HeadCase
dazed and confused
from profootballweekly:
A real profile in courage
Mills could not have stood taller in his final days
By Hub Arkush ([email protected])
April 30, 2005
Sam Mills was a great football player. More importantly, he was one of the greatest and most impressive people to ever play professional football. His talent, quite frankly, was barely above average, but his courage was unmatched, and his character outshined any standard we could set, no matter how high.
Coming out of college, Mills was given virtually no chance of playing pro football. He went on to earn All-Pro honors three times in the USFL and go to five Pro Bowls in the NFL. Several years after retiring and beginning a promising coaching career, Mills was diagnosed with intestinal cancer and given just a few months to live. He battled it for almost two years before finally losing the one battle he never had a chance of winning on Monday, April 18.
I was blessed with the opportunity to have dinner with Mills just a few weeks before he passed away. We were at the Ed Block Courage Awards in Baltimore the second week in March, and I sat with Mills and two other NFL greats, Dick LeBeau and Tom Matte. LeBeau still holds the NFL record of 171 consecutive games at the CB position, is tied for seventh all-time with 62 interceptions and went to three Pro Bowls. As a coach, he is recognized as the father of the zone blitz. Matte, of course, was a great running back with the Colts in the ’60s who went to Pro Bowls in 1968 and ’69. He is probably best remembered for providing the NFL with one of its signature moments, leading the Colts not only to the playoffs but to a playoff win over the Rams in 1965 as the starting quarterback after injuries sidelined Johnny Unitas and Gary Cuozzo. Matte called all the plays from a list on his wristband. Both men spent the evening every bit as much in awe of Mills as I was.
What kind of an underdog was Sam Mills? He played his college football at Division III Montclair State (N.J.) and became the first of his 10 brothers and sisters to earn a college degree. But at 5-9, 225 pounds, his professional options were limited, and after failing to earn a job following free-agent tryouts with the Browns in 1981 and Toronto in the CFL in ’82, he worked as a high school photography and woodworking teacher at a New Jersey high school for $13,600 a year.
In what would surely be his last shot at playing pro football, Mills hooked up with Jim Mora’s Philadelphia Stars in 1983 and went on to win a Defensive Player of the Year nod. When Mora moved on to New Orleans in the NFL, he took Mills with him. In 12 seasons with the Saints and Panthers, Mills went on to register 1,319 tackles, 20½ sacks, 11 interceptions and four touchdowns in 173 starts.
Impressive numbers to be sure, but trying to define Sam Mills with stats is like trying to climb Mount Everest in your underwear. The real measure of Sam Mills was in December 2003, as his Panthers were making their improbable Super Bowl run, and he was staring the angel of death in the eye and daring it to bring it on. In August, he’d been diagnosed with his cancer and given just a few months to live. But almost five months later when asked about his battle, he responded: “It’s like anything, when you have a crisis like that, you just regroup. I said ‘OK, you’ve got lemons, now let’s make some lemonade.’ That’s basically what I’ve been doing.”
Many forced to battle cancer as Mills did avoid chemotherapy because its effects can be more debilitating than the disease itself. Mills scheduled his chemo on his off days, rarely missing a day coaching his team. At a press conference a few days before that Super Bowl, Mills told the media: “You have your good days and your bad days. I’m glad I’m just having days, you know, whether they’re good or bad.”
We sat at that dinner in Baltimore a few weeks ago for over three hours, and not once did I look at Mills when he didn’t have a smile on his face and seem completely at ease and at peace. Quite frankly, he looked great, and when he took the podium to accept the “Johnny Unitas High Tops Award” for exceptional courage in the face of adversity, he spoke with a clarity, vision and strength that were quite honestly beyond my understanding. You see, as hard as it was to accept or believe his fate while looking at him, even he knew he was fighting a battle he couldn’t win. I wonder now if it wasn’t just that I was observing a remarkable man who was stealing every last second of joy out of time he was never supposed to have.
As the evening ended and we all prepared to go our separate ways, I shook his hand and tried to express what a privilege it was to have spent the evening with him. He gripped my hand as firmly as any All-Pro linebacker ever had and actually seemed to want to hold on even longer than the token handshake required to try to convince me the pleasure and honor were actually his.
I don’t pretend to have really “known” Sam Mills, but I can’t tell you how much I miss him right now. There just aren’t enough real heroes in the world anymore, and there’s one fewer now.
