Tony Coffin, after whom the sports complex on the campus of Haskell Indian Nations University is named, couldn’t have known. But the coach instinctively knew what his star runner needed to perform at his best. He needed a couple of ounces of honey 15 minutes before he ran a race.

Kansas University coach Bill Easton insisted his runners fast four hours before their races, Mills said, and there would be no exceptions, which to this day Mills believes played a role in his up-and-down performances for KU.

Fifty years ago today, Mills shocked the world by winning the gold medal in the 10,000 meters in Tokyo.

Mills, 76, threw a little credit the way of his Haskell High coach during a Monday night telephone conversation.

Thinking back to Coffin’s sweet pre-race potion, Mills took the wrapper with Japanese words off of a chocolate bar 15 minutes before the race started. Just shy of 6.2 miles later, Mills delivered one of the most remarkable kicks in the history of distance running and won the gold medal. He said he did not learn that he was hypoglycemic until a year before winning the gold medal.

“I often wondered what would have happened if I didn’t have that candy bar before I ran,” Mills said by phone from North Dakota, where he was being honored.

In today’s world, Mills could have cashed in big-time with a chocolate-bar endorsement.

“But I didn’t even pay attention to what brand it was,” he said. “For all I know, it was a Hershey bar in a Japanese wrapper.”

Here’s how it would work today: It was a Hershey bar, unless Nestle would be willing to pay him one dollar more to say it was a Nestle bar.

Oh, well, timing is everything, but Mills sounds as if he wouldn’t change his timing for all the endorsements in sports because he considers his memories and friendships from his days in Lawrence priceless.

“Tony Coffin was like a second father to me,” Mills said. “He took the place of my dad.”

A Native American of the Oglala Lakota tribe, Mills was born on a Reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. At 8, he lost his mother. Four years later, he lost his father.

Coffin helped him at Haskell in areas that extended beyond athletics. At Kansas, Mills didn’t share the same connection with Easton, but overall shares fond memories of Lawrence.

Mills said he developed close friendships with hurdler Cliff Cushman, distance runner Bill Dotson and several other KU teammates.

Mills met his wife of 52 years, Patricia, at KU. He remembers the location of their first kiss.

“The Campanile,” he said.

He still has a letter Cushman wrote to congratulate him on his gold medal.

“He wrote, ‘Billy, when you won, I cried, not because of what you have achieved, but because I know where you had to begin,'” Mills said.

Mills said he urged the makers of “Running Brave,” the Disney movie on his life, to use that quote.

“I was upset because they did not attribute it to Cliff,” Mills said. “Captain Clifton Cushman, U.S. Air Force.”

Cushman was shot down during a bombing mission in Vietnam on Sept. 25, 1966, his body never found. He officially was declared dead nine years later.

Mills counts his blessings, but whenever his story is told by others, it includes details of his impoverished roots.

“My daughters would always say, ‘Oh, dad, you were so poor.’ Finally, one day Pat grew tired of them talking about how I poor I was and took them to her hometown,” Mills said.

And where was that?

“Coffeyville,” Mills said. “They don’t talk about how poor I was anymore.”