Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,619

This is the grave of Billy Cannon.

Born in 1937 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Cannon grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he became a football star. He was a great high school player. He was also a thug of questionable character, something that would trail Cannon for most of his life. In 1955, while in high school, he and some buddies cooked up a scheme. What if they spied on men who hired prostitutes and then extorted them? Great idea! Of course, not all johns are so ashamed of their activities that they are going to let themselves be extorted and so at least one went to the cops.

But Cannon was too good for a little legal trouble to get in the way, not when the Louisiana State University Tigers were calling for him to come play running back. He was widely recruited because LSU guaranteed him a job at a car dealership during the summer and the other schools wouldn’t. Ah, the great days of amateurism in college sports. Well, Cannon was worth it for LSU. He was a great college running back. Predicted to finish last in the SEC in 1957, Cannon helped them go 5-5, leading the nation in kickoff return average at over 31 yards, which is a hell of a lot for an average. In 1958, Cannon led the Tigers to the national championship and was first team All-American.

The team disappointed slightly in 1959. Expected to win another natty, it only went 9-2. That was still good enough to finish 3rd in the AP, but they lost at Tennessee and then to Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl. Still, Cannon won the Heisman that year in one of the largest margins of victory in the history of that award. Richard Nixon came to New York to present the award and I’m sure his charm and charisma blew everyone away.

Now, by 1959, the professional football leagues were competing with each other. Cannon signed with both the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL and the Houston Oilers of the AFL. The Rams sued when they found out he signed with the Oilers. The judge found in favor of Cannon and the Oilers based on the probably accurate but legally dubious position that Cannon was a redneck moron who the Rams had taken advantage of for a cheap contract deal.

Cannon was pretty good in his early years with the Oilers. Despite hating his coach his rookie year of 1960, he led the team in rushing with 644 yards and also threw five touchdown passes, taking the Oilers to the AFL title and winning the title game’s MVP. The Oilers canned the coach after that year, so he must have been a real piece of work. In 1961, he led the AFL with 948 rushing yards and set the all-time football record of 373 all purpose yards and five touchdowns in one game. The Oilers won the title game, Cannon got hurt in 1962 and played through it, but wasn’t the same. He missed almost the entire 1963 season.

The Oilers traded Cannon to the Oakland Raiders before the 1964 season. Al Davis kept tinkering with him and moving him around, first playing him at fullback, them moving him to tight end for the 1965 season. Cannon got frustrated. But they moved him to receiver in 1966 and he was a real deep threat that year. In 1967, Cannon lobbied Al Davis to sign George Blanda, his old Oilers teammate. He embraced being tight end that year and in fact led the AFL in tight end catches, making first team all-AFL for the second time at the position. But Cannon dropped a key pass early in the first Super Bowl that would have been an easy touchdown and the Packers defeated the Raiders.

Cannon stuck around with the Raiders for two more seasons, but wasn’t so effective. John Madden had taken over as coach and tended to use Cannon more as a decoy than a top threat. The Raiders released him after the 1969 season. He signed with the Kansas City Chiefs and played one more season in 1970. He got hurt and retired after that season.

Cannon had actually graduated from LSU and in his off-season, he took courses at the University of Tennessee in the offseason to get his dental degree. He continued doing so after his retirement, at Loyola in Chicago. After retirement, he moved back to Baton Rouge and started his dental practice. He also invested heavily in real estate. That went badly. He got involved in gambling too and racked up huge debts. Bad idea. He surrounded himself with sketchy people. He became desperate for money. He then did the stupidest thing imaginable. He got involved in a counterfeiting scheme. Does that still happen? Even in the 80s, I cannot imagine thinking that this counterfeiting scheme is totally going to work. Dear reader, it did not work. He was busted and thrown in the clink for two and a half years. Cannon was always known as something of a ruffian, but counterfeiting? The College Football Hall of Fame kicked Cannon out for the counterfeiting, though it re-inducted him in 2008 and he was still alive to see that.

While in prison, Cannon did some dentistry on fellow prisoners. The state warden knew he was good at it and so in 1995, after his release, he gave Cannon the position of the dentist for the entire prison system. The chances he would have gotten that position were he not a Heisman winner at LSU seem quite low to me, but he could in fact drill a tooth better than he could counterfeit a $100 bill. He held that position until he died in 2018. He was 80 years old and I don’t know how excited I’d be to have a 80 year old man working on my teeth, though I find dentists terrifying generally. Cannon had a stroke in 2013, but completely recovered and got another five years out of life, so good for him.

Cannon is still probably the biggest icon in LSU football history, its only Heisman winner until Joe Burrow a few years ago, though now Jayden Daniels has added another to the Tigers’ lair of awards.

One friend honestly described Cannon this way: “Billy’s gone through life figuring he could do anything and get away with it, that he was above the law. Billy’s basically a good guy, but he does some dumb things. He’s a very complex person. I’m no shrink. Go figure it.”

Go figure it indeed.

Billy Cannon is buried in Greenoaks Memorial Park, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

If you would like this series to visit other Heisman Trophy winners, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Joe Bellino, who won in 1960 for Navy, is in Annapolis, Maryland, and Paul Hornung, who won in 1956 for Notre Dame, is in Louisville, Kentucky. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.