Charles deGravelles - Billy Cannon : a long, long run

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BILLY
CANNON

BILLY
CANNON

A LONG, LONG RUN

Charles N. deGravelles

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Baton Rouge

Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright 2015 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing

Designer: Laura Roubique Gleason
Typefaces: Sentinel, text; Constructa, display
Printer and binder: Maple Press

This book contains personal recollections. All names, dates, and events herein are accurate to the best of the authors knowledge, and all opinions expressed are the authors or those of his subject.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

deGravelles, Charles, 1949
Billy Cannon : a long, long run / Charles N. deGravelles.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-8071-6220-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8071-6221-7 (epub) ISBN 978-0-8071-6222-4 (pdf) ISBN 978-0-8071-6223-1 (mobi) 1. Cannon, Billy Abb, 1937. 2. Football playersUnited StatesBiography. 3. Houston Oilers (Football team)History. 4. Oakland Raiders (Football team)History. 5. Kansas City Chiefs (Football team)History. I. Title.
GV939.C365D44 2016
796.332092dc23
[B]

2015018662

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

To Eliot and Ricki, Meg, and Will, Tiger fans to the bone;
to Benjamin, who wanted to know how the book was coming;
and to Elizabeth, who had other things on her mind.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

THE LEGEND

The dentist easily recognizes the signs of fear. Below him, a prison inmate lies rigid in the long Naugahyde-covered dental chair. Neither reassurance from the dental assistant nor the anesthetic, injected into the soft tissue at the back of the inmates mouth, has done a thing to quiet his panic; you can see it in his eyes as he squints up into the lamp. The dentist finds it sad and funny that a man should have to come to prison to be made to go to the dentist.

The dentist is dressed in a white coat. He puts a hand on the inmates shoulder and bends down, inches from the inmates face. He is smiling, and the smile makes deep crinkles around his eyes. Open up, my man, and lets have another look. Still terrified but accustomed, after twenty years of incarceration, to following orders, the inmate complies. The dentist reaches upward to adjust the lamp and then bends down with a shiny stainless steel probe and a small mirror, one in each hand, and begins to pick and poke. His hands are big and spotted with age, but they work with speed and precision.

When the dentist stands back up, his smile has vanished, and the inmate notices for the first time how big he is. The dentist shakes his head in disapproval. How long since youve had your teeth looked at?

The inmate has to think. I dont know, lets see... I was locked up in St. Tammany in 89... and I got to Angola in 90... uh, Im not sure. A long time.

The dentist smiles again: No kidding?

As he works, the dentist does most of the talking, asking questions and then cracking jokes. He has an easy way that doesnt condescend. The inmate wants to talk footballhe sees the Louisiana State University posters and pictures on the wall, and he wants to tell the man that his own team, the Florida Gators, is superior in every way, but when he tries, he cant speak for the obvious reasonhis mouth is full of instruments. He makes a few guttural sounds which the dentist understands (he has been doing this a while). Even with his mouth wide open, the inmate manages to laugh from time to time, odd sputters from the back of his throat; this tall dentist has an excellent supply of one-liners.

For a few moments, the inmate has forgotten hes locked in a maximum-security prison. He remembers as a boy going with his mother to see the dentist in Tampa, coming out with a neat little pack that included a new toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss. But his mother died during the years hes been locked up for killing an off-duty police officer in Louisiana, and those better days are long gone.

When the dentist has finished filling a couple of cavities, he says its time to stop. Others are outside in the waiting room. The inmate gets up from the chair. He realizes its been a while since he felt the fear he came in with.

Youre going to need to come back. You know that, right? the dentist asks.

I aint goin nowhere, the inmate says, though I wish I was.

Make an appointment with Tonia on your way out.

You gonna be the one to work on me?

If the levee holds and the river doesnt wash us both out of here, the dentist says.

Wouldnt that be my lucky day? the inmate says. Hey, Doc, youre in the wrong profession, you know that?

That right? What should I be doing?

Stand-up comic. Youre pretty good.

Yeah, well, I dont know how much longer Im going to be standing.

The inmate tries to estimate the mans age. Seventy? Seventy-five? You know what, the inmate says, youre probably not going to make it around here anyway.

Oh, yeah, whys that?

Seems to me like you give a damn.

When he gets back to his dorm, the inmate tells his bunkmate about the dentist.

You know who that is, dont you? the bunkmate asks.

The inmate is dumbstruck. You mean that guy is Billy Cannon? I could tell he liked LSU cause there was some pictures on the wall. He laughed. Can you believe it? I tried to convince Billy Cannon the only real team in the SEC is the Gators.

Everybody in prison has a nickname. The inmates is Flash. Even though he didnt recognize Cannon, Flash has known about him for as long as he can remember. The man is a football legend, and those in the prison who know the story of the elderly dentists early days call him by that name: Legend. He has earned it. With an amazing combination of speed, strength, skill, and determination, Cannon led every team he was ever a part ofin high school, at LSU, in the prosto one championship after another. Gifted in each facet of the game, he could run, throw, kick, catch, block, and tackle. And could he run! One of the greatest running backs of his time, some would argue of all time, Cannon is still an object of worship among LSU fans.

In 1959, Billy Cannon became the only LSU player to win the Heisman Trophy. For over fifty years, on the anniversary of his most famous play, October 31, television and radio stations in Louisiana replay itCannons fourth-quarter punt return against the University of Mississippi, an amazing effort in which he eludes defenders and breaks tackles to score the game-winning touchdown. When LSU hosts the Rebels in Tiger Stadium, the famous run is replayed, complete with the jubilation of adoring fans, on the stadiums giant video screen.

Cannon has, in fact, been at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola nearly as long as Flash. Hes not an inmate, as some believe, but started to work as a dentist in 1995, a decade after legal troubles of his owna less glamorous part of the legendended a successful orthodontics practice in Baton Rouge. Warden Burl Cain, well known himself for taming the nations largest and most difficult prison, considered Cannon a catch. The football hero brought attention to Cains ongoing efforts to reform the massive prison, and Cain eagerly put him to work to further those efforts.

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