Not Ready to Quit

In the NFL if you are sick or injured, it’s best to go away. You are nothing but a reminder of how instantaneously infallibility evaporates in this league, how quickly a knee shreds or a leg snaps or a shoulder separates or a concussion leaves you too weak and woozy to stumble onto the field.

So quickly that, in a slow-moving second, an NFL game can end, a season can end, a career can end.

The Carolina Panthers, though, have found inspiration in the life-threatening illnesses of an assistant coach and a linebacker.

They have used the vulnerability of Sam Mills and Mark Fields to instill in themselves a ferocious commitment to their team and to themselves.

On Sunday in Houston, when Super Bowl XXXVIII is played, the Panthers will wear white shirts under their jerseys. On them will be two numbers -- the 51 of Mills and the 58 of Fields.

Within a period of two weeks in August, Fields -- a starting linebacker and the man who led Carolina in tackles a season ago -- was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, a form of cancer, and Mills, an original Panther player nine years ago and now a defensive coach, was discovered to have cancer of the small intestine.

“It was a blow,” linebacker Dan Morgan said. “These two men will always be close to our hearts, and it is not corny to say that they are truly an inspiration.”

Mills, 44, had earned admiration for his passionate style of play. He was a graduate of NCAA Division III Montclair State in New Jersey and played in the USFL before being picked up by New Orleans and playing eight seasons for the Saints, then for the expansion Panthers in their first three seasons. Undersized, at 5 feet 9 and 225 pounds, Mills was once rated the 10th-best middle linebacker in NFL history by Sports Illustrated pro football expert Paul Zimmerman.

Fields, 31, who played at Washington State, had a career high with 127 tackles last season and set a team record with seven forced fumbles.

Defensive coordinator Mike Trgovac said Fields had come into his own last season, having an “excellent” season and “really making himself a leader of this defense.”

Mills and Fields have chosen, for the most part, to stay private about their illnesses.

Mills spoke once about his cancer during the week before Christmas, saying he wanted to update his many supporters.

During that interview, Mills said he first noticed physical symptoms while getting in shape for training camp. “I was on my fifth day and I didn’t work out,” Mills told local reporters in December. “I couldn’t work out. I couldn’t get myself to do it. It was unusual because I can always kind of push my way through it.”

His rare form of cancer has about a 20% cure rate according to the American Cancer Society statistics, but Mills didn’t focus on numbers. After all, the numbers -- his height, his weight -- would have kept Mills out of the NFL, statistically speaking.

“It’s like anything,” Mills said in December. “When you have a crisis like that, you just regroup. You say ‘Well, it’s not time to feel just bad.’ It is what it is and now I need to regroup and say, ‘What’s next?’ I don’t know if it took me 24 hours to regroup.”

Mills had to miss practice every other week to undergo treatment but was on the sidelines Jan. 18 in Philadelphia when the Panthers upset the Eagles in the NFC championship game to reach their first Super Bowl.

Before the wild-card playoff game against Dallas, Mills addressed the Panthers, a surprising speech because Mills has never been a man of words. He had always preferred to speak with his football playing.

But Mills spoke emotionally about what football meant and about what life meant. Defensive tackle Brentson Buckner said Mills told the team: “When [he] was diagnosed, there were two things that could have happened. He could have quit and given up or he could fight. He told us he knew only one way and that was to fight. And he told us to make the same choice.”

Fields gave a pregame address before the NFC championship game. Safety Mike Minter described Fields as “excited and bouncing all over the walls.” Fields, who is recovering and is working out again, spoke to the team about fighting and about finishing a job that had started in July and was fated to conclude at Reliant Stadium in Houston.

There’s a bronze statue of Mills in front of the stadium. An inscription reads: “Sam Mills, Leader and Gentleman.”

Coach John Fox said that when Mills’ diagnosis was given to him, “It felt as if the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.”

“It was hard to breathe,” Fox said. “It was so shocking, it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”

Linebacker Will Witherspoon said he thinks part of the reason for the Panthers’ unexpected success stems from the trials they see two of their own going through. “We tell ourselves that the best medicine for Mark and Sam is us doing well,” Witherspoon said. “As a player or coach, you hate to be on the sidelines when the team is going bad. So we took it upon ourselves to carry them. If we do well, they feel better.”

Trgovac said he felt Mills was able to leave behind the fears and pain of the cancer during the times Mills was on the field demonstrating technique or working on a game plan. “The cancer is part of his life,” Trgovac said, “but when he’s here coaching and teaching his mind is off it. When he goes he has to think about the ‘what if’ possibilities, but with us he can think about football.”

Mills looks strong and healthy. He said in December that he looks no further ahead “than my next two-week schedule” of treatments.

Now that two-week window includes the Super Bowl. And right now, no Panther is looking at anything else.