A real profile in courage
Mills could not have stood taller in his final days
By Hub Arkush ([email protected])
April 30, 2005
Sam Mills was a great football player. More importantly, he was one of the greatest and most impressive people to ever play professional football. His talent, quite frankly, was barely above average, but his courage was unmatched, and his character outshined any standard we could set, no matter how high.
Coming out of college, Mills was given virtually no chance of playing pro football. He went on to earn All-Pro honors three times in the USFL and go to five Pro Bowls in the NFL. Several years after retiring and beginning a promising coaching career, Mills was diagnosed with intestinal cancer and given just a few months to live. He battled it for almost two years before finally losing the one battle he never had a chance of winning on Monday, April 18.
I was blessed with the opportunity to have dinner with Mills just a few weeks before he passed away. We were at the Ed Block Courage Awards in Baltimore the second week in March, and I sat with Mills and two other NFL greats, Dick LeBeau and Tom Matte. LeBeau still holds the NFL record of 171 consecutive games at the CB position, is tied for seventh all-time with 62 interceptions and went to three Pro Bowls. As a coach, he is recognized as the father of the zone blitz. Matte, of course, was a great running back with the Colts in the ’60s who went to Pro Bowls in 1968 and ’69. He is probably best remembered for providing the NFL with one of its signature moments, leading the Colts not only to the playoffs but to a playoff win over the Rams in 1965 as the starting quarterback after injuries sidelined Johnny Unitas and Gary Cuozzo. Matte called all the plays from a list on his wristband. Both men spent the evening every bit as much in awe of Mills as I was.
What kind of an underdog was Sam Mills? He played his college football at Division III Montclair State (N.J.) and became the first of his 10 brothers and sisters to earn a college degree. But at 5-9, 225 pounds, his professional options were limited, and after failing to earn a job following free-agent tryouts with the Browns in 1981 and Toronto in the CFL in ’82, he worked as a high school photography and woodworking teacher at a New Jersey high school for $13,600 a year.
In what would surely be his last shot at playing pro football, Mills hooked up with Jim Mora’s Philadelphia Stars in 1983 and went on to win a Defensive Player of the Year nod. When Mora moved on to New Orleans in the NFL, he took Mills with him. In 12 seasons with the Saints and Panthers, Mills went on to register 1,319 tackles, 20½ sacks, 11 interceptions and four touchdowns in 173 starts.
Impressive numbers to be sure, but trying to define Sam Mills with stats is like trying to climb Mount Everest in your underwear. The real measure of Sam Mills was in December 2003, as his Panthers were making their improbable Super Bowl run, and he was staring the angel of death in the eye and daring it to bring it on. In August, he’d been diagnosed with his cancer and given just a few months to live. But almost five months later when asked about his battle, he responded: “It’s like anything, when you have a crisis like that, you just regroup. I said ‘OK, you’ve got lemons, now let’s make some lemonade.’ That’s basically what I’ve been doing.”
Many forced to battle cancer as Mills did avoid chemotherapy because its effects can be more debilitating than the disease itself. Mills scheduled his chemo on his off days, rarely missing a day coaching his team. At a press conference a few days before that Super Bowl, Mills told the media: “You have your good days and your bad days. I’m glad I’m just having days, you know, whether they’re good or bad.”
We sat at that dinner in Baltimore a few weeks ago for over three hours, and not once did I look at Mills when he didn’t have a smile on his face and seem completely at ease and at peace. Quite frankly, he looked great, and when he took the podium to accept the “Johnny Unitas High Tops Award” for exceptional courage in the face of adversity, he spoke with a clarity, vision and strength that were quite honestly beyond my understanding. You see, as hard as it was to accept or believe his fate while looking at him, even he knew he was fighting a battle he couldn’t win. I wonder now if it wasn’t just that I was observing a remarkable man who was stealing every last second of joy out of time he was never supposed to have.
As the evening ended and we all prepared to go our separate ways, I shook his hand and tried to express what a privilege it was to have spent the evening with him. He gripped my hand as firmly as any All-Pro linebacker ever had and actually seemed to want to hold on even longer than the token handshake required to try to convince me the pleasure and honor were actually his.
I don’t pretend to have really “known” Sam Mills, but I can’t tell you how much I miss him right now. There just aren’t enough real heroes in the world anymore, and there’s one fewer now.
