Gunshot? Broken deal? Billy Mills, Gerry Lindgren recall 6-mile world record in SD ...Middle East

Billy Mills turns 87 next week. Gerry Lindgren is 79. Dear fiends since they were fellow Olympians in 1964 — Tokyo roomies — they also share a golden memory that turns 60 Friday.

On that day — June 27, 1965 — they effectively tied in the 6-mile run at San Diego’s old Balboa Stadium, both given a time of 27 minutes, 11.6 seconds.

It was a world record, beating Australian Ron Clarke’s 18-month-old mark by 6 seconds.

Camp Pendleton-based Marine Lt. Mills — the shocking Olympic champion at 10,000 meters at the Tokyo Games — actually edged the “Spokane Sparrow” by 15 inches.

But for lack of an updated rulebook at the Amateur Athletic Union national championships, Mills didn’t take sole possession of the record, he told Times of San Diego in a phone interview.

“They had [the] new rulebook there all week,” Mills said from his home near Sacramento. “But the officials could not find the new rulebook.”

The old rules, accounting for human error in stopwatch use, led officials to declare a tie in time — even though a Bulova phototimer was in use, showing Mills ahead by one-twentieth of a second.

Their final quarter-mile of the 24-lap race took 58 seconds — or 2 seconds faster than Roger Bannister’s last lap when he became the first to break the 4-minute mile.

Mills and Lindgren dominated a 20-man field on the Grasstex track, all seeking a top-2 finish to be part of U.S. national team to compete in Europe.

On that, news accounts agree.

But a series of Facebook posts by Lindgren in January raised eyebrows — including Mills’.

“Right after the race,” Lindgren wrote, “I was told that there was a man arrested after firing off a shot during the third mile. I recalled something buzzing past my ear, but had no idea what it was.”

Mills recalls Lindgren saying: “That noise we heard — was that a shot?”

But Mills told his young rival he’d just heard a car backfire.

After being asked “You sure?” Mills replied: “Gerry, I go the rifle range. I’m an officer in the Marine Corps. I know the difference between a car backfiring and a rifle being fired. And that was the end of the conversation.”

NCAA-AAU war

Lindgren — a Washington State University freshman — was in fact caught in a crossfire of sorts. The NCAA and the Amateur Athletic Union were feuding over control of amateur sports.

And Lindgren was among 13 undergraduates at the meet threatened by the NCAA with loss of their scholarships and collegiate eligibility. (He kept his.)

But also on Facebook, Lindgren wrote about the NCAA “tormenting” him in the run-up to the AAU meet despite suffering from an ankle injury.

“For the 2 1/2 weeks up to the AAU meet, I couldn’t run at all,” wrote the 5-foot-6, 120-pound prep prodigy who upset the Soviets a year earlier at 10K.

“One football coach from the East said he was coming to Spokane with a can of gas. If I dared to run the AAU meet, he was going to burn down my house with me in it. Another NCAA coach said he was going to be in the stands at the AAU meet, in San Diego, with a gun, and if I was there, he would kill me.”

Instead, the crowd of 15,320 saw a killer race (after also seeing high school superstar Jim Ryun of Kansas set an American record 3:55.3 in the mile in beating Olympic champion Peter Snell of New Zealand.)

But Mills and Lindgren have vastly differing memories of that fabled footrace and its preface.

Lindgren wrote that he was “still painfully on crutches” when he boarded a plane for San Diego.

“When I arrived, the AAU people took me to a secluded motel where the press and NCAA could not bother me,” he said. “The following morning, I had to decide if I would run 3 miles early in the program, or wait for the 6-mile later in the program.”

Lindgren said he opted for the 6-mile to give his ankle a couple more hours’ rest.

“When it came time to warm up, I still couldn’t stand on the sore ankle,” he wrote. “As I tried to run, ever optimistic Bill Mills jogged up to me.”

He wasn’t up for the Olympic champ’s “constant optimism.”

“To get him to go away, I told him I was going for the world record,” Lindgren says. “It worked. He ran away and I was left painfully alone to try and warm up.”

But Mills, the former University of Kansas star, says the world-record try was his idea — months earlier.

Mills eyed record early

“In early ’65, … I don’t recall if I talked to his coach or Gerry, but I called and said: I’m going for the world record,” Mills told me.

He wanted to know if Lindgren would be ready to help challenge Clarke’s record of 27:17.8 set in 1963.

“We’ll run together, alternating leads, until two laps to go,” Mills said. “Then we’re on our own.”

When Mills got to Balboa Stadium — where the San Diego Chargers played — he saw Lindgren sitting in a corner.

“So I go over and I say to Jerry: ‘Are you ready?’ He said: ‘Are you trying to psych me out?’ I said ‘No, I want to go for the world record. We’d alternate laps.’ So he said OK.”

Lindgren’s ankle was ready, too.

“One of the greatest cures in medicine is the starter’s gun,” he wrote. “When the starter shot off his gun, I raced into the lead on perfect legs. My injury was healed.”

But with the race televised live on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” the field had to cool their heels until after a commercial break.

“As we waited, Billy Mills approached me,” Lindgren wrote. “He wanted to help me go for the record. He would lead two laps after I did, through the entire first 5 miles. By that time, we would be free of the other runners and the world record would be possible. I readily agreed.”

But their deal broke down — depending on who describes it.

“I [led] through the first two laps on the Balboa Stadium track, and then moved out so Billy Mills could assume the lead. He came past me and increased the pace considerably so that I had trouble staying with him.

