now it is time to start looking for upgrades -- submitted the rookie from a card I have had for a long time... was upset I only received a 5 on it.. would like to find a rookie in 8 or higher.
If Billy Cannon had not signed with the AFL, the American Football League may well have folded and pro football could have remained stagnant for decades to come ...
If Billy Cannon had not signed with the AFL, the American Football League may well have folded and pro football could have remained stagnant for decades to come ... >>
I had a chance to meet him a few weeks ago... here are a few pics
I am the big dumb looking guy with the goofy grin and that is my 5 year old boy that Billy has his arm around.
I did not recall that Cannon signing with the AFL was that big of a deal. A quick check on Wikipedia indicates that it was indeed quite a coup for the AFL. He is one of 20 players to play in the AFL all ten years of its existence. It's a shame that his criminal activity has kept him out of the college footbal HOF.
Current #1 Hines Ward Master Set Current #1 Hines Ward Basic Set Current #1 Ben Roethlisberger Master Set Current #1 Ben Roethlisberger Basic Set Current #1 Jack Lambert Master Set Current #1 Jack Lambert Basic Set Current #1 Jerome Bettis Basic Set Current #2 Jerome Bettis Master Set Current #1 Franco Harris Basic Set Current #2 Franco Harris Master Set Current #1 Jack Ham Master Set
From the Sporting News in 1995. Interesting, but depressing.
An utter disaster - former football star Billy Cannon
Michael J. Goodman Dr. Billy Abb Cannon -- Louisiana football legend, confessed counterfeiter -- waves me into the tiny, cluttered cubicle he calls his orthodontist office. Outside, his waiting room is empty of both staff and clients. As usual.
Cheap green and yellow vinyl chairs hooked together line the walls. One hundred or so magazines are piled on white formica coffee tables. Esquire, People, Family Journal. The magazines on top are dated April and May of 1994. Many are addressed to someone other than Cannon. The toilet and sink in the bathroom are splotched with rust
"If s a very depressing place," says Paul Manasseh, a retired LSU sports information director who lunches and visits with Cannon weekly at Cannon's office in Baton Rouge. "Billy sits in that office all day long, all by himself. He had to get an answering machine because of bill collectors. He never picks up the phone until he knows who it is."
Cannon's two X-ray machines -- one is broken -- have not been used since 1986 when he was released from federal prison in Texarkana, Tex. He served 2 1/2 years as head of a ring that counterfeited $6 million in $100 bills.
Now, Cannon contracts out X-rays because he has been "financially unable" to pay the $55-a-year safety inspection fee for X-ray machines, according to a letter filed September 9, 1993, with the state attorney general. The letter from his attorney was in response to two lawsuits by the attorney general totaling nearly $1,000 in fines and court fees for non-payment of $110 for safety inspections.
Financial desperation, Cannon says, forced him to invite a reporter to sit down with him, probably the first time in more than a decade.
At first, Cannon wanted $1,000 to talk. Through an intermediary, Cannon was told THE SPORTING NEWS does not pay for interviews. The possibility of a book deal resulting from the article was discussed. No argument. Successful books have been written about far less controversial sports figures.
"Billy wants to talk. He's at his office," relayed the intermediary, a close friend.
Cannon offers me a seat. He raises a cola bottle to his lips. It is full. But not with soda. He squirts a stream of tobacco juice dead center through the bottle's small opening.
"Chaw?" he asks, offering a pouch of Red Man tobacco. I don't chew. But chew I do. Cannon tosses over an empty spittin' bottle and the pouch labeled "The Flavor of America ... America's best chew." We talk and spit with tobacco plugs wedged between cheek and gum.
"I'm broke," Cannon says. His voice is matter of fact, almost nonchalant. "I'm busted. I'm going down. I'll probably file bankruptcy." He concedes even his 1959 Heisman Trophy has been bartered to a restaurant owner for display in return for free lunches and to protect the Heisman from creditors.
The people of Baton Rouge still haven't fully recovered from the shame of Cannon's 1983 counterfeiting scandal.
Now this.
Again, it seems, Cannon will embarrass, disappoint and betray the football-obsessed fans of this state capital strung along the Mississippi River. Many, if not most, still cling to the glory Cannon gave them and LSU: the 1958 national championship. The 89-yard punt return for a touchdown to beat hated Ole Miss in 1959.
Physically, Cannon still oozes power. Big, burly, with a meaty face, square jaw, cropped jock haircut. His hatred of the media is clear during the 30 minutes he endures my presence. His eyes glitter with suspicion. His voice is edged with contempt. His smile through pressed, colorless lips is more of a smirk and sneer.
The phone rings. His message machine announces: "This is Dr. Billy Cannon. I am presently with a patient. If you will leave your name ..."
Cannon listens to the message. "Another bill collector," he mutters.
He brightens. "I can tell you stories that would fill a book. I can tell you things you wouldn't believe."
"So," I pose, "tell me. Give me a taste, a sample."
I pull out my notebook. Cannon freezes. His eyes narrow. "How much of a cash advance can I get right now? What's in it for me?" he asks repeatedly.
Cannon is reminded that cash advances for books are unpredictable. Perhaps something. Perhaps nothing. First, the article.
Cannon's face mottles with anger and frustration.
"I need money now," he snaps. "No cash advance for a book, no article! What's in it for me, now?" Cannon is told an article is forthcoming, regardless.
"I'm gonna punch you out and throw you out," Cannon snarls.
I stand, take out two false teeth, hoping Cannon has no stomach for beating up a reporter he invited into his office.
Cannon sighs. "Just leave," he grumbles. I pause at the door and ask for the third time: "Why, Billy, did you print the phony one hundreds?"
He responds with the same answer. "I took a shot." Then adds, "It didn't work."
Why Cannon turned counterfeiter is, in the words of Smiley Anders, local newspaper columnist and Cannon's high school classmate: "One of the great unsolved mysteries in Louisiana."
For 12 years, the people who know, or think they know Cannon best, have tried, in their disappointment and bewilderment, to solve the mystery. Simplistic, pat answers for human behavior -- Cannon's behavior -- have been as hotly disputed among psychiatrists as they are in Baton Rouge.
The best answer may be in Cannon's arrogant, remorseless retort: "I took a shot. It
Today, Cannon leads a quiet life, according to friends -- Thomas J. Moran, Manasseh and others.
"Billy'll have a beer, but that's about it," Manasseh says.
Moran adds, "You never see Billy out at night. He goes home."
Home is a faded yellow-brick, one-level house he bought in 1961 in what is now an upscale manicured suburb fringing the Sherwood Forest Country Club. He drives a late-model Ford pickup. He lives with his wife of 39 years, Dorothy, his high school sweetheart. Three of his four daughters have married and moved. His youngest daughter, Bunnie, 25, is assistant director for the LSU Recreation Center. His son, Billy Jr., is in construction in Baton Rouge.
Occasionally, Cannon eats lunch at the Golden Pelican Bar and Grill a few doors from his office.
Renee, a tavern regular in her 40s with burgundy-rimmed glasses, says Cannon is a "very charismatic guy with a confident sense of humor" who readily autographs the stream of bar napkins thrust at him.
Once, Renee recounted, Cannon bumped into a former patient and asked what he was doing.
"I'm in the printing business," the patient responded.
Cannon shrugged. "I was in the printing business myself."
Cannon grew up in a tough neighborhood on the north side of the tracks. "North of the tracks back then was white trash and blue collar," says J.R. Ball, editor of the Tiger Rag, a weekly off-campus magazine that covers LSU sports. "Cannon was known as a thug, a punk."
Paul Dietzel, Cannon's LSU football coach, knows as much as anybody about Cannon's early years.
"When Billy was just a boy, his father's arm was caught in machinery at a plant and ripped off," Dietzel says. "His father became bitter and hateful toward the company -- fell apart -- because he felt they never treated him right, never took care of him. Billy's dad never recovered from that mentally or physically. Billys mother had to take in washing, laundry ... clean houses. She held the family together. I think they were on relief, on welfare, for a while. I know people ... neighbors, friends ... had to give Billy clothes so he could go to school. LSU eventually gave Billy's father a job as a janitor. All this created an attitude real early in Billy's life and became, maybe, his downfall."
Cannon entered Istrouma High School in 1952. "In his freshman year, he was tall, skinny and bow-legged ... a **cky kid ... devil-may-care," says Anders, the columnist. Cannon's natural speed and strength were obvious. "Billy spent summers working with Alvin Roy (who became a trainer in professional football, now deceased). When Billy came back each year, he was bigger and bigger, faster and stronger. None of us (students) could believe it," Anders says.
All of a sudden Billy blossomed into a fabulous athlete and football player in high school. He became Billy Cannon Superstar and was in the spotlight from that time on. Then 15 kids went on a rampage against, well, what were called "queers." When the write-ups came out in the press, the only name used was "Billy Cannon." He was the news.
Cannon's notoriety also blossomed. He and two buddies smiled sweetly, but slyly gave the finger in a 1955 basketball yearbook photo.
On a dull night, Cannon and pals would go downtown and "put the roll on a queer ... slap the queers around," according to Cannon's attorney, Robert L. Kleinpeter, and past interviews given by Cannon's former principal.
"Billy got away with a lot," Al Harrison, a probation officer in the 1950s, told THE SPORTING NEWS recently. "The coach and principal would come down and keep him out of trouble. He was a rough kid who had some compulsion to do nefarious things."
Finally, one of Cannon's beating victims filed charges just before Cannon's senior year in high school. Cannon received a 90-day suspended sentence and probation. Baton Rouge couldn't have cared less. Cannon could do no wrong. LSU in general and football in particular are the heart and soul of this town.
Cannon was a 195-pound running back who scored 39 touchdowns his senior year, was named All-State and All-America and led his high school to a state championship. He would later run the 100 in 9.4 seconds and throw a 16-pound shot 54 feet
As Cannon neared graduation in 1955, he became the most recruited high school player in America.
But Cannon was a hometown boy. He was LSU-bound.
Rusty Jabour was 4 when his parents moved into the student housing built underneath the end-zone seating of LSU's Tiger Stadium. It was 1958. "I'll never forget the thunder of the fans jumping and screaming above me," says Jabour, now an information officer for the attorney general of Louisiana. "As I look back, that deafening roar above me was for Billy Cannon taking the (undefeated) Tigers to a national championship. I can still hear it."
Cannon clinched the Heisman Trophy on Halloween night, 1959. With Ole Miss leading, 3-0, in the fourth quarter, Cannon snagged Jake Gibbs' punt on the 11-yard-line. Six or seven tacklers bounced off Cannon during his 89-yard touchdown run. To this day, local radio and television stations replay The Run on Halloween night.
