Sam Mills

Told time and again he was too small to play professional football, Sam Mills kept pounding on the door until it finally opened. That “Keep Pounding” mantra lives on with the Carolina Panthers.

Undrafted despite earning Division III All-American honors at Montclair (N.J.) State, where he still holds the team record for career tackles 40 years after graduating, Mills signed a free agent contract with the Cleveland Browns in 1981. He was cut in the preseason. He met the same fate with the Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League. The coaches’ consensus: His was too short, at 5-foot-9 3/4, to take on NFL linemen and running backs. 

A new league gave the diminutive Mills his big break. In 1983, Mills joined the Philadelphia Stars of the United States Football League. In the league’s three seasons, Mills made 592 tackles, earning All-USFL honors three times and helping the Stars win back-to-back championships in 1984 and 1985 under Coach Jim Mora.

When the USFL folded after the 1985 season, Mora landed in New Orleans. He brought his middle linebacker with him, launching a 12-year NFL career that saw Mills play 181 career games (173 starts) and total more than 1,300 tackles, 20.5 sacks, 11 interceptions and 22 forced fumbles. He was named to five Pro Bowls and once as first team All-Pro.

After nine years in New Orleans, Mills jumped to the expansion Carolina Panthers. He scored the key touchdown in the franchise’s first victory, 26-15 over the New York Jets, with a 36-yard interception return. In his three seasons with the Panthers, Mills started all 48 regular-season games and both games in the 1996 postseason, when the upstart second-year team reached the NFC Championship Game, falling to eventual Super Bowl winner Green Bay.

Following his playing career, Mills stayed with Carolina as an assistant coach. In his fifth season, 2003, he was diagnosed with cancer and given three months to live. As the Panthers prepared for the playoffs, he delivered an emotional speech, telling the team: “When I found out I had cancer, there were two things I could do: quit or keep pounding. I'm a fighter. I kept pounding. You're fighters, too. Keep pounding!” Mills would live 17 months longer than doctors predicted, dying in April 2005 at age 45.

Banging a huge “Keep Pounding” drum remains a tradition at Panthers games.