not always reach the goals he had set for himself in college and he even seemed to lose confidence in himself. But his coach, Bill Easton, felt that he was on the verge of great running while he was in school here.
As Mills put it later, "I knew I was good enough to compete on national level, but I felt I should be on the international level. . . . I had used all I had and I wasn't there."
Then he added, "Coach Easton always believed in me. . . . He tried to bring out a belief in my capabilities in me."
But then something happened that Mills considers to be the thing that made him decide to continue with his track work and to win. He married Pat Harris of Coffeyville on January 27, 1962.
ALTHOUGH DURING HIS SENIOR YEAR, he was ineligible for track and had quit track, for good he thought, Pat changed his mind.
"She knew I wasn't happy if I wasn't running," Mills said, "and she encouraged me to at least go out and do my best . . . I ran for my wife, my coaches, my brothers, and people who were close to me and believed in me . . . I knew if I did good, I would be happy and they would be happy. . ."
By the time Pat had convinced Billy he had graduated and was in officer training for the Marine Corps at Quantico, Va. He was recruited by the special services division for cross-country running about two weeks before he received his commission.
So Billy Mills ran. And he won. He won the inter-service 10,000 meters and in Germany ran his fastest 10,000 meters ever—30:08.
AFTER HARD TRAINING and with lots of encouragement from his wife and friends, Mills tried out for the Olympics and won a six-mile qualifying heat with a time of 27:56, which was under the American record.
Thus, Billy Mills, an unknown distance man went to Tokyo hoping to win. The American press was not looking at Mills. Even after Mills had won and reporters were flocking around him at the finish line, they were shouting and asking him his name.
Daily hansan
62nd Year, No. 37
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
However, the KU squad gave Nebraska two scares in the last quarter of what was considered by some as one of the "greatest football shows" of the KU season.
Homecoming Activities Draw Record Crowds
KANSAS ROOTERS kept their spirit until the last few seconds of the game, hoping for another "final play victory" for which the Jayhawks have been famous this season.
The only visible flaw in Homecoming for KU fans was. Nebraska's 14-7 victory over the Kansas Jayhawks Saturday.
Monday, Nov. 9, 1964
"It looks like it's going to be another Oklahoma game," one fan remarked in the last quarter.
By Suellen McKinley
Record crowds attended KU's 1964 Homecoming activities last weekend, according to the estimates of Dick Wintermote, executive secretary of the Alumni Association.
"Homecoming was tremendously successful in every respect," Wintermote said. "As far as I can tell, it came off without a single hitch."
"However, the crowd was a late crowd because of the bad weather," Bilotta said. "I think everybody got here, but they held back to see if the weather cleared off."
Wintermote said that he felt the most important aspect of Homecoming was the student help and enthusiasm.
But hopes for surprise ending shattered in the last five minutes of play when Gale Sayers fumbled a pass from Bob Skahan on the Nebraska 15.
Winternote said it was too early to figure the exact number of people at KU this weekend, but that the University Theatre performance of "West Side Story" and the KU-Nebraska football game were sell-outs.
"THAT IS THE THING that means so much to all of us," Winternote said.
THAT WAS THE LAST TIME KU had possession of the ball, and Nebraska played out the clock for the remaining 4:15 minutes.
VINCENT BILOTTA, field secretary for the Alumni Association, said he also felt that Homecoming went "superbly."
MISS Catherine Bergstrom, Kansas City, Mo., senior, representing Pi Beta Phi sorority, was crowned 1964 Homecoming Queen by Governor John Anderson. Chancellor Wesco presented her with her flowers.
the weather bureau predicts generally fair weather for tonight and tomorrow with cooling temperatures.
The low tonight will be in the middle 40's with southerly winds of 15 to 25 miles an hour.
oee presented her with the When she was named Homecoming Queen at halftime, Miss Bergstrom, 21, said, "I just couldn't believe it. I wasn't sure it was my name and was afraid to step forward. It seemed like I stood there a long time before I finally realized I was queen."
Weather
MISS DONNA LEE MILLER, Wichita senior, and Miss Susan Nash, La Grange, Ill., senior, representing Kappa Alpha Theta and Gamma Phi Beta, respectively, were the attendants.
As the KU band played "Tonight from "West Side Story" and formed the name "Cathy," the crimson-robed Miss Bergstrom and her two princesses rode around the field in convertibles.