"I watched the ball bounce down by the 10, and I kept saying, 'No, Billy, no!' Then it became 'Go, Billy, go!'" Dietzel says.
"You have to understand it was a hot, muggy night and late in the game. The players on both teams were exhausted. But not Billy. He was so strong, so fast, he basically ran through the whole team. He was 210 pounds and ran the 100 in 9.4 seconds and could throw the shot put 55, 56 feet. It was one of the greatest runs in college football. I have a film clip of it. I still watch it more than I'd like to admit."
Despite his ability, Billy was still trouble. "Billy would get into a tiff, a mood, and just not practice," Dietzel says. "I'd haul him into the office and say: Billy, you're getting all the headlines. You're the star and these guys are working their butts off and you throw tiffs. How does it feel to be the most disliked guy on the team? If I were them I wouldn't block for you.' Billy would look at me in amazement. 'They say that about me?' Then he'd hustle and roar around in practice for a few weeks and then throw another tiff. But he was a good team player when it was necessary. At halftime, he'd go to each player and shake them and tell them to get off their nests. Billy Cannon was hard to understand."
(Dietzel says that, by comparison, Johnny Robinson, another running back at LSU with Cannon, was far wilder than Billy as a teenager in Baton Rouge. In a twist of fates, Robinson now runs a halfway house in Louisiana.
Billy Cannon began his professional career wheeling and dealing. He signed with teams from the National Football League and the newly formed American Football League. A journalist from Los Angeles called Cannon "the most repugnant young profiteer ever to sell his talents to anyone who'd bid."
First, Cannon signed a contract in November 1959 for $50,000 over three years with the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL. He held a press conference with then-Rams general manager Pete Rozelle. Then on New Year's Day 1960, between the goal posts of the Sugar Bowl, Cannon, before 83,000 fans, signed another contract with the Houston Oilers of the AFL. That contract offered him $100,000 over three years, a $10,000 gift for his wife, a slightly used Cadillac and a promised chain of Cannon gas stations selling Cannonball Regular and Super Cannonball.
A Rams-Oilers legal battle followed. The Oilers won.
Cannon got the Cadillac but not the gas stations. He led the league in rushing in 1961 but hurt his back in 1962. He was traded to the Oakland Raiders in 1964 and ended his career in 1970 as a tight end. Sportswriter Rich Koster described Cannon ending his career as a "loner ... who snarled at sportswriters." During the offseasons, though, Cannon had gone to dentistry school. With five children, Cannon knew he had to prepare for the future. Because of his popularity, Cannon's practice flourished to an estimated $300,000 a year.
But Cannon was not satisfied. "Billy thought he could make $50 million," Moran says. "Billy never could stay away from living on the edge ... a risktaker. He was always working an angle to make a buck any way he could. Look what happened with Billy Jr."
In 1980, Cannon's son, at 18, was a probable first-round draft pick as a major league short-stop/outfielder. Publicly, Billy Sr. sent telegrams to the 26 major league teams advising not to waste a first-round pick on his son because he was going to college. Privately, the Cannons were meeting with George Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees. Billy Jr. was drafted by the Yankees and signed for a reported $350,000 bonus. Then-baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn vetoed the signing. Kuhn said the other owners had been misled by Billy Sr.'s telegrams.
Billy Jr. went to Texas A&M and was the Dallas Cowboys' first-round draft pick in 1984 as a promising linebacker. He signed for a reported $1.9 million over six years. Despite advice to pay a $36,000 insurance premium in case of injury, Billy Jr. didn't. Eight games into his first year he suffered a spinal injury. Doctors warned of paralysis if he were hurt again. Billy Jr. claimed negligence by the Cowboys and filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. It was settled in 1992.
But Billy Sr. had his own woes. What follows is the story of folk hero turned desperado. What happened is based upon public records and interviews with Cannon, his friends, attorney and the federal prosecutors who sent him to prison:
Cannon invested in real estate, a shopping center, an office building and other ventures He also gambled heavily on sports and bought race horses. Luck, Cannon discovered, favors nobody -- even football heroes.
By 1983, Cannon was involved in nearly 40 financial lawsuits with lending institutions, real-estate agents, utilities and private citizens. A sampling of these lawsuits:
* Cannon borrowed more than $ 246,000 "in 23 various promissory notes" in 1981-82 from First Progressive Bank of Louisiana and "failed and refused" to pay until May 1983, when he reached an undisclosed settlement.
* Cannon bought a condominium for $122,000 in 1982 and never made a payment. The condo was sold at auction for $60,000 in March 1983.
* Cannon borrowed $55,000 in December 1981 and made no payments. A judgment was entered against him in February 1983.
* Cannon bought a Mack truck in July 1982 for $87,880. His first payment of $1,464 was due in September. He never made a payment. The matter was settled out of court in 1985, while Cannon was in prison.
(Cannon's financial misadventures continued after his release from prison. Since then, he has been involved in at least a dozen more lawsuits.
One Cannon venture in 1980 was printing souvenir T-shirts, according to Randall Miller, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted him. The shirts were printed by John Stiglets, a convicted counterfeiter.
"Cannon complained to a friend he needed to borrow more money," Miller says. "The friend told Cannon, Why borrow money? The guy printing those T-shirts makes the best money around.'" Miller adds: "At the time, Billy Cannon needed money like a dead man needs a coffin. He bankrolled Stiglets with $15,000 and got in deeper and deeper."
Stiglets set up shop in Texas. During the next two years, he printed $6 million in $100 bills. The plan was to pass the money far from Baton Rouge, but the counterfeiting ring had grown to a half-dozen or so. Not everybody was paying attention. The Secret Service was tipped in late 1982 that a man had bought a Bible, vitamins and jeans in three different stores with three $100 bills. Hmmm.
He was arrested. More $100 bills were taped under his car hood and found at his house. They were phony.
"Under questioning the guy said Billy Cannon was behind it all," says Stan Bardwell, then U.S. attorney. "The Secret Service agents were almost reluctant, embarrassed to tell me because it sounded so far-fetched."
Bardwell, it turned out, grew up with Cannon, though on the right side of the tracks. "I wasn't surprised. I knew his reputation as a punk ... a bully ... doing anything he damn well pleased."
Fifty-five federal agents descended upon Baton Rouge. Six wiretaps were placed on the phones of Cannon and other suspects.
Months passed without a break. Finally, on July 8, 1983, Cannon left his office about noon with a suspected accomplice. Agents followed, but Cannon's car "disappeared" on an unmarked dead-end street. The car reappeared at Cannon's office.
That afternoon, two men in a pickup -- suspects -- headed for the same dead-end street, making U-turns, stopping, pulling over and constantly "looking around to see if anyone was following them," documents reveal.
Agents watched the pickup drive to the dead end and vanish into grass four to six feet high. The pickup emerged. The men drove to a warehouse and unloaded two large plastic garbage bags. The bags held about $1 million in counterfeit $100 bills. Agents returned to the tall grass and dug up two empty Igloo coolers. The property belonged to Cannon. He spotted the agents the next morning and was told they had a search warrant. He shrugged and drove to Jefferson Downs race track near New Orleans. He was arrested upon his return.
The seventh-largest counterfeiting ring in American history was no more.
"I expected Cannon to be a smart ass who was going to fight it all the way," says Miller, the federal prosecutor. "Instead, he was the opposite. He seemed relieved. His attitude was: 'You got me. I'm gonna take my medicine like a man."'
Miller says Cannon's eyes widened when he learned agents spent the night tromping over his property. "You're kidding!" Cannon had gasped. "We took two dozen poisonous snakes outta there a few days ago."
Miller laughs over the anecdote. He turns serious. "Cannon did something else that struck me. We hit a break in debriefing him. Then, out of the blue, like he was talking to himself, Cannon said, 'Maybe now, some people won't be as mad at me as they are.' Cannon looked at me and realized I overheard him. He felt compelled to explain: Everybody wanted me to take part in the Special Olympics. I couldn't do it 'cause I knew you all were investigating me, and I didn't want to embarrass anybody. Now maybe they'll understand."
Cannon led agents to other buried coolers packed with counterfeit bills. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess and deal in counterfeit money. He cooperated with prosecutors and testified against his five cohorts in hope of avoiding prison.
At the sentencing, Cannon told Judge Frank J. Polozola: "... what I did was wrong, terribly wrong. I have done everything within my power to correct my mistakes..."
Polozola replied: "If the name of the person I was about to sentence was not Dr. Billy Cannon, what sentence would I impose? The court refuses to allow those who have fame and fortune or status in life to commit a crime and then have a slap on the hand while imposing jail sentences on others who are less fortunate."
Polozola gave Cannon the maximum: Five years in prison and a $10,000 fine He sold his practice to another orthodontist and surrendered his dentistry license.
Cannon entered federal prison in Texarkana, Tex., on September 12, 1983.his lawyer and others beseeched Polozola to reduce or modify the sentence. Their arguments included:
* Cannon's sentence was harsher than the other defendants, given his cooperation.
* Cannon's immediate family would be "virtually unable" to visit him because Texarkana is so far from Baton Rouge (307 miles). His "infirm mother and elderly mother-in-law are unlikely to visit him at all."
* Cannon's December 1983 induction into the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame was revoked.
* Cannon "was unable to witness his son's final year of collegiate football."
* Cannon had to "remain in the same clothes" for one week because prison officials lost his other clothes.
* Cannon is bored. He has nothing to do in prison.
The judge replied he was "confident that one or more jobs can be found at the prison for Cannon to perform ..."
As for Cannon's claim that five years was unfair, the judge said that if Cannon had not agreed to testify against his fellow counterfeiters, "Cannon's maximum exposure in this case would have been 100 years or more." The judge ruled that a sentence reduction "only would encourage a belief that persons with fame and fortune receive preferential treatment..."
Cannon was a loner in prison. He discouraged visitors.
"I was planning to go see him," Manasseh says. "But I was told he didn't want to see anybody. He just wasn't particularly interested in seeing anybody." Even Billy Jr. once told a reporter that he visited his father only two or three times.
"There was nothing good about (prison)," Cannon later told a writer from the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "I was away from my family, and that is the worst punishment of all." Cannon added that he did receive many letters from supporters, including a "wonderful, uplifting letter" from the person who presented him the Heisman Trophy -- Richard M. Nixon.
Cannon served 2 1/2 years, then went to a Salvation Army halfway house in Baton Rouge. He was released November 28,1986.
Not everybody cheered. "Jailbird! Jailbird! Jailbird!" a woman screeched. Recalling the incident, Cannon once remarked: "I wonder if she thinks I don't know I was in jail."
"There's still a lot of ill feeling in this town," grumbles Manasseh, Cannon's close friend. "Some people will not forgive. Deep down, they think Billy betrayed them. He's got that onus on him the rest of his life. He's paying the price."
