Carolina keeps pounding out praise for little Mr. Sunshine, Hall of Famer Sam Mills

Why cry over all the times linebacker Sam Mills Jr. got rejected just because he was a half foot too short for the analytics department?

All of the overcoming is a reason his entry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame is so joyous.

That his life was so short is what makes people cry.

Such a fine player. Such a fine man. Such a loss.

This was captured by Marty Hurney, a sports writer who became general manager of the Carolina Panthers, as he grieved Mills' death from cancer in 2005.

"Sam was one of the finest people you will ever meet," Hurney said. "He was the type of guy you want your kids to grow up to be."

He was the type you didn't want your kids to play against.

"When Sam hit you," said Vin DeMarinis, who was Mills' college teammate with the Montclair State Red Hawks, "your family felt it."

Vin and Sam were the Montclair mashers, a feared linebacker tandem. The 6-foot-1 DeMarinis loved playing alongside the 5-foot-9 Mills.

"I would ask him, 'Why aren't you at Penn State? Why aren't you at Ohio State?'," DeMarinis said.

The remarks come from NFL Films' "Sam Mills: A Football Life." When the subject turned to Mills' leaving the world at age 45, DeMarinis openly wept.

Mills has been gone for 17 years. It has been more than twice that long since the Cleveland Browns brought the little big man in and let him go.

An appreciation of Mills continued to grow. In a recent interview with The Canton Repository, in a room at the Hall of Fame, Melanie Mills, Sam;s widow, and Marcus Mills, Sam's son, made him seem quite present.

"I never felt like he was gone," Melanie said. "He's here with us, and through us. I feel like he's always with me."

"Sometimes something unusual will happen that makes me feel his presence and I'll say, 'Sam, cut that out.'

"Recently I found pictures I hadn't seen before. I found letters from people who knew Sam and thanked him for inspiring them or thanking him for something he had done.

"I'm still learning new, loving things about my husband."

Marcus listened, and spoke.

"I think about my dad every day," he said. "For one thing, I have a daughter who looks like him."

Sam's enshrinement in Canton comes 27 years after he was here in the flesh, going strong in his mid-30s, playing for the Carolina Panthers in the Hall of Fame Game. It was the Panthers' first game as an expansion team.

Mills soon became the face of the franchise, beloved on and off the field. There is a Sam Mills statue at the Panthers' stadium.

"When you talk to people about him, the last thing they talk about is football," Marcus Mills said. "They talk about the impact he had on their lives.

"I'm still hearing from people he visited when they were sick. I think ... when did you have time for that? He found time."

Mills' time in pro football seemed to end before it began.

The Browns brought him to camp in 1981 and 1982, and sent him away both times.

He went home to Long Branch, New Jersey, tending to the family he and Melanie had started, going to work as a high school teacher.

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Long Branch is an ocean town from which giants of the sea sometimes are spotted. Rejected by the Browns, and by the CFL, the little linebacker remained intent on doing some whaling.

The United States Football League launched in 1983. A good word from Cleveland led to a tryout with the Philadelphia Stars. This time he got to stay. He became the best player for a franchise that reached the championship game in all three years of that league's existence.

The Stars' success got their head coach, Jim Mora, the head coaching job with the New Orleans Saints in the NFL. Mills played for Mora in New Orleans for the next nine years, more than proving he wasn't "too short." But then, at 35, he was "too old."

He wanted to stay, but the Saints let him test the 1995 free-agent market. Only after the expansion Panthers showed him a contract did New Orleans offer to match it. He took it as an insult and left.

Mils and the Carolinas became fast friends. He played some of his best football, renewing the fun-filled novelty of being so short, yet such an entertaining dynamo. Short. Yes. But also thick. He weighed close to 230 pounds.

Only one player started all 50 games the Panthers played in their first three years of existence. His name was Sam.

The Panthers surprised in the launch year of 1995, going 7-9. They astonished in Year 2, going 12-4.

Carolina had one of the great defensive minds, Dom Capers, as head coach. Mills, pass rusher Kevin Greene, safety Brett Maxie, receiver Mark Carrier and tight end Wesley Walls infused veteran fiber.