Competition was the word of the day Saturday in every respect even in the performances of the Nebraska and KU bands as they tried to "out flash" one another.
THE QUICK - STEPPING APPEARANCE on the field of the 144 man Nebraska marching band brought cheers from KU spectators, as well as from the red-clad Nebraska cheering section. Two drum majors and the Nebraska "Golden Girl" trick twirler strutted out ahead of the NU band in the pre-game and halftime ceremonies.
The 121 piece KU marching band also received their share of the cheers when they made their traditional double-time march from out of the stadium, led by the high-
stepping drum major, Dennis Tuggle, Cimarron sophomore.
During the pre-game ceremony, Billy Mills, winner of the Olympic Games 10,000 meter gold medal and former KU track star, was honored for his athletic excellence. Mills was the guest of Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe.
The slow progression of traffic held up Belafonte's performance for one-half hour.
DURING INTERMISSION Miss Bergstrom and her attendants Donna Miller and Susan Nash, awarded the trophies for first places and Grand Prize in the house decorations contest.
OTHER FIRST PLACE WINNERS were:
Grand Prize winner was Foster Hall, also first place winner among the men's residence halls. Foster Hall's best overall decorations depicted "The circus through the years."
Miller Hall in the Women's Residence hall division; Chi Omega in the sorority division; and Sigma Chi in the fraternity division.
Placing second and third, respectively, in the divisions were:
Men's residence halls, Stephenson,
and Templin; Women's residences
balls, Lewis and Watkins; Sororities,
Gamma Phi Beta and Delta Gamma;
and Fraternities, Phi Delta Theta
and Delta Chi.
By Corinne Newberry
'Halt Student Apathy' KSTA Speaker Urges
Today's teachers have the urgent task of swerving a rising student indifference toward education, Dr. M. Dale Baughman, associate professor of education at the University of Illinois, said here Friday.
"We've got to use electric, firey communication to get through to the increasing number of sleepy-yed, uninterested people in our classrooms," he said. "and this means knowing what bait to use with whom."
Speaking before the second and final general session of District I of the Kansas State Teachers Association which convened here Wednesday, Dr. Baughman told some 2000 teachers from northeast Kansas that a student must become emotionally involved in a subject in order to do well.
"THERE'S EVIDENCE today that we're sacrificing individuality and creativity merely for organized, precisioned education," he said. "Some high schools, for example, use
the multi-track system, whereby it is concluded early in his freshman year whether a student will go down track one to college, down track two to vocational training, or down track three to work.
"We simply can't continue to treat all students in the same organized manner. They've got to see themselves in a positive, confident light, and it's up to us to help them find it," he said.
Teachers should regard each student as a complete entity having complex intellectual and emotional content, Dr. Baughman told the teachers. Spending more time on the apparent "genius" and depriving the apparent slow pupil of attention can only make matters worse, he said.
This is the 101st year the KSTA has held conventions in Kansas. District I, in which the Lawrence area is included, conducted 33 discussions and round table groups on the KU campus since Wednesday, and voted to return to the campus for its 1965 convention.
Women's Touch Helped ASC
Rv Judv Farrell
The woman's touch has left an imprint on the structure of student government at KU.
Participation by women students in KU's government during the war years brought about the unification of the school's two governing bodies. These organizations, the Men's Student Council and the Women Student's Government Association, united to form the All Student Council in 1943.
Every KU student is automatically a member of the Associated Students of the University of Kansas.
THE ASSOCIATED STUDENTS,
as an autonomous organization, is
governed through a Constitution which establishes and delegates power to the executive, legislative and judicial branches.
Second of a Series
- To unite in a single self-gov-
Elections This Week
These branches implement the purposes of the Associated Students:
All Student Council living district and freshman class officer elections will be Wednesday and Thursday with polling places in Strong Hall and Murphy Hall and the Kansas Union.
ernering body the students of the University and to promote and regulate their extracurricular activities.
- To coordinate student activities with the programs of the faculty and administrative bodies.
- Ey so doing to promote the highest interests of the University and to cultivate loyalty to it among its students.
The executive branch consists of the president and vice president of the student body. These officers appoint members to 27 executive committees which assist them. These appointments must be ratified by the legislative branch.
(Continued on page 8)