After prison, Cannon's license was reinstated, following a 40-hour refresher course with Dr. John Sheridan at the LSU School of Dentistry.
"Billy Cannon was like a god to me growing up in Baton Rouge," Sheridan says. "And now Billy Cannon himself walks into my office. Despite the counterfeiting, it's hard to forget what he did for Baton Rouge and LSU."
As the years passed, Sheridan says, it was clear that Cannon could not rebuild his practice. "He's still revered as a football hero, but that counterfeiting deal, prison, the craziness of it all ... I guess it makes people wonder, and wonder enough to see another orthodontist."
Sheridan adds: "The sad, the pathetic thing, the pity of it is that Dr. Cannon is a good orthodontist." Sheridan thought for a moment. "But I'll have to admit, Dr. Cannon is the only dentist I've ever chews tobacco."
Thomas J. Moran proudly guides me through the packed lunch crowd of one of his six restaurants, T.J. Ribs Baton Rouge's most popular rib joint and a hangout of the sporting crowd. Re walls are lined with signed basketballs, footballs, helmets, trophies, pictures, uniforms, baseball cards.
With a flourish, Moran says: "Mere it is!" He points to a five-foot high, 6-foot by 6-foot, glass-enclosed trophy case protected by brass railings and anchored to brick pillars near the entrance. Inside, on a pedestal looking down upon the autographed gun boats of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O'Neal is Billy Cannon's Heisman Trophy.
Moran beams. "Billy says it's real silver -- not bronze like the others -- 'cause his trophy marked the silver anniversary of the Heisman." We study the 36-pound striking sculpture of a running back.
"How come it doesn't look silver?" I ask.
Moran frowns. "That's what Billy tells everybody." He pauses. "I never really had it tested."
Well, actually, the trophy is kind of, sort of, but not really, silver. It's not even silverplated. "It's what they call 'silverized,' or oxidized," says Jamie Crimmins, athletic director of the New York Downtown Athletic Club, which handles the Heisman Trophy Award. "It cost $54 to have that silverizing done. But the last time I saw Cannon's Heisman in the restaurant, the silverizing was gone ... worn off ... maybe tarnished. It looked just like any other Heisman Trophy."
Crimmins says it costs about $2,500 to make a Heisman. There is no argument, however, that a memorabilia collector, particularly in Louisiana, might pay far more for Cannon's Heisman.
Cannon's trophy first appeared in T.J. Ribs in 1986 -- the year the restaurant opened and Cannon was released from prison. It became common knowledge among Moran's friends that he bought the Heisman from Cannon for an undisclosed amount.
Cannon bristles when asked if he sold his Heisman. He stares sullenly, then angrily squirts an extra long stream of tobacco juice into his bottle. His voice is edgy. "Let's just say it's being protected (against creditors)."
I call Crimmins, the Heisman official. He groans. "Billy and I are personal friends. I know he's got financial problems. But to put all this in about the Heisman Trophy. ... This will open a can of worms. I think, maybe, this was the kind of thing where he gets to eat a free lunch."
Moran says: "I bought (the Heisman), but that's not for publication." Moran was told if s the worst-kept secret in Baton Rouge, and Cannon won't deny it.
Moran grimaces. His voice drops. "Billy always lived in a world of adulation. ... The star. He won everything he ever tried. He felt he could do anything he wants to do. He began doing things of his own imagination. A lot of people 'took' him, and when it came to the nut-cutting, many bailed out."
Moran rethinks his comment. "Hey, Billy gave so much to this state and I think he deserved ... he's a good family man, goes straight home at night ... no drinking, no playing around."
Moran looks away. His voice turns hoarse. "Billy's so broke. He's going down. I promised him he's always got a place to stay .. always will have three hots and a cot."
Michael J. Goodman is a freelance writer who lives in Los Angeles. Eric Jenner contributed to his story.
COPYRIGHT 1995 Sporting News Publishing Co. COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
<< <i>From the Sporting News in 1995. Interesting, but depressing.
An utter disaster - former football star Billy Cannon
Michael J. Goodman Dr. Billy Abb Cannon -- Louisiana football legend, confessed counterfeiter -- waves me into the tiny, cluttered cubicle he calls his orthodontist office. Outside, his waiting room is empty of both staff and clients. As usual.
Cheap green and yellow vinyl chairs hooked together line the walls. One hundred or so magazines are piled on white formica coffee tables. Esquire, People, Family Journal. The magazines on top are dated April and May of 1994. Many are addressed to someone other than Cannon. The toilet and sink in the bathroom are splotched with rust
"If s a very depressing place," says Paul Manasseh, a retired LSU sports information director who lunches and visits with Cannon weekly at Cannon's office in Baton Rouge. "Billy sits in that office all day long, all by himself. He had to get an answering machine because of bill collectors. He never picks up the phone until he knows who it is."
Cannon's two X-ray machines -- one is broken -- have not been used since 1986 when he was released from federal prison in Texarkana, Tex. He served 2 1/2 years as head of a ring that counterfeited $6 million in $100 bills.
Now, Cannon contracts out X-rays because he has been "financially unable" to pay the $55-a-year safety inspection fee for X-ray machines, according to a letter filed September 9, 1993, with the state attorney general. The letter from his attorney was in response to two lawsuits by the attorney general totaling nearly $1,000 in fines and court fees for non-payment of $110 for safety inspections.
Financial desperation, Cannon says, forced him to invite a reporter to sit down with him, probably the first time in more than a decade.
At first, Cannon wanted $1,000 to talk. Through an intermediary, Cannon was told THE SPORTING NEWS does not pay for interviews. The possibility of a book deal resulting from the article was discussed. No argument. Successful books have been written about far less controversial sports figures.
"Billy wants to talk. He's at his office," relayed the intermediary, a close friend.
Cannon offers me a seat. He raises a cola bottle to his lips. It is full. But not with soda. He squirts a stream of tobacco juice dead center through the bottle's small opening.
"Chaw?" he asks, offering a pouch of Red Man tobacco. I don't chew. But chew I do. Cannon tosses over an empty spittin' bottle and the pouch labeled "The Flavor of America ... America's best chew." We talk and spit with tobacco plugs wedged between cheek and gum.
"I'm broke," Cannon says. His voice is matter of fact, almost nonchalant. "I'm busted. I'm going down. I'll probably file bankruptcy." He concedes even his 1959 Heisman Trophy has been bartered to a restaurant owner for display in return for free lunches and to protect the Heisman from creditors.
The people of Baton Rouge still haven't fully recovered from the shame of Cannon's 1983 counterfeiting scandal.
Now this.
Again, it seems, Cannon will embarrass, disappoint and betray the football-obsessed fans of this state capital strung along the Mississippi River. Many, if not most, still cling to the glory Cannon gave them and LSU: the 1958 national championship. The 89-yard punt return for a touchdown to beat hated Ole Miss in 1959.
Physically, Cannon still oozes power. Big, burly, with a meaty face, square jaw, cropped jock haircut. His hatred of the media is clear during the 30 minutes he endures my presence. His eyes glitter with suspicion. His voice is edged with contempt. His smile through pressed, colorless lips is more of a smirk and sneer.
The phone rings. His message machine announces: "This is Dr. Billy Cannon. I am presently with a patient. If you will leave your name ..."
Cannon listens to the message. "Another bill collector," he mutters.
He brightens. "I can tell you stories that would fill a book. I can tell you things you wouldn't believe."
"So," I pose, "tell me. Give me a taste, a sample."
I pull out my notebook. Cannon freezes. His eyes narrow. "How much of a cash advance can I get right now? What's in it for me?" he asks repeatedly.
Cannon is reminded that cash advances for books are unpredictable. Perhaps something. Perhaps nothing. First, the article.
Cannon's face mottles with anger and frustration.
"I need money now," he snaps. "No cash advance for a book, no article! What's in it for me, now?" Cannon is told an article is forthcoming, regardless.
"I'm gonna punch you out and throw you out," Cannon snarls.
I stand, take out two false teeth, hoping Cannon has no stomach for beating up a reporter he invited into his office.
Cannon sighs. "Just leave," he grumbles. I pause at the door and ask for the third time: "Why, Billy, did you print the phony one hundreds?"
He responds with the same answer. "I took a shot." Then adds, "It didn't work."
Why Cannon turned counterfeiter is, in the words of Smiley Anders, local newspaper columnist and Cannon's high school classmate: "One of the great unsolved mysteries in Louisiana."
For 12 years, the people who know, or think they know Cannon best, have tried, in their disappointment and bewilderment, to solve the mystery. Simplistic, pat answers for human behavior -- Cannon's behavior -- have been as hotly disputed among psychiatrists as they are in Baton Rouge.
The best answer may be in Cannon's arrogant, remorseless retort: "I took a shot. It
Today, Cannon leads a quiet life, according to friends -- Thomas J. Moran, Manasseh and others.
"Billy'll have a beer, but that's about it," Manasseh says.
Moran adds, "You never see Billy out at night. He goes home."
Home is a faded yellow-brick, one-level house he bought in 1961 in what is now an upscale manicured suburb fringing the Sherwood Forest Country Club. He drives a late-model Ford pickup. He lives with his wife of 39 years, Dorothy, his high school sweetheart. Three of his four daughters have married and moved. His youngest daughter, Bunnie, 25, is assistant director for the LSU Recreation Center. His son, Billy Jr., is in construction in Baton Rouge.
Occasionally, Cannon eats lunch at the Golden Pelican Bar and Grill a few doors from his office.
Renee, a tavern regular in her 40s with burgundy-rimmed glasses, says Cannon is a "very charismatic guy with a confident sense of humor" who readily autographs the stream of bar napkins thrust at him.
Once, Renee recounted, Cannon bumped into a former patient and asked what he was doing.
"I'm in the printing business," the patient responded.
Cannon shrugged. "I was in the printing business myself."
Cannon grew up in a tough neighborhood on the north side of the tracks. "North of the tracks back then was white trash and blue collar," says J.R. Ball, editor of the Tiger Rag, a weekly off-campus magazine that covers LSU sports. "Cannon was known as a thug, a punk."
Paul Dietzel, Cannon's LSU football coach, knows as much as anybody about Cannon's early years.
"When Billy was just a boy, his father's arm was caught in machinery at a plant and ripped off," Dietzel says. "His father became bitter and hateful toward the company -- fell apart -- because he felt they never treated him right, never took care of him. Billy's dad never recovered from that mentally or physically. Billys mother had to take in washing, laundry ... clean houses. She held the family together. I think they were on relief, on welfare, for a while. I know people ... neighbors, friends ... had to give Billy clothes so he could go to school. LSU eventually gave Billy's father a job as a janitor. All this created an attitude real early in Billy's life and became, maybe, his downfall."