“When it was again my turn to lead, Billy Mills did not move out to lane two, but held me off so that I had to race my two laps in lane two. When it was again his turn to lead, he upped the race pace again. He was trying hard to break me.”

Lindgren says that’s how the race continued the first four miles.

“Every time it was my turn to race, I had to race in lane two. By four miles, I understood what Billy was trying to do to me.

Well ahead of record pace

“When it was my turn to lead, I did a modified sprint lap. I didn’t want to go too hard because we were well ahead of Ron Clarke’s world mark, but I wanted to tell Billy Mills that I was still there.”

When it came time for Mills to lead, he didn’t, Lindgren says.

“He didn’t lead for most of a lap. When finally he did take the lead again, it was near the end of the fifth mile, and our pre-race pact would end. I raced around Billy and ran a REAL sprint lap. When the fast lap was nearly finished, Billy Mills came quickly past me with a sprint lap of his own.

“I was hard pressed to stay up with him. But now we were in our final lap of the race, with Billy Mills in lane one and me in lane two. Down the backstretch we raced, side by side.”

Around the final curve, he saw Mills starting to fade “just a bit.”

Then Lindgren says he was struck by “Gerry stupidity.”

“I thought how Billy Mills was older than I was. A world record would confirm his Olympic gold medal from last year,” he writes. “Suddenly Billy was beside me again and I recovered [focus].

“No, if he was going to beat me, he had to earn it. We came in together. Our time, 27:11.6 was a new record,” Lindgren wrote from his home in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Mills is loathe to upset his relationship with Lindgren, but told his own story.

He recalls suffering the effects of being borderline diabetic. His wife, Pat, said: “Just go and try for [the record]” and rushed up the steps to a concession stand to buy a candy bar to treat his low blood sugar.

“She said: Eat it about 15-20 minutes before the race.”

“I told Gerry: ‘I’m ready.’ He said: ‘OK, so we’ll go for the record now.’ I can’t recall the name of the runner that took the lead the first lap. Then Gerry and I were going to [alternate leads].”

Mills led and then Gerry passed him.

“I tucked in,” Mills told me. “A couple laps later, I’m leading. I move out and he wouldn’t go past me. So he broke the agreement.”

Mills also doubts Lindgren was hobbled.

“He was not injured,” Mills said. “He told me he was ready for a world record.”

Lindgren still wouldn’t take the lead as they continued on world record pace, he said.

“By then, it was obvious Gerry was not going to take the lead … the last four or five laps, but then I’m pushing for the world record,” Mills said.

Then Lindgren challenged with a half-lap to go, starting to take the lead.

“So I held him off because I wanted him to run the curve wide, So we’re struggling on the curve, I’m slowing just a fraction to keep him on my shoulder.”

As they come into the final straight, Mills said: “I’m going low blood sugar. He accelerated, and I accelerate, zooming, I’m going to pull away from him, 4-5 yards, and it wasn’t there.”

Mills began to pump his arms, lengthen his stride. Lindgren did the same.

“I’m slightly ahead of him and I lean,” Mills recalls.

Who won the race?

He asked Lindgren about the finish.

“I felt I won,” Mills said. “I felt I was ahead. I felt this tape on my chest. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That was close, Gerry. How do you think it went?’

Mills said Lindgren replied: “You beat me, Billy.”

On Tuesday, Lindgren responded to my Facebook message as I sought to confirm his account of a broken deal with Mills.

“I remember setting up the race just before the start — 2 laps I lead and then 2 laps Billy leads,” Lindgren told me. “I took the first 2 laps, then moved out so Billy could come through.

“When it was again my turn to lead, Billy held me out — made me try to come outside and even moved out so I had to pass in the third lane. That was how the first 4 miles played out. I was nice to Billy and he was bad to me.

“At 4 miles, it was my turn to lead again, and I put in a small sprint, just to keep Billy honest. When it was Billy’s turn to lead, he didn’t. Took him most of a lap to pass.”

(Lindgren didn’t respond to my query on the alleged shooting incident, which was never mentioned in news coverage.)

The six-mile run — two-tenths of a mile short of 10,000 meters — ceased being an IAAF-recognized distance for global records in 1976.

Mills said he wanted the AAU meet in San Diego to contest a 10K (with timers also stationed at the 6-mile mark) to have a shot at both records.

He says he wrote a letter to the heads AAU about a month before.

But he eventually was told: “This is America. We run yards instead of meters.”

Mills estimates he would have run a 10K in 28:05 — about 10 seconds faster than Russian Piotr Bolotnikov’s 28:18.2 from 1962.

“Even if we slowed that last quarter-mile … we’re still under the world record,” Mills told me.

Thanks to illness, Mills didn’t get the 10K record later that summer. And Ron Clarke reclaimed his 6-mile world record 17 days later — running 26:47.0 on July 14, 1965, in Oslo, Norway.

Today the world 10K record is 26:11.00 by Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei. The 6-mile equivalent is 25:17 — almost 2 minutes faster than Mills and Lindgren that day six decades ago.

The NCAA-AAU feud was ended when Congress passed the Amateur Sports Act of 1978.

And Balboa Stadium — built in 1914 as part of the Panama-California Exposition and venue for a Beatles concert in August 1965 — was partially demolished in the 1970s amid earthquake concerns.

In 1978, a smaller stadium used by San Diego High School was built on the same site with a 3,000-seat capacity.

It still hosts track meets.

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