"The ritual is the same every Saturday before the Marine Corps Marathon. First, the runners and their families, a group numbering about 50, shuffle into a conference room. They mingle, pick up their long-sleeve T-shirts, munch on cold-cut sandwiches and cookies, and wait for the video projection machine to play.

There, in grainy black-and-white celluloid, they see the young Marine, the first lieutenant in his “U.S.A.” tank top, taking the lead on the gun lap of the 10,000-meter Olympic final in Tokyo.

They let out a small gasp when he is bumped, nudged to the outside by the world-record holder from Australia. They groan when he drops to third and then fourth behind the Tunisian, just as the runners are about to round the backstretch.

And at that jarring moment when Billy Mills re-enters the camera frame, now high-stepping the last 100 or so meters as he sprints past the Olympic favorites and the defending champion — never having won a major race before, his time in the preliminaries almost a minute slower than the favorite — the room thunderously applauds, as if everyone were watching a live sporting event."

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Mike Wise: Billy Mills offers Marine Corps Marathon runners an inspiring story (The Washington Post 10/29)