Cannon entered Istrouma High School in 1952. "In his freshman year, he was tall, skinny and bow-legged ... a **cky kid ... devil-may-care," says Anders, the columnist. Cannon's natural speed and strength were obvious. "Billy spent summers working with Alvin Roy (who became a trainer in professional football, now deceased). When Billy came back each year, he was bigger and bigger, faster and stronger. None of us (students) could believe it," Anders says.
All of a sudden Billy blossomed into a fabulous athlete and football player in high school. He became Billy Cannon Superstar and was in the spotlight from that time on. Then 15 kids went on a rampage against, well, what were called "queers." When the write-ups came out in the press, the only name used was "Billy Cannon." He was the news.
Cannon's notoriety also blossomed. He and two buddies smiled sweetly, but slyly gave the finger in a 1955 basketball yearbook photo.
On a dull night, Cannon and pals would go downtown and "put the roll on a queer ... slap the queers around," according to Cannon's attorney, Robert L. Kleinpeter, and past interviews given by Cannon's former principal.
"Billy got away with a lot," Al Harrison, a probation officer in the 1950s, told THE SPORTING NEWS recently. "The coach and principal would come down and keep him out of trouble. He was a rough kid who had some compulsion to do nefarious things."
Finally, one of Cannon's beating victims filed charges just before Cannon's senior year in high school. Cannon received a 90-day suspended sentence and probation. Baton Rouge couldn't have cared less. Cannon could do no wrong. LSU in general and football in particular are the heart and soul of this town.
Cannon was a 195-pound running back who scored 39 touchdowns his senior year, was named All-State and All-America and led his high school to a state championship. He would later run the 100 in 9.4 seconds and throw a 16-pound shot 54 feet
As Cannon neared graduation in 1955, he became the most recruited high school player in America.
But Cannon was a hometown boy. He was LSU-bound.
Rusty Jabour was 4 when his parents moved into the student housing built underneath the end-zone seating of LSU's Tiger Stadium. It was 1958. "I'll never forget the thunder of the fans jumping and screaming above me," says Jabour, now an information officer for the attorney general of Louisiana. "As I look back, that deafening roar above me was for Billy Cannon taking the (undefeated) Tigers to a national championship. I can still hear it."
Cannon clinched the Heisman Trophy on Halloween night, 1959. With Ole Miss leading, 3-0, in the fourth quarter, Cannon snagged Jake Gibbs' punt on the 11-yard-line. Six or seven tacklers bounced off Cannon during his 89-yard touchdown run. To this day, local radio and television stations replay The Run on Halloween night.
"I watched the ball bounce down by the 10, and I kept saying, 'No, Billy, no!' Then it became 'Go, Billy, go!'" Dietzel says.
"You have to understand it was a hot, muggy night and late in the game. The players on both teams were exhausted. But not Billy. He was so strong, so fast, he basically ran through the whole team. He was 210 pounds and ran the 100 in 9.4 seconds and could throw the shot put 55, 56 feet. It was one of the greatest runs in college football. I have a film clip of it. I still watch it more than I'd like to admit."
Despite his ability, Billy was still trouble. "Billy would get into a tiff, a mood, and just not practice," Dietzel says. "I'd haul him into the office and say: Billy, you're getting all the headlines. You're the star and these guys are working their butts off and you throw tiffs. How does it feel to be the most disliked guy on the team? If I were them I wouldn't block for you.' Billy would look at me in amazement. 'They say that about me?' Then he'd hustle and roar around in practice for a few weeks and then throw another tiff. But he was a good team player when it was necessary. At halftime, he'd go to each player and shake them and tell them to get off their nests. Billy Cannon was hard to understand."
(Dietzel says that, by comparison, Johnny Robinson, another running back at LSU with Cannon, was far wilder than Billy as a teenager in Baton Rouge. In a twist of fates, Robinson now runs a halfway house in Louisiana.
Billy Cannon began his professional career wheeling and dealing. He signed with teams from the National Football League and the newly formed American Football League. A journalist from Los Angeles called Cannon "the most repugnant young profiteer ever to sell his talents to anyone who'd bid."
First, Cannon signed a contract in November 1959 for $50,000 over three years with the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL. He held a press conference with then-Rams general manager Pete Rozelle. Then on New Year's Day 1960, between the goal posts of the Sugar Bowl, Cannon, before 83,000 fans, signed another contract with the Houston Oilers of the AFL. That contract offered him $100,000 over three years, a $10,000 gift for his wife, a slightly used Cadillac and a promised chain of Cannon gas stations selling Cannonball Regular and Super Cannonball.
A Rams-Oilers legal battle followed. The Oilers won.
Cannon got the Cadillac but not the gas stations. He led the league in rushing in 1961 but hurt his back in 1962. He was traded to the Oakland Raiders in 1964 and ended his career in 1970 as a tight end. Sportswriter Rich Koster described Cannon ending his career as a "loner ... who snarled at sportswriters." During the offseasons, though, Cannon had gone to dentistry school. With five children, Cannon knew he had to prepare for the future. Because of his popularity, Cannon's practice flourished to an estimated $300,000 a year.
But Cannon was not satisfied. "Billy thought he could make $50 million," Moran says. "Billy never could stay away from living on the edge ... a risktaker. He was always working an angle to make a buck any way he could. Look what happened with Billy Jr."
In 1980, Cannon's son, at 18, was a probable first-round draft pick as a major league short-stop/outfielder. Publicly, Billy Sr. sent telegrams to the 26 major league teams advising not to waste a first-round pick on his son because he was going to college. Privately, the Cannons were meeting with George Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees. Billy Jr. was drafted by the Yankees and signed for a reported $350,000 bonus. Then-baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn vetoed the signing. Kuhn said the other owners had been misled by Billy Sr.'s telegrams.
Billy Jr. went to Texas A&M and was the Dallas Cowboys' first-round draft pick in 1984 as a promising linebacker. He signed for a reported $1.9 million over six years. Despite advice to pay a $36,000 insurance premium in case of injury, Billy Jr. didn't. Eight games into his first year he suffered a spinal injury. Doctors warned of paralysis if he were hurt again. Billy Jr. claimed negligence by the Cowboys and filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. It was settled in 1992.
But Billy Sr. had his own woes. What follows is the story of folk hero turned desperado. What happened is based upon public records and interviews with Cannon, his friends, attorney and the federal prosecutors who sent him to prison:
Cannon invested in real estate, a shopping center, an office building and other ventures He also gambled heavily on sports and bought race horses. Luck, Cannon discovered, favors nobody -- even football heroes.
By 1983, Cannon was involved in nearly 40 financial lawsuits with lending institutions, real-estate agents, utilities and private citizens. A sampling of these lawsuits:
* Cannon borrowed more than $ 246,000 "in 23 various promissory notes" in 1981-82 from First Progressive Bank of Louisiana and "failed and refused" to pay until May 1983, when he reached an undisclosed settlement.
* Cannon bought a condominium for $122,000 in 1982 and never made a payment. The condo was sold at auction for $60,000 in March 1983.
* Cannon borrowed $55,000 in December 1981 and made no payments. A judgment was entered against him in February 1983.
* Cannon bought a Mack truck in July 1982 for $87,880. His first payment of $1,464 was due in September. He never made a payment. The matter was settled out of court in 1985, while Cannon was in prison.
(Cannon's financial misadventures continued after his release from prison. Since then, he has been involved in at least a dozen more lawsuits.
One Cannon venture in 1980 was printing souvenir T-shirts, according to Randall Miller, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted him. The shirts were printed by John Stiglets, a convicted counterfeiter.
"Cannon complained to a friend he needed to borrow more money," Miller says. "The friend told Cannon, Why borrow money? The guy printing those T-shirts makes the best money around.'" Miller adds: "At the time, Billy Cannon needed money like a dead man needs a coffin. He bankrolled Stiglets with $15,000 and got in deeper and deeper."
Stiglets set up shop in Texas. During the next two years, he printed $6 million in $100 bills. The plan was to pass the money far from Baton Rouge, but the counterfeiting ring had grown to a half-dozen or so. Not everybody was paying attention. The Secret Service was tipped in late 1982 that a man had bought a Bible, vitamins and jeans in three different stores with three $100 bills. Hmmm.
He was arrested. More $100 bills were taped under his car hood and found at his house. They were phony.
"Under questioning the guy said Billy Cannon was behind it all," says Stan Bardwell, then U.S. attorney. "The Secret Service agents were almost reluctant, embarrassed to tell me because it sounded so far-fetched."
Bardwell, it turned out, grew up with Cannon, though on the right side of the tracks. "I wasn't surprised. I knew his reputation as a punk ... a bully ... doing anything he damn well pleased."
Fifty-five federal agents descended upon Baton Rouge. Six wiretaps were placed on the phones of Cannon and other suspects.
Months passed without a break. Finally, on July 8, 1983, Cannon left his office about noon with a suspected accomplice. Agents followed, but Cannon's car "disappeared" on an unmarked dead-end street. The car reappeared at Cannon's office.
That afternoon, two men in a pickup -- suspects -- headed for the same dead-end street, making U-turns, stopping, pulling over and constantly "looking around to see if anyone was following them," documents reveal.
Agents watched the pickup drive to the dead end and vanish into grass four to six feet high. The pickup emerged. The men drove to a warehouse and unloaded two large plastic garbage bags. The bags held about $1 million in counterfeit $100 bills. Agents returned to the tall grass and dug up two empty Igloo coolers. The property belonged to Cannon. He spotted the agents the next morning and was told they had a search warrant. He shrugged and drove to Jefferson Downs race track near New Orleans. He was arrested upon his return.
The seventh-largest counterfeiting ring in American history was no more.
"I expected Cannon to be a smart ass who was going to fight it all the way," says Miller, the federal prosecutor. "Instead, he was the opposite. He seemed relieved. His attitude was: 'You got me. I'm gonna take my medicine like a man."'
Miller says Cannon's eyes widened when he learned agents spent the night tromping over his property. "You're kidding!" Cannon had gasped. "We took two dozen poisonous snakes outta there a few days ago."
Miller laughs over the anecdote. He turns serious. "Cannon did something else that struck me. We hit a break in debriefing him. Then, out of the blue, like he was talking to himself, Cannon said, 'Maybe now, some people won't be as mad at me as they are.' Cannon looked at me and realized I overheard him. He felt compelled to explain: Everybody wanted me to take part in the Special Olympics. I couldn't do it 'cause I knew you all were investigating me, and I didn't want to embarrass anybody. Now maybe they'll understand."
Cannon led agents to other buried coolers packed with counterfeit bills. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess and deal in counterfeit money. He cooperated with prosecutors and testified against his five cohorts in hope of avoiding prison.
