The Carolina Panthers’ Hall of Honor is more like a walk-in closet. It honors exactly one man who ever played a snap for the team.
That man is Sam Mills, who was inducted in 1998 – before he was diagnosed with the cancer that ultimately killed him and before his iconic “Keep Pounding” speech that organically turned into the franchise’s motto.
Mills was inducted shortly after his retirement by team owner Jerry Richardson – the ultimate authority as to who gets the honor. Mills got in simply because he played very well for Carolina for the first three years of the team’s existence and set an extremely high bar as to how a Panther should act on the field and in the community.