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.
Yet Mills barely spoke of his own playing career at all, even though he had become a star linebacker with three separate teams — the Panthers, the New Orleans Saints and the USFL’s Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars. Mills had a spectacular playing career, so much so that he’s now a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame for the third time.
Mills may be announced as one of the Hall of Fame’s new members Thursday, or he may not — as always, it’s a crowded field. Still, this is considered to be the best shot Mills has had yet to become only the second former Panther who played more than one season with the team to be so honored (the late linebacker Kevin Greene was the first).
In the early 2000s, though, Mills was just an NFL assistant coach, trying to help his star player get better. And after Mills got so sick with stomach cancer in April 2005 that he knew the end was near, he wanted one more moment with Morgan.
“It was tough,” Morgan said. “Really, really tough. But I was honestly happy that he called me over and I got to say the last words that I wanted to say to him. That’s something that obviously is always going to be etched in my brain. I was able to say goodbye.”
Mills had a message for Morgan, too, that day — only a week before he died.
“In essence, he told me to go out and kick life’s butt,” Morgan said.
In other words, to keep pounding?
“Exactly,” Morgan said.
Hall of Fame decision comes Thursday
Marcus Mills, one of Sam and Melanie Mills’ four children, recently moved from California back to Charlotte with his wife and new baby girl. The baby, he said, looks a whole lot like Sam used to — although the baby has more hair than Sam did.
The Mills family has gone through the “Will-he-or-won’t-he-make-it?” dance with the Hall of Fame many times before. The vote has already taken place, but the results haven’t been published and will be announced Thursday.
“We’re more excited about it than anything else,” Marcus Mills said. “There’s nothing negative about it. If he makes it, he makes it. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t — but it’s an honor for him just to be considered.”
This will be Mills’ 20th and final season of eligibility as a “modern-day” NFL player. If he doesn’t make it this year — and only five of the 15 modern-day finalists will — he won’t be permanently ineligible, but will instead be transferred into a far larger pool of “senior” players.
The Hall — which officially announces its class Thursday night on the NFL Honors show (9 p.m., ABC) — is an exclusive place. Former Panther wide receiver Steve Smith, who was in his first year of eligibility this season and likely will make it one day, qualified as a Hall semifinalist this year (26 players) but not as a finalist (15).
Like Mills, former N.C. State wide receiver Torry Holt is also a strong candidate who made the list of 15 modern-day Hall finalists. So is Jared Allen, a defensive end who played his final season with Carolina.
Mills has all sorts of Hall of Fame credentials, but he lacks the Super Bowl ring that voters like to see. Nicknamed “Field Mouse” because he only stood 5-foot-9, Mills never even got to play in the NFL’s biggest game.
But after going undrafted and later getting cut by both the Cleveland Browns and the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts, Mills first became a USFL star and then a five-time NFL Pro Bowler. He didn’t even play his first game for the Panthers until he was 36 years old, during the team’s inaugural season. But Mills still made such an impact in three seasons that the Panthers both retired his number (51) and placed him in their Hall of Honor. The Saints put him into their Ring of Honor. Jim Mora, who coached Mills in both the USFL and with the Saints, has said Mills was the best player he ever coached — and Mora once coached Peyton Manning.
Of players over the past 50 years who have been finalists at least three times as Mills is this year, about 90% have eventually made it to the Hall, according to research done by the Panthers’ website.
“We think this year he definitely has a better shot than last year,” Marcus Mills said. “But either way, I think he will get in. If not this year, then one day.”
The ‘Keep Pounding’ speech
Morgan is now the Panthers’ assistant GM, grinding out scouting reports in the same way that he and Mills used to grind through game tape together. Mills was 45 when he died and Morgan is 43 now, with his own family and his own memories of his former coach. They were serious about those bowling nights, by the way. Each had their own bowling ball, and they both scored over 200 numerous times, Morgan said.
Among Morgan’s other most vivid memories was the night Mills gave his “Keep Pounding” speech — Jan. 2, 2004. Of the people who still work at Bank of America Stadium, Morgan is one of a small handful who were inside the room when Mills gave a 10-minute speech that organically became the basis for the team’s motto.
By the time Mills gave that speech to the assembled team, on the eve of the Panthers’ home playoff game against Dallas, Morgan knew how serious Mills’ cancer was. Many in the room didn’t know its severity. Mills’ repetition of the “Keep Pounding” phrase that night resonated with everyone and became a beloved team chant, but Morgan’s memory of the night is bittersweet.
“I just kind of remember looking at him and thinking, ‘Man, I can’t believe he’s not going to be with us here at some point,’ ” Morgan said. “I was just looking at this man that I really cared for so much, and knowing that he wasn’t always going to be in my life.”
So Morgan has his fingers crossed that Mills will make it into the Hall on Thursday, just so everyone will have another chance to reminisce about his former mentor.
“He was so aggressive as a player and so calm as a coach,” Morgan said. “He wasn’t out there hitting his chest saying, ‘This is how I did it, so you do it that way.’ He didn’t over-coach. He taught you, but then he let you play.”
Personally, I’ve long thought that Mills would have been an NFL head coach by now if he’d lived. That was his goal, he once told me — to go from position coach, to defensive coordinator, to head coach. Cancer wrecked that, like it wrecks so many things.
But it hasn’t wrecked Mills’ Hall of Fame chances. Those are very much alive, as are the memories of No. 51, one of the all-time Panther greats.