At the sentencing, Cannon told Judge Frank J. Polozola: "... what I did was wrong, terribly wrong. I have done everything within my power to correct my mistakes..."
Polozola replied: "If the name of the person I was about to sentence was not Dr. Billy Cannon, what sentence would I impose? The court refuses to allow those who have fame and fortune or status in life to commit a crime and then have a slap on the hand while imposing jail sentences on others who are less fortunate."
Polozola gave Cannon the maximum: Five years in prison and a $10,000 fine He sold his practice to another orthodontist and surrendered his dentistry license.
Cannon entered federal prison in Texarkana, Tex., on September 12, 1983.his lawyer and others beseeched Polozola to reduce or modify the sentence. Their arguments included:
* Cannon's sentence was harsher than the other defendants, given his cooperation.
* Cannon's immediate family would be "virtually unable" to visit him because Texarkana is so far from Baton Rouge (307 miles). His "infirm mother and elderly mother-in-law are unlikely to visit him at all."
* Cannon's December 1983 induction into the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame was revoked.
* Cannon "was unable to witness his son's final year of collegiate football."
* Cannon had to "remain in the same clothes" for one week because prison officials lost his other clothes.
* Cannon is bored. He has nothing to do in prison.
The judge replied he was "confident that one or more jobs can be found at the prison for Cannon to perform ..."
As for Cannon's claim that five years was unfair, the judge said that if Cannon had not agreed to testify against his fellow counterfeiters, "Cannon's maximum exposure in this case would have been 100 years or more." The judge ruled that a sentence reduction "only would encourage a belief that persons with fame and fortune receive preferential treatment..."
Cannon was a loner in prison. He discouraged visitors.
"I was planning to go see him," Manasseh says. "But I was told he didn't want to see anybody. He just wasn't particularly interested in seeing anybody." Even Billy Jr. once told a reporter that he visited his father only two or three times.
"There was nothing good about (prison)," Cannon later told a writer from the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "I was away from my family, and that is the worst punishment of all." Cannon added that he did receive many letters from supporters, including a "wonderful, uplifting letter" from the person who presented him the Heisman Trophy -- Richard M. Nixon.
Cannon served 2 1/2 years, then went to a Salvation Army halfway house in Baton Rouge. He was released November 28,1986.
Not everybody cheered. "Jailbird! Jailbird! Jailbird!" a woman screeched. Recalling the incident, Cannon once remarked: "I wonder if she thinks I don't know I was in jail."
"There's still a lot of ill feeling in this town," grumbles Manasseh, Cannon's close friend. "Some people will not forgive. Deep down, they think Billy betrayed them. He's got that onus on him the rest of his life. He's paying the price."
After prison, Cannon's license was reinstated, following a 40-hour refresher course with Dr. John Sheridan at the LSU School of Dentistry.
"Billy Cannon was like a god to me growing up in Baton Rouge," Sheridan says. "And now Billy Cannon himself walks into my office. Despite the counterfeiting, it's hard to forget what he did for Baton Rouge and LSU."
As the years passed, Sheridan says, it was clear that Cannon could not rebuild his practice. "He's still revered as a football hero, but that counterfeiting deal, prison, the craziness of it all ... I guess it makes people wonder, and wonder enough to see another orthodontist."
Sheridan adds: "The sad, the pathetic thing, the pity of it is that Dr. Cannon is a good orthodontist." Sheridan thought for a moment. "But I'll have to admit, Dr. Cannon is the only dentist I've ever chews tobacco."
Thomas J. Moran proudly guides me through the packed lunch crowd of one of his six restaurants, T.J. Ribs Baton Rouge's most popular rib joint and a hangout of the sporting crowd. Re walls are lined with signed basketballs, footballs, helmets, trophies, pictures, uniforms, baseball cards.
With a flourish, Moran says: "Mere it is!" He points to a five-foot high, 6-foot by 6-foot, glass-enclosed trophy case protected by brass railings and anchored to brick pillars near the entrance. Inside, on a pedestal looking down upon the autographed gun boats of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O'Neal is Billy Cannon's Heisman Trophy.
Moran beams. "Billy says it's real silver -- not bronze like the others -- 'cause his trophy marked the silver anniversary of the Heisman." We study the 36-pound striking sculpture of a running back.
"How come it doesn't look silver?" I ask.
Moran frowns. "That's what Billy tells everybody." He pauses. "I never really had it tested."
Well, actually, the trophy is kind of, sort of, but not really, silver. It's not even silverplated. "It's what they call 'silverized,' or oxidized," says Jamie Crimmins, athletic director of the New York Downtown Athletic Club, which handles the Heisman Trophy Award. "It cost $54 to have that silverizing done. But the last time I saw Cannon's Heisman in the restaurant, the silverizing was gone ... worn off ... maybe tarnished. It looked just like any other Heisman Trophy."
Crimmins says it costs about $2,500 to make a Heisman. There is no argument, however, that a memorabilia collector, particularly in Louisiana, might pay far more for Cannon's Heisman.
Cannon's trophy first appeared in T.J. Ribs in 1986 -- the year the restaurant opened and Cannon was released from prison. It became common knowledge among Moran's friends that he bought the Heisman from Cannon for an undisclosed amount.
Cannon bristles when asked if he sold his Heisman. He stares sullenly, then angrily squirts an extra long stream of tobacco juice into his bottle. His voice is edgy. "Let's just say it's being protected (against creditors)."
I call Crimmins, the Heisman official. He groans. "Billy and I are personal friends. I know he's got financial problems. But to put all this in about the Heisman Trophy. ... This will open a can of worms. I think, maybe, this was the kind of thing where he gets to eat a free lunch."
Moran says: "I bought (the Heisman), but that's not for publication." Moran was told if s the worst-kept secret in Baton Rouge, and Cannon won't deny it.
Moran grimaces. His voice drops. "Billy always lived in a world of adulation. ... The star. He won everything he ever tried. He felt he could do anything he wants to do. He began doing things of his own imagination. A lot of people 'took' him, and when it came to the nut-cutting, many bailed out."
Moran rethinks his comment. "Hey, Billy gave so much to this state and I think he deserved ... he's a good family man, goes straight home at night ... no drinking, no playing around."
Moran looks away. His voice turns hoarse. "Billy's so broke. He's going down. I promised him he's always got a place to stay .. always will have three hots and a cot."
Michael J. Goodman is a freelance writer who lives in Los Angeles. Eric Jenner contributed to his story.
COPYRIGHT 1995 Sporting News Publishing Co. COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group >>
Billy has made a ton of mistakes. bad ones. Hopefully he has turned a corner, he had done so much for LSU and the state of Louisiana before his troubles that a lot of people had felt betrayed by him, now people around here tend to just remember his super star prowess as a Tiger, Houston Oiler and Oakland Raider. In Louisiana even are greatest legends are tainted.
Comments
Great set!
If Billy Cannon had not signed with the AFL,
the American Football League may well have folded
and pro football could have remained stagnant for decades to come ...
"How about a little fire Scarecrow ?"
<< <i>Great set!
If Billy Cannon had not signed with the AFL,
the American Football League may well have folded
and pro football could have remained stagnant for decades to come ...
I had a chance to meet him a few weeks ago... here are a few pics
I am the big dumb looking guy with the goofy grin and that is my 5 year old boy that Billy has his arm around.
Awesome pics! Thanks for sharing.
Everyone credits Namath, but without Cannon, Namath, as we remember him would not have even existed ...
"How about a little fire Scarecrow ?"
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An utter disaster - former football star Billy Cannon
Michael J. Goodman
Dr. Billy Abb Cannon -- Louisiana football legend, confessed counterfeiter -- waves me into the tiny, cluttered cubicle he calls his orthodontist office. Outside, his waiting room is empty of both staff and clients. As usual.
Cheap green and yellow vinyl chairs hooked together line the walls. One hundred or so magazines are piled on white formica coffee tables. Esquire, People, Family Journal. The magazines on top are dated April and May of 1994. Many are addressed to someone other than Cannon. The toilet and sink in the bathroom are splotched with rust
"If s a very depressing place," says Paul Manasseh, a retired LSU sports information director who lunches and visits with Cannon weekly at Cannon's office in Baton Rouge. "Billy sits in that office all day long, all by himself. He had to get an answering machine because of bill collectors. He never picks up the phone until he knows who it is."
Cannon's two X-ray machines -- one is broken -- have not been used since 1986 when he was released from federal prison in Texarkana, Tex. He served 2 1/2 years as head of a ring that counterfeited $6 million in $100 bills.
Now, Cannon contracts out X-rays because he has been "financially unable" to pay the $55-a-year safety inspection fee for X-ray machines, according to a letter filed September 9, 1993, with the state attorney general. The letter from his attorney was in response to two lawsuits by the attorney general totaling nearly $1,000 in fines and court fees for non-payment of $110 for safety inspections.
Financial desperation, Cannon says, forced him to invite a reporter to sit down with him, probably the first time in more than a decade.
At first, Cannon wanted $1,000 to talk. Through an intermediary, Cannon was told THE SPORTING NEWS does not pay for interviews. The possibility of a book deal resulting from the article was discussed. No argument. Successful books have been written about far less controversial sports figures.
"Billy wants to talk. He's at his office," relayed the intermediary, a close friend.
Cannon offers me a seat. He raises a cola bottle to his lips. It is full. But not with soda. He squirts a stream of tobacco juice dead center through the bottle's small opening.
"Chaw?" he asks, offering a pouch of Red Man tobacco. I don't chew. But chew I do. Cannon tosses over an empty spittin' bottle and the pouch labeled "The Flavor of America ... America's best chew." We talk and spit with tobacco plugs wedged between cheek and gum.
"I'm broke," Cannon says. His voice is matter of fact, almost nonchalant. "I'm busted. I'm going down. I'll probably file bankruptcy." He concedes even his 1959 Heisman Trophy has been bartered to a restaurant owner for display in return for free lunches and to protect the Heisman from creditors.
The people of Baton Rouge still haven't fully recovered from the shame of Cannon's 1983 counterfeiting scandal.
Now this.
Again, it seems, Cannon will embarrass, disappoint and betray the football-obsessed fans of this state capital strung along the Mississippi River. Many, if not most, still cling to the glory Cannon gave them and LSU: the 1958 national championship. The 89-yard punt return for a touchdown to beat hated Ole Miss in 1959.
Physically, Cannon still oozes power. Big, burly, with a meaty face, square jaw, cropped jock haircut. His hatred of the media is clear during the 30 minutes he endures my presence. His eyes glitter with suspicion. His voice is edged with contempt. His smile through pressed, colorless lips is more of a smirk and sneer.
The phone rings. His message machine announces: "This is Dr. Billy Cannon. I am presently with a patient. If you will leave your name ..."
Cannon listens to the message. "Another bill collector," he mutters.
