After 20 years, former Carolina Panther Sam Mills makes the Pro Football Hall of Fame
Legendary Carolina linebacker Sam Mills — who anchored the Panthers’ first three squads and later invented the “Keep Pounding” phrase that became the team’s heartbeat — has earned a berth in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Mills, who died of stomach cancer at age 45 in 2005, will be inducted posthumously over the summer in Canton, Ohio. He becomes only the second Panther player who played more than one season in Charlotte to earn a gold jacket. The late Kevin Greene was the first.
The newest Hall of Fame class was officially announced Thursday night on the NFL Honors awards show in Los Angeles. Mills’ son, Sam Mills III, was in attendance, as was Mills’ widow, Melanie, and Panthers owner David Tepper.
Although Mills played the bulk of his career in New Orleans, he is inextricably tied to the Panthers. This induction will feel different to Panther fans, and it should. Mills’ legacy is threaded deeply through the team, even now. He and his family really didn’t need more validation of Mills’ greatness, but it’s a nice thing to have.
This was Mills’ 20th and final season of Hall eligibility as a “modern-day” NFL player. Only five of 15 modern-day finalists make it to the Hall each year, and Mills had made it into the final 15 for the third straight year. If Mills hadn’t made it this season, he would have still been eligible but would have been transferred into a far larger pool of “senior” players from the NFL’s first 100 years.
The Hall is an exclusive place. Former Panther wide receiver Steve Smith, in his first year of eligibility this season and considered perhaps the best Carolina player in franchise history, made it to the semifinalist cut (26 players) for this class but not to the finalist cut (15).
Mills joins former Green Bay safety LeRoy Butler, San Francisco defensive lineman Bryant Young, New England defensive lineman Richard Seymour and Jacksonville offensive tackle Tony Boselli among the modern-era inductees. Official Art McNally, wide receiver Cliff Branch and coach Dick Vermeil were also elected to the Hall through the Hall’s senior committee.
Former N.C. State wide receiver Torry Holt was also a strong candidate who made the list of 15 modern-day Hall finalists but who didn’t make the final cut. Neither did Jared Allen, a defensive end who played his last NFL season with Carolina during the Super Bowl run in 2015.
Mills boasts all sorts of Hall of Fame credentials and has long deserved a gold jacket. He has been honored by two franchises — Carolina and New Orleans — by having his name in their hall (or ring) of honor. But he never won the Super Bowl ring that the 49 Hall of Fame selectors like to see from most inductees, and that undoubtedly hurt his candidacy.
Nicknamed “Field Mouse” because he was only 5-foot-9, Mills never even got to play in the NFL’s biggest game — although he did coach in it. He was part of the Panthers’ run to the NFC championship game in 1996, however, and had an interception against Dallas and Troy Aikman in Carolina’s first-ever playoff win.
After going undrafted and later getting cut by both the Cleveland Browns and the CFL’s Toronto Argonauts, Mills was briefly a high school woodworking and photography teacher in New Jersey, making $13,600 a year. But he eventually became a USFL star for the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars and then migrated to the big leagues, where he was a five-time NFL Pro Bowler. Former New Orleans coach Jim Mora said Mills was the best player he ever coached, and that list included quarterback Peyton Manning.
For the Panthers, Mills didn’t even play his first game for the Panthers until he was 36, during the team’s inaugural season. He was lured away from New Orleans by general manager Bill Polian, who was eventually a Pro Football Hall of Famer himself. Mills made such a difference at inside linebacker and in the community in his three seasons from 1995-97 that the Panthers retired his No. 51 and also commissioned a statue of him, which still sits outside Bank of America Stadium. He already has been announced as a 2022 inductee into the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame, in a class also including Holt.
Mills soon became a Panther assistant coach after retirement, shepherding the careers of players like Dan Morgan in his six years as a coach. It was in that coaching role that he gave his famous “Keep Pounding” speech to a team meeting on Jan. 2, 2004, the day before the Panthers played the Dallas Cowboys again in a home playoff game. By then, Mills had developed stomach cancer, and his prognosis wasn’t good.
“When I found out I had cancer, there were two things I could do – quit or keep pounding,” Mills said to me in a 2004 interview when asked about what he told the team that night. “I’m a fighter. I kept pounding. You’re fighters, too. Keep pounding!”
Mills continued coaching during the 2003 season between chemotherapy sessions as the Panthers won that game against Dallas, followed by startling postseason road victories over St. Louis and Philadelphia to qualify for their first Super Bowl. There the Panthers lost to New England. Mills died in 2005, at age 45, leaving behind his wife Melanie and their four children. Panther fans, however, still do a “Keep Pounding” chant before every home game.
Smith will likely join Mills in the Hall of Fame one day, maybe even as soon as 2023. So will Julius Peppers, who will be eligible for the first time in 2024. But the Field Mouse got there first, and that’s as it should be. Mills’ legacy has long been alive in Charlotte, and now it will continue in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, too.
This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 10:10 PM with the headline "After 20 years, former Carolina Panther Sam Mills makes the Pro Football Hall of Fame."
