Billy Cannon

Sport: Football

Induction Year: 1976

University: LSU

Induction Year: 1976

If there had been no Billy Cannon, Louisiana State University football fans would’ve invented one.

He was the record-breaking, All-American hero of the best college football time in the nation, a hometown boy who led the LSU Tigers to a pinnacle of success they had never achieved before—and might never achieve again.

LSU was ranked No. 1 in 13 consecutive Associated Press polls in the 1958 and 1959 football seasons—a streak that no other team south of the Mason-Dixon line has ever matched. Alabama’s longest stretch under Paul “Bear” Bryant was seven. Miami topped 10 consecutive polls in 1986, but lost the big one to Penn State.

In the spring of 1958, Cannon was either the strongest sprinter or the fastest shot-putter in college athletics.

At Istrouma High, he set a state record with 57-4 in the shot put and ran the 100 yard dash in 9.7 seconds, At LSU, he threw the heavier (16-pound) college shot over 54 feet and improved he time to 9.4 seconds in the 100—becoming the first to put together such an unlikely double.

Istrouma coach James “Big Fuzzy” Brown started a weight training program in 1954, and Cannon—then a 168-pound sophomore—became the best-known prodigy of Baton Rouge weighlifting guru Alvin Roy. When Cannon’s weight reached 200 pounds, he was only 12 pounds short of the Olympic lifting record.

As a senior, Cannon gained more than 100 yards in 12 or Istrouma’s 13 games and scored 33 touchdowns. He had 178 yards rushing and three touchdowns as Istrouma capped its unbeaten season with a 40-6 rout of Fair Park in the state finals. Cannon was all-everything.

He led LSU to the national championship in the fall of 1958. He was not only the fastest player on that squad, but was one of the biggest. There was one 210-pounder on each of the three units (White team, Go team, Chinese Bandits). Nobody else outweighed Cannon by more than one pound.

After the 1958 season, Cannon finished third in Heisman Trophy voting behind Pete Dawkins of Army and Randy Duncan of Iowa. Nobody else was close, and Cannon led in the South and Southwest.

The following year, LSU’s bid for a repeat title came up inches short in a one-point loss to Tennessee at Knoxville. But the Heisman voting was a one horse race. Cannon piled up 1,929 points, more than tripling runner-up Richie Lucas of Penn State. He had more points than the combined totals of the next eight players, sweeping all sections of the country.

He probably already had the Heisman Trophy locked up when the No. 1-ranked Tigers played Ole Miss on Oct. 31, 1959—Halloween night. But Cannon erased all doubts that night, making the longest run in LSU history. It wasn’t the longest in distance, but it was the longest in legend.

More than 30 years later—after Cannon completed his pro career, earned his degree in dentistry, established a successful practice and served a sentence in federal prison for counterfeiting—LSU fans were still celebrating his 89-yard punt return. That run, rather than any play in the championship season, became the essence of LSU football.

The Tigers scored a 7-3 victory that night as Cannon and Warren Rabo stopped Ole Miss quarterback Doug Elmore at the one yard-line with 18 seconds remaining in the game, but lost their 19-game winning streak and No. 1 ranking at Knoxville one week later.

Cannon finished his college career with school record totals of 1,867 yards rushing (broken by Brad Davis in 1974) and 154 points (broken by Doug Moreau in 1965). But his statistics weren’t overly impressive. His best single season rushing total was 686 yards, No. 4 in school history at that time. After gaining 140 yards rushing against Alabama in the second game of his career, Cannon was over 100 yards in only three of his last 30 collegiate games. In his Heisman year, he had 11 yards in 11 carries against Kentucky, 32 yards against Mississippi State, 35 yards against TCU and 48 yards against Ole Miss on Halloween night. His punt return that night was the only one of 31 in his career that produced a touchdown.

Cannon’s pro career started in controversy when he signed a contract with the Los Angeles Rams (Pete Rozelle was then the general manager) before the Sugar Bowl rematch with Ole Miss and signed with the Houston Oilers of the fledgling American Football League immediately after the 21-0 loss to the Rebels.

The olilers won the court battle for Cannon’s services, and he helped them win the first two AFL championships. He led the league in rushing in 1961 with 948 yards, including a career performance against the New York Titans—216 yards rushing, 115 on pass receptions and a total of five touchdowns. He was the Most Valuable Player in both of the first two AFL championship games, but a back injury in 1962 ended his effectiveness as a running back and he was traded to the Oakland Raiders—playing tight end for seven years, and winning All-Pro honors on Oakland’s first Super Bowl team.

In an 11-year pro career, he gained 2,455 yards rushing and caught 236 passes for 3,656 yards. He had another 1,882 yards in kick returns, and scored 392 points.

The Raiders’ Al Davis called him “the classic case of too much, too soon. Money, fame, buildup, it came close to ruining him. The wolves who love to see a hero fail couldn’t wait to jump on him.”

The wolves would get another chance in 1983, when Cannon—despite a net worth of more than two million dollars—entered a guilty plea to taking part in the third largest counterfeiting operation in United States history and served a sentence in a federal prison.

It wasn’t his first encounter with the law. In the summer before his senior year at Istrouma, Cannon was arrested after he beat up a homosexual and took a bottle of liquor. He received a 90-day suspended sentence and was placed on probation—with the stipulation that he had to report to his Baton Rouge-based probation officer each week. That didn’t hurt LSU’s chances to keep Cannon at home.

Five moths before he was arrested in 1983, the National Football Foundations voted Cannon into its Hall of Fame. He was scheduled to be inducted in December, but in the wake of the arrest the Board of Directors voted 18-0 to reverse that decision. But Cannon’s mistakes at age 46 did not erase the memories of a magic Halloween night for LSU fans. For them, No. 20 is still running toward the goal line.