He brightens. "I can tell you stories that would fill a book. I can tell you things you wouldn't believe."
"So," I pose, "tell me. Give me a taste, a sample."
I pull out my notebook. Cannon freezes. His eyes narrow. "How much of a cash advance can I get right now? What's in it for me?" he asks repeatedly.
Cannon is reminded that cash advances for books are unpredictable. Perhaps something. Perhaps nothing. First, the article.
Cannon's face mottles with anger and frustration.
"I need money now," he snaps. "No cash advance for a book, no article! What's in it for me, now?" Cannon is told an article is forthcoming, regardless.
"I'm gonna punch you out and throw you out," Cannon snarls.
I stand, take out two false teeth, hoping Cannon has no stomach for beating up a reporter he invited into his office.
Cannon sighs. "Just leave," he grumbles. I pause at the door and ask for the third time: "Why, Billy, did you print the phony one hundreds?"
He responds with the same answer. "I took a shot." Then adds, "It didn't work."
Why Cannon turned counterfeiter is, in the words of Smiley Anders, local newspaper columnist and Cannon's high school classmate: "One of the great unsolved mysteries in Louisiana."
For 12 years, the people who know, or think they know Cannon best, have tried, in their disappointment and bewilderment, to solve the mystery. Simplistic, pat answers for human behavior -- Cannon's behavior -- have been as hotly disputed among psychiatrists as they are in Baton Rouge.
The best answer may be in Cannon's arrogant, remorseless retort: "I took a shot. It
Today, Cannon leads a quiet life, according to friends -- Thomas J. Moran, Manasseh and others.
"Billy'll have a beer, but that's about it," Manasseh says.
Moran adds, "You never see Billy out at night. He goes home."
Home is a faded yellow-brick, one-level house he bought in 1961 in what is now an upscale manicured suburb fringing the Sherwood Forest Country Club. He drives a late-model Ford pickup. He lives with his wife of 39 years, Dorothy, his high school sweetheart. Three of his four daughters have married and moved. His youngest daughter, Bunnie, 25, is assistant director for the LSU Recreation Center. His son, Billy Jr., is in construction in Baton Rouge.
Occasionally, Cannon eats lunch at the Golden Pelican Bar and Grill a few doors from his office.
Renee, a tavern regular in her 40s with burgundy-rimmed glasses, says Cannon is a "very charismatic guy with a confident sense of humor" who readily autographs the stream of bar napkins thrust at him.
Once, Renee recounted, Cannon bumped into a former patient and asked what he was doing.
"I'm in the printing business," the patient responded.
Cannon shrugged. "I was in the printing business myself."
Cannon grew up in a tough neighborhood on the north side of the tracks. "North of the tracks back then was white trash and blue collar," says J.R. Ball, editor of the Tiger Rag, a weekly off-campus magazine that covers LSU sports. "Cannon was known as a thug, a punk."
Paul Dietzel, Cannon's LSU football coach, knows as much as anybody about Cannon's early years.
"When Billy was just a boy, his father's arm was caught in machinery at a plant and ripped off," Dietzel says. "His father became bitter and hateful toward the company -- fell apart -- because he felt they never treated him right, never took care of him. Billy's dad never recovered from that mentally or physically. Billys mother had to take in washing, laundry ... clean houses. She held the family together. I think they were on relief, on welfare, for a while. I know people ... neighbors, friends ... had to give Billy clothes so he could go to school. LSU eventually gave Billy's father a job as a janitor. All this created an attitude real early in Billy's life and became, maybe, his downfall."
Cannon entered Istrouma High School in 1952. "In his freshman year, he was tall, skinny and bow-legged ... a **cky kid ... devil-may-care," says Anders, the columnist. Cannon's natural speed and strength were obvious. "Billy spent summers working with Alvin Roy (who became a trainer in professional football, now deceased). When Billy came back each year, he was bigger and bigger, faster and stronger. None of us (students) could believe it," Anders says.
All of a sudden Billy blossomed into a fabulous athlete and football player in high school. He became Billy Cannon Superstar and was in the spotlight from that time on. Then 15 kids went on a rampage against, well, what were called "queers." When the write-ups came out in the press, the only name used was "Billy Cannon." He was the news.
Cannon's notoriety also blossomed. He and two buddies smiled sweetly, but slyly gave the finger in a 1955 basketball yearbook photo.
On a dull night, Cannon and pals would go downtown and "put the roll on a queer ... slap the queers around," according to Cannon's attorney, Robert L. Kleinpeter, and past interviews given by Cannon's former principal.
"Billy got away with a lot," Al Harrison, a probation officer in the 1950s, told THE SPORTING NEWS recently. "The coach and principal would come down and keep him out of trouble. He was a rough kid who had some compulsion to do nefarious things."
Finally, one of Cannon's beating victims filed charges just before Cannon's senior year in high school. Cannon received a 90-day suspended sentence and probation. Baton Rouge couldn't have cared less. Cannon could do no wrong. LSU in general and football in particular are the heart and soul of this town.
Cannon was a 195-pound running back who scored 39 touchdowns his senior year, was named All-State and All-America and led his high school to a state championship. He would later run the 100 in 9.4 seconds and throw a 16-pound shot 54 feet
As Cannon neared graduation in 1955, he became the most recruited high school player in America.
But Cannon was a hometown boy. He was LSU-bound.
Rusty Jabour was 4 when his parents moved into the student housing built underneath the end-zone seating of LSU's Tiger Stadium. It was 1958. "I'll never forget the thunder of the fans jumping and screaming above me," says Jabour, now an information officer for the attorney general of Louisiana. "As I look back, that deafening roar above me was for Billy Cannon taking the (undefeated) Tigers to a national championship. I can still hear it."
Cannon clinched the Heisman Trophy on Halloween night, 1959. With Ole Miss leading, 3-0, in the fourth quarter, Cannon snagged Jake Gibbs' punt on the 11-yard-line. Six or seven tacklers bounced off Cannon during his 89-yard touchdown run. To this day, local radio and television stations replay The Run on Halloween night.
"I watched the ball bounce down by the 10, and I kept saying, 'No, Billy, no!' Then it became 'Go, Billy, go!'" Dietzel says.
"You have to understand it was a hot, muggy night and late in the game. The players on both teams were exhausted. But not Billy. He was so strong, so fast, he basically ran through the whole team. He was 210 pounds and ran the 100 in 9.4 seconds and could throw the shot put 55, 56 feet. It was one of the greatest runs in college football. I have a film clip of it. I still watch it more than I'd like to admit."
Despite his ability, Billy was still trouble. "Billy would get into a tiff, a mood, and just not practice," Dietzel says. "I'd haul him into the office and say: Billy, you're getting all the headlines. You're the star and these guys are working their butts off and you throw tiffs. How does it feel to be the most disliked guy on the team? If I were them I wouldn't block for you.' Billy would look at me in amazement. 'They say that about me?' Then he'd hustle and roar around in practice for a few weeks and then throw another tiff. But he was a good team player when it was necessary. At halftime, he'd go to each player and shake them and tell them to get off their nests. Billy Cannon was hard to understand."
(Dietzel says that, by comparison, Johnny Robinson, another running back at LSU with Cannon, was far wilder than Billy as a teenager in Baton Rouge. In a twist of fates, Robinson now runs a halfway house in Louisiana.
Billy Cannon began his professional career wheeling and dealing. He signed with teams from the National Football League and the newly formed American Football League. A journalist from Los Angeles called Cannon "the most repugnant young profiteer ever to sell his talents to anyone who'd bid."
First, Cannon signed a contract in November 1959 for $50,000 over three years with the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL. He held a press conference with then-Rams general manager Pete Rozelle. Then on New Year's Day 1960, between the goal posts of the Sugar Bowl, Cannon, before 83,000 fans, signed another contract with the Houston Oilers of the AFL. That contract offered him $100,000 over three years, a $10,000 gift for his wife, a slightly used Cadillac and a promised chain of Cannon gas stations selling Cannonball Regular and Super Cannonball.
A Rams-Oilers legal battle followed. The Oilers won.
Cannon got the Cadillac but not the gas stations. He led the league in rushing in 1961 but hurt his back in 1962. He was traded to the Oakland Raiders in 1964 and ended his career in 1970 as a tight end. Sportswriter Rich Koster described Cannon ending his career as a "loner ... who snarled at sportswriters." During the offseasons, though, Cannon had gone to dentistry school. With five children, Cannon knew he had to prepare for the future. Because of his popularity, Cannon's practice flourished to an estimated $300,000 a year.
But Cannon was not satisfied. "Billy thought he could make $50 million," Moran says. "Billy never could stay away from living on the edge ... a risktaker. He was always working an angle to make a buck any way he could. Look what happened with Billy Jr."
In 1980, Cannon's son, at 18, was a probable first-round draft pick as a major league short-stop/outfielder. Publicly, Billy Sr. sent telegrams to the 26 major league teams advising not to waste a first-round pick on his son because he was going to college. Privately, the Cannons were meeting with George Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees. Billy Jr. was drafted by the Yankees and signed for a reported $350,000 bonus. Then-baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn vetoed the signing. Kuhn said the other owners had been misled by Billy Sr.'s telegrams.
Billy Jr. went to Texas A&M and was the Dallas Cowboys' first-round draft pick in 1984 as a promising linebacker. He signed for a reported $1.9 million over six years. Despite advice to pay a $36,000 insurance premium in case of injury, Billy Jr. didn't. Eight games into his first year he suffered a spinal injury. Doctors warned of paralysis if he were hurt again. Billy Jr. claimed negligence by the Cowboys and filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. It was settled in 1992.
But Billy Sr. had his own woes. What follows is the story of folk hero turned desperado. What happened is based upon public records and interviews with Cannon, his friends, attorney and the federal prosecutors who sent him to prison:
Cannon invested in real estate, a shopping center, an office building and other ventures He also gambled heavily on sports and bought race horses. Luck, Cannon discovered, favors nobody -- even football heroes.
By 1983, Cannon was involved in nearly 40 financial lawsuits with lending institutions, real-estate agents, utilities and private citizens. A sampling of these lawsuits:
* Cannon borrowed more than $ 246,000 "in 23 various promissory notes" in 1981-82 from First Progressive Bank of Louisiana and "failed and refused" to pay until May 1983, when he reached an undisclosed settlement.
* Cannon bought a condominium for $122,000 in 1982 and never made a payment. The condo was sold at auction for $60,000 in March 1983.
* Cannon borrowed $55,000 in December 1981 and made no payments. A judgment was entered against him in February 1983.
* Cannon bought a Mack truck in July 1982 for $87,880. His first payment of $1,464 was due in September. He never made a payment. The matter was settled out of court in 1985, while Cannon was in prison.