The Panthers closed '96 with a win over defending AFC champ Pittsburgh. Their playoff assignment was defending Super Bowl champion Dallas.

Hungry for his first postseason win since the USFL days, Mills tackled everything in sight. He barely missed scoring after he intercepted Troy Aikman to seal a 26-17 victory.

As Carolina moved on to the NFC finals against Green Bay, Brett Favre turned into fan boy.

"I grew up a Saints fan when Sam was part of the best linebacking corps in football," Favre said that week. "He was great then and he's better now. I was a big fan of Sam. Still am."

Early on, Mills intercepted Favre and returned the ball to the 2, setting up a 7-0 Carolina lead. Mills wound up with 12 tackles, but the Packers pulled away to a 30-13 win, then beat New England in Super Bowl XXXI.

Mills played one more season, in which the Panthers went 7-9. Late in the 1997 finale against the Rams, he dropped Craig "Ironhead" Heyward for a loss. On the next play, he stuffed Jerald Moore for his 13th tackle.

"I knew it was my last dance," Mills said. "I wanted to make it a good one."

Within a year, he was coaching with the Panthers, and the team established a Ring of Honor, with Mills as its only member.

The team faltered. Mills kept his job through two head coaching changes. The rebound began in 2002 and included a December win at Cleveland, a playoff team that year.

Coach Sam began to sense something was wrong in 2003. The grim news came out in August. Cancer had spread through his bowels. It had been caught late. He had three months to live.

He kept coaching, intent on being himself.

"I have good days and bad days," he said during a chemotherapy cycle. "I'm just glad to have days."

During a midseason losing streak, quarterback Jake Delhomme was moping his way to a practice when someone hurried by with a cheerful greeting. "All right, big Jake!"

"It was Sam, going out to do sprints," Delhomme said. "Here I am, feeling sorry for myself because we dropped a couple, and I just got passed by a guy who is dying of cancer.

"I was like ... time to be a big boy, Jake. I wanted to be one tenth like Sam."

Mills made it through the season. The Panthers rallied to win the NFC South.

Prior to facing Dallas in the playoffs, head coach John Fox gathered the team on the practice field and asked Mills to say a few words.

"When I found out I had cancer," Mills told the team, "there were two things I could do. Quit. Or keep pounding. I kept pounding. You're fighters, too. Keep pounding."

The key words, "keep pounding," became the team mantra. It went state-wide.

In three pounds of playoff magic, the Panthers beat the Cowboys 29-10, the Rams 29-26 in overtime, and the Eagles 14-3.

Mills headed for Super Bowl XXXVIII, against the Patriots, in Houston.

Delhomme drove Carolina to a 29-29 tie with a minute left. Tom Brady countered with a drive that set up a field goal and a 32-29 New England win.

Mills lived 14 more months. He coached again in 2004. He died in April of 2005, survived by Melanie and their four children.

Sam Mills III, 44, has lived nearly as long as his dad did. Sam III became a Panthers defensive coach the year after Sam Jr. died. The son worked for the Panthers for 15 years, and then, after Ron Rivera was fired, followed Rivera to Washington.

So, Carolina's long run with a Mills in the house is over. The famous last words of Sam Mills Jr. remain.

A Keep Pounding Fund has raised millions for cancer research. A Keep Pounding Run and a Keep Pounding Auction are ongoing concerns. There is a Keep Pounding license plate. The state of North Carolina has sold quite a few.

A gigantic Keep Pounding drum is the heartbeat of the Panthers. Introduced in 2012, it is wheeled onto the field before each Panthers home kickoff. Everyone in the stadium seems to know exactly when and how to chant, 'KEEP ... POUNDING."

Mills' election to the Hall of Fame left a lot of people smiling.

"No one deserves this more than Sam," Capers said.

"He got everything out everything out of what God gave him," Fox said. "God rest his soul. I know he's looking down, and I know he's proud, too."

Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Sam Mills Hall of Fame career remembered before enshrinement