In 2005, during the final week of Sam Mills’ life, the Panther legend asked to see Dan Morgan.
Morgan had been Mills’ protégé for four years — a first-round draft pick in 2001 who made an astonishing 25 tackles in the 2003 Super Bowl for the Carolina Panthers. Mills was Morgan’s position coach with the Panthers, but he came to be much more than that. He was also a father figure who would sometimes take Morgan, who was living away from home for the first time, out to a local bowling alley in Charlotte so they could forget about football for a while.
When Morgan came to work each day, he had to pass Mills’ bronze statue outside Bank of America Stadium before he actually saw Mills himself.