(Cannon's financial misadventures continued after his release from prison. Since then, he has been involved in at least a dozen more lawsuits.
One Cannon venture in 1980 was printing souvenir T-shirts, according to Randall Miller, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted him. The shirts were printed by John Stiglets, a convicted counterfeiter.
"Cannon complained to a friend he needed to borrow more money," Miller says. "The friend told Cannon, Why borrow money? The guy printing those T-shirts makes the best money around.'" Miller adds: "At the time, Billy Cannon needed money like a dead man needs a coffin. He bankrolled Stiglets with $15,000 and got in deeper and deeper."
Stiglets set up shop in Texas. During the next two years, he printed $6 million in $100 bills. The plan was to pass the money far from Baton Rouge, but the counterfeiting ring had grown to a half-dozen or so. Not everybody was paying attention. The Secret Service was tipped in late 1982 that a man had bought a Bible, vitamins and jeans in three different stores with three $100 bills. Hmmm.
He was arrested. More $100 bills were taped under his car hood and found at his house. They were phony.
"Under questioning the guy said Billy Cannon was behind it all," says Stan Bardwell, then U.S. attorney. "The Secret Service agents were almost reluctant, embarrassed to tell me because it sounded so far-fetched."
Bardwell, it turned out, grew up with Cannon, though on the right side of the tracks. "I wasn't surprised. I knew his reputation as a punk ... a bully ... doing anything he damn well pleased."
Fifty-five federal agents descended upon Baton Rouge. Six wiretaps were placed on the phones of Cannon and other suspects.
Months passed without a break. Finally, on July 8, 1983, Cannon left his office about noon with a suspected accomplice. Agents followed, but Cannon's car "disappeared" on an unmarked dead-end street. The car reappeared at Cannon's office.
That afternoon, two men in a pickup -- suspects -- headed for the same dead-end street, making U-turns, stopping, pulling over and constantly "looking around to see if anyone was following them," documents reveal.
Agents watched the pickup drive to the dead end and vanish into grass four to six feet high. The pickup emerged. The men drove to a warehouse and unloaded two large plastic garbage bags. The bags held about $1 million in counterfeit $100 bills. Agents returned to the tall grass and dug up two empty Igloo coolers. The property belonged to Cannon. He spotted the agents the next morning and was told they had a search warrant. He shrugged and drove to Jefferson Downs race track near New Orleans. He was arrested upon his return.
The seventh-largest counterfeiting ring in American history was no more.
"I expected Cannon to be a smart ass who was going to fight it all the way," says Miller, the federal prosecutor. "Instead, he was the opposite. He seemed relieved. His attitude was: 'You got me. I'm gonna take my medicine like a man."'
Miller says Cannon's eyes widened when he learned agents spent the night tromping over his property. "You're kidding!" Cannon had gasped. "We took two dozen poisonous snakes outta there a few days ago."
Miller laughs over the anecdote. He turns serious. "Cannon did something else that struck me. We hit a break in debriefing him. Then, out of the blue, like he was talking to himself, Cannon said, 'Maybe now, some people won't be as mad at me as they are.' Cannon looked at me and realized I overheard him. He felt compelled to explain: Everybody wanted me to take part in the Special Olympics. I couldn't do it 'cause I knew you all were investigating me, and I didn't want to embarrass anybody. Now maybe they'll understand."
Cannon led agents to other buried coolers packed with counterfeit bills. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess and deal in counterfeit money. He cooperated with prosecutors and testified against his five cohorts in hope of avoiding prison.
At the sentencing, Cannon told Judge Frank J. Polozola: "... what I did was wrong, terribly wrong. I have done everything within my power to correct my mistakes..."
Polozola replied: "If the name of the person I was about to sentence was not Dr. Billy Cannon, what sentence would I impose? The court refuses to allow those who have fame and fortune or status in life to commit a crime and then have a slap on the hand while imposing jail sentences on others who are less fortunate."
Polozola gave Cannon the maximum: Five years in prison and a $10,000 fine He sold his practice to another orthodontist and surrendered his dentistry license.
Cannon entered federal prison in Texarkana, Tex., on September 12, 1983.his lawyer and others beseeched Polozola to reduce or modify the sentence. Their arguments included:
* Cannon's sentence was harsher than the other defendants, given his cooperation.
* Cannon's immediate family would be "virtually unable" to visit him because Texarkana is so far from Baton Rouge (307 miles). His "infirm mother and elderly mother-in-law are unlikely to visit him at all."
* Cannon's December 1983 induction into the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame was revoked.
* Cannon "was unable to witness his son's final year of collegiate football."
* Cannon had to "remain in the same clothes" for one week because prison officials lost his other clothes.
* Cannon is bored. He has nothing to do in prison.
The judge replied he was "confident that one or more jobs can be found at the prison for Cannon to perform ..."
As for Cannon's claim that five years was unfair, the judge said that if Cannon had not agreed to testify against his fellow counterfeiters, "Cannon's maximum exposure in this case would have been 100 years or more." The judge ruled that a sentence reduction "only would encourage a belief that persons with fame and fortune receive preferential treatment..."
Cannon was a loner in prison. He discouraged visitors.
"I was planning to go see him," Manasseh says. "But I was told he didn't want to see anybody. He just wasn't particularly interested in seeing anybody." Even Billy Jr. once told a reporter that he visited his father only two or three times.
"There was nothing good about (prison)," Cannon later told a writer from the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "I was away from my family, and that is the worst punishment of all." Cannon added that he did receive many letters from supporters, including a "wonderful, uplifting letter" from the person who presented him the Heisman Trophy -- Richard M. Nixon.
Cannon served 2 1/2 years, then went to a Salvation Army halfway house in Baton Rouge. He was released November 28,1986.
Not everybody cheered. "Jailbird! Jailbird! Jailbird!" a woman screeched. Recalling the incident, Cannon once remarked: "I wonder if she thinks I don't know I was in jail."
"There's still a lot of ill feeling in this town," grumbles Manasseh, Cannon's close friend. "Some people will not forgive. Deep down, they think Billy betrayed them. He's got that onus on him the rest of his life. He's paying the price."
After prison, Cannon's license was reinstated, following a 40-hour refresher course with Dr. John Sheridan at the LSU School of Dentistry.
"Billy Cannon was like a god to me growing up in Baton Rouge," Sheridan says. "And now Billy Cannon himself walks into my office. Despite the counterfeiting, it's hard to forget what he did for Baton Rouge and LSU."
As the years passed, Sheridan says, it was clear that Cannon could not rebuild his practice. "He's still revered as a football hero, but that counterfeiting deal, prison, the craziness of it all ... I guess it makes people wonder, and wonder enough to see another orthodontist."
Sheridan adds: "The sad, the pathetic thing, the pity of it is that Dr. Cannon is a good orthodontist." Sheridan thought for a moment. "But I'll have to admit, Dr. Cannon is the only dentist I've ever chews tobacco."
Thomas J. Moran proudly guides me through the packed lunch crowd of one of his six restaurants, T.J. Ribs Baton Rouge's most popular rib joint and a hangout of the sporting crowd. Re walls are lined with signed basketballs, footballs, helmets, trophies, pictures, uniforms, baseball cards.
With a flourish, Moran says: "Mere it is!" He points to a five-foot high, 6-foot by 6-foot, glass-enclosed trophy case protected by brass railings and anchored to brick pillars near the entrance. Inside, on a pedestal looking down upon the autographed gun boats of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O'Neal is Billy Cannon's Heisman Trophy.
Moran beams. "Billy says it's real silver -- not bronze like the others -- 'cause his trophy marked the silver anniversary of the Heisman." We study the 36-pound striking sculpture of a running back.
"How come it doesn't look silver?" I ask.
Moran frowns. "That's what Billy tells everybody." He pauses. "I never really had it tested."
Well, actually, the trophy is kind of, sort of, but not really, silver. It's not even silverplated. "It's what they call 'silverized,' or oxidized," says Jamie Crimmins, athletic director of the New York Downtown Athletic Club, which handles the Heisman Trophy Award. "It cost $54 to have that silverizing done. But the last time I saw Cannon's Heisman in the restaurant, the silverizing was gone ... worn off ... maybe tarnished. It looked just like any other Heisman Trophy."
Crimmins says it costs about $2,500 to make a Heisman. There is no argument, however, that a memorabilia collector, particularly in Louisiana, might pay far more for Cannon's Heisman.
Cannon's trophy first appeared in T.J. Ribs in 1986 -- the year the restaurant opened and Cannon was released from prison. It became common knowledge among Moran's friends that he bought the Heisman from Cannon for an undisclosed amount.
Cannon bristles when asked if he sold his Heisman. He stares sullenly, then angrily squirts an extra long stream of tobacco juice into his bottle. His voice is edgy. "Let's just say it's being protected (against creditors)."
I call Crimmins, the Heisman official. He groans. "Billy and I are personal friends. I know he's got financial problems. But to put all this in about the Heisman Trophy. ... This will open a can of worms. I think, maybe, this was the kind of thing where he gets to eat a free lunch."
Moran says: "I bought (the Heisman), but that's not for publication." Moran was told if s the worst-kept secret in Baton Rouge, and Cannon won't deny it.
Moran grimaces. His voice drops. "Billy always lived in a world of adulation. ... The star. He won everything he ever tried. He felt he could do anything he wants to do. He began doing things of his own imagination. A lot of people 'took' him, and when it came to the nut-cutting, many bailed out."
Moran rethinks his comment. "Hey, Billy gave so much to this state and I think he deserved ... he's a good family man, goes straight home at night ... no drinking, no playing around."
Moran looks away. His voice turns hoarse. "Billy's so broke. He's going down. I promised him he's always got a place to stay .. always will have three hots and a cot."
Michael J. Goodman is a freelance writer who lives in Los Angeles. Eric Jenner contributed to his story.
COPYRIGHT 1995 Sporting News Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
<< <i>From the Sporting News in 1995. Interesting, but depressing.
An utter disaster - former football star Billy Cannon
Michael J. Goodman
Dr. Billy Abb Cannon -- Louisiana football legend, confessed counterfeiter -- waves me into the tiny, cluttered cubicle he calls his orthodontist office. Outside, his waiting room is empty of both staff and clients. As usual.
Cheap green and yellow vinyl chairs hooked together line the walls. One hundred or so magazines are piled on white formica coffee tables. Esquire, People, Family Journal. The magazines on top are dated April and May of 1994. Many are addressed to someone other than Cannon. The toilet and sink in the bathroom are splotched with rust
"If s a very depressing place," says Paul Manasseh, a retired LSU sports information director who lunches and visits with Cannon weekly at Cannon's office in Baton Rouge. "Billy sits in that office all day long, all by himself. He had to get an answering machine because of bill collectors. He never picks up the phone until he knows who it is."
