Billy Mills' Journey part 1

     On the movie seen from an internal perspective, Billy Mills is simply a young native american boy dealing with problems in the search of the education and the american lifestyle. As it can be seen in beginning of the movie his desire to be the first student in his family drove him to participate in a track and field team at a university so he could pay for his education, he was that good that a few teams offered scholarships but Billy chose the University of Kansas. At the first races Billy did not have a wining attitude although he did have the skills. As it shows in his first race against the university of Nebraska where another track star Indian raced for, he was worried more by how everything he does is perceived by other people that he wanted anybody to feel bad, that may have to do with some beliefs set in his culture, but for the perception of the coach it didn't look enough he wanted Billy to show-off to crush his opponents. The coach is a major factor because in Billy's journey though his first year of college is no run through the park because in the late 50's early 60's racism was small talk between the Kansas University Track team and among many students too given that most students were white and racism was not tolerated but still practiced. As for external perceptions on Billy's life there the one about racism, he seen as an intruder, the only thing the coach was seeing  in him was as player on his team that could make him win, racism aside even though his teammates still made fun of him, and his father who died when Billy was at a very young age after leaving  a fight he hustled to raise money for themselves to survive. That is a tough lesson for Billy  which showed him that to win you have to be capable and ready for anything. As his father he only saw him like a son nothing more nothing less.

Billy Mills