Cannon's two X-ray machines -- one is broken -- have not been used since 1986 when he was released from federal prison in Texarkana, Tex. He served 2 1/2 years as head of a ring that counterfeited $6 million in $100 bills.
Now, Cannon contracts out X-rays because he has been "financially unable" to pay the $55-a-year safety inspection fee for X-ray machines, according to a letter filed September 9, 1993, with the state attorney general. The letter from his attorney was in response to two lawsuits by the attorney general totaling nearly $1,000 in fines and court fees for non-payment of $110 for safety inspections.
Financial desperation, Cannon says, forced him to invite a reporter to sit down with him, probably the first time in more than a decade.
At first, Cannon wanted $1,000 to talk. Through an intermediary, Cannon was told THE SPORTING NEWS does not pay for interviews. The possibility of a book deal resulting from the article was discussed. No argument. Successful books have been written about far less controversial sports figures.
"Billy wants to talk. He's at his office," relayed the intermediary, a close friend.
Cannon offers me a seat. He raises a cola bottle to his lips. It is full. But not with soda. He squirts a stream of tobacco juice dead center through the bottle's small opening.
"Chaw?" he asks, offering a pouch of Red Man tobacco. I don't chew. But chew I do. Cannon tosses over an empty spittin' bottle and the pouch labeled "The Flavor of America ... America's best chew." We talk and spit with tobacco plugs wedged between cheek and gum.
"I'm broke," Cannon says. His voice is matter of fact, almost nonchalant. "I'm busted. I'm going down. I'll probably file bankruptcy." He concedes even his 1959 Heisman Trophy has been bartered to a restaurant owner for display in return for free lunches and to protect the Heisman from creditors.
The people of Baton Rouge still haven't fully recovered from the shame of Cannon's 1983 counterfeiting scandal.
Now this.
Again, it seems, Cannon will embarrass, disappoint and betray the football-obsessed fans of this state capital strung along the Mississippi River. Many, if not most, still cling to the glory Cannon gave them and LSU: the 1958 national championship. The 89-yard punt return for a touchdown to beat hated Ole Miss in 1959.
Physically, Cannon still oozes power. Big, burly, with a meaty face, square jaw, cropped jock haircut. His hatred of the media is clear during the 30 minutes he endures my presence. His eyes glitter with suspicion. His voice is edged with contempt. His smile through pressed, colorless lips is more of a smirk and sneer.
The phone rings. His message machine announces: "This is Dr. Billy Cannon. I am presently with a patient. If you will leave your name ..."
Cannon listens to the message. "Another bill collector," he mutters.
He brightens. "I can tell you stories that would fill a book. I can tell you things you wouldn't believe."
"So," I pose, "tell me. Give me a taste, a sample."
I pull out my notebook. Cannon freezes. His eyes narrow. "How much of a cash advance can I get right now? What's in it for me?" he asks repeatedly.
Cannon is reminded that cash advances for books are unpredictable. Perhaps something. Perhaps nothing. First, the article.
Cannon's face mottles with anger and frustration.
"I need money now," he snaps. "No cash advance for a book, no article! What's in it for me, now?" Cannon is told an article is forthcoming, regardless.
"I'm gonna punch you out and throw you out," Cannon snarls.
I stand, take out two false teeth, hoping Cannon has no stomach for beating up a reporter he invited into his office.
Cannon sighs. "Just leave," he grumbles. I pause at the door and ask for the third time: "Why, Billy, did you print the phony one hundreds?"
He responds with the same answer. "I took a shot." Then adds, "It didn't work."
Why Cannon turned counterfeiter is, in the words of Smiley Anders, local newspaper columnist and Cannon's high school classmate: "One of the great unsolved mysteries in Louisiana."
For 12 years, the people who know, or think they know Cannon best, have tried, in their disappointment and bewilderment, to solve the mystery. Simplistic, pat answers for human behavior -- Cannon's behavior -- have been as hotly disputed among psychiatrists as they are in Baton Rouge.
The best answer may be in Cannon's arrogant, remorseless retort: "I took a shot. It
Today, Cannon leads a quiet life, according to friends -- Thomas J. Moran, Manasseh and others.
"Billy'll have a beer, but that's about it," Manasseh says.
Moran adds, "You never see Billy out at night. He goes home."
Home is a faded yellow-brick, one-level house he bought in 1961 in what is now an upscale manicured suburb fringing the Sherwood Forest Country Club. He drives a late-model Ford pickup. He lives with his wife of 39 years, Dorothy, his high school sweetheart. Three of his four daughters have married and moved. His youngest daughter, Bunnie, 25, is assistant director for the LSU Recreation Center. His son, Billy Jr., is in construction in Baton Rouge.
Occasionally, Cannon eats lunch at the Golden Pelican Bar and Grill a few doors from his office.
Renee, a tavern regular in her 40s with burgundy-rimmed glasses, says Cannon is a "very charismatic guy with a confident sense of humor" who readily autographs the stream of bar napkins thrust at him.
Once, Renee recounted, Cannon bumped into a former patient and asked what he was doing.
"I'm in the printing business," the patient responded.
Cannon shrugged. "I was in the printing business myself."
Cannon grew up in a tough neighborhood on the north side of the tracks. "North of the tracks back then was white trash and blue collar," says J.R. Ball, editor of the Tiger Rag, a weekly off-campus magazine that covers LSU sports. "Cannon was known as a thug, a punk."
Paul Dietzel, Cannon's LSU football coach, knows as much as anybody about Cannon's early years.
"When Billy was just a boy, his father's arm was caught in machinery at a plant and ripped off," Dietzel says. "His father became bitter and hateful toward the company -- fell apart -- because he felt they never treated him right, never took care of him. Billy's dad never recovered from that mentally or physically. Billys mother had to take in washing, laundry ... clean houses. She held the family together. I think they were on relief, on welfare, for a while. I know people ... neighbors, friends ... had to give Billy clothes so he could go to school. LSU eventually gave Billy's father a job as a janitor. All this created an attitude real early in Billy's life and became, maybe, his downfall."
Cannon entered Istrouma High School in 1952. "In his freshman year, he was tall, skinny and bow-legged ... a **cky kid ... devil-may-care," says Anders, the columnist. Cannon's natural speed and strength were obvious. "Billy spent summers working with Alvin Roy (who became a trainer in professional football, now deceased). When Billy came back each year, he was bigger and bigger, faster and stronger. None of us (students) could believe it," Anders says.
All of a sudden Billy blossomed into a fabulous athlete and football player in high school. He became Billy Cannon Superstar and was in the spotlight from that time on. Then 15 kids went on a rampage against, well, what were called "queers." When the write-ups came out in the press, the only name used was "Billy Cannon." He was the news.
Cannon's notoriety also blossomed. He and two buddies smiled sweetly, but slyly gave the finger in a 1955 basketball yearbook photo.
On a dull night, Cannon and pals would go downtown and "put the roll on a queer ... slap the queers around," according to Cannon's attorney, Robert L. Kleinpeter, and past interviews given by Cannon's former principal.
"Billy got away with a lot," Al Harrison, a probation officer in the 1950s, told THE SPORTING NEWS recently. "The coach and principal would come down and keep him out of trouble. He was a rough kid who had some compulsion to do nefarious things."
Finally, one of Cannon's beating victims filed charges just before Cannon's senior year in high school. Cannon received a 90-day suspended sentence and probation. Baton Rouge couldn't have cared less. Cannon could do no wrong. LSU in general and football in particular are the heart and soul of this town.
Cannon was a 195-pound running back who scored 39 touchdowns his senior year, was named All-State and All-America and led his high school to a state championship. He would later run the 100 in 9.4 seconds and throw a 16-pound shot 54 feet
As Cannon neared graduation in 1955, he became the most recruited high school player in America.
But Cannon was a hometown boy. He was LSU-bound.
Rusty Jabour was 4 when his parents moved into the student housing built underneath the end-zone seating of LSU's Tiger Stadium. It was 1958. "I'll never forget the thunder of the fans jumping and screaming above me," says Jabour, now an information officer for the attorney general of Louisiana. "As I look back, that deafening roar above me was for Billy Cannon taking the (undefeated) Tigers to a national championship. I can still hear it."
Cannon clinched the Heisman Trophy on Halloween night, 1959. With Ole Miss leading, 3-0, in the fourth quarter, Cannon snagged Jake Gibbs' punt on the 11-yard-line. Six or seven tacklers bounced off Cannon during his 89-yard touchdown run. To this day, local radio and television stations replay The Run on Halloween night.
"I watched the ball bounce down by the 10, and I kept saying, 'No, Billy, no!' Then it became 'Go, Billy, go!'" Dietzel says.
"You have to understand it was a hot, muggy night and late in the game. The players on both teams were exhausted. But not Billy. He was so strong, so fast, he basically ran through the whole team. He was 210 pounds and ran the 100 in 9.4 seconds and could throw the shot put 55, 56 feet. It was one of the greatest runs in college football. I have a film clip of it. I still watch it more than I'd like to admit."
Despite his ability, Billy was still trouble. "Billy would get into a tiff, a mood, and just not practice," Dietzel says. "I'd haul him into the office and say: Billy, you're getting all the headlines. You're the star and these guys are working their butts off and you throw tiffs. How does it feel to be the most disliked guy on the team? If I were them I wouldn't block for you.' Billy would look at me in amazement. 'They say that about me?' Then he'd hustle and roar around in practice for a few weeks and then throw another tiff. But he was a good team player when it was necessary. At halftime, he'd go to each player and shake them and tell them to get off their nests. Billy Cannon was hard to understand."
(Dietzel says that, by comparison, Johnny Robinson, another running back at LSU with Cannon, was far wilder than Billy as a teenager in Baton Rouge. In a twist of fates, Robinson now runs a halfway house in Louisiana.
Billy Cannon began his professional career wheeling and dealing. He signed with teams from the National Football League and the newly formed American Football League. A journalist from Los Angeles called Cannon "the most repugnant young profiteer ever to sell his talents to anyone who'd bid."
First, Cannon signed a contract in November 1959 for $50,000 over three years with the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL. He held a press conference with then-Rams general manager Pete Rozelle. Then on New Year's Day 1960, between the goal posts of the Sugar Bowl, Cannon, before 83,000 fans, signed another contract with the Houston Oilers of the AFL. That contract offered him $100,000 over three years, a $10,000 gift for his wife, a slightly used Cadillac and a promised chain of Cannon gas stations selling Cannonball Regular and Super Cannonball.
A Rams-Oilers legal battle followed. The Oilers won.
Cannon got the Cadillac but not the gas stations. He led the league in rushing in 1961 but hurt his back in 1962. He was traded to the Oakland Raiders in 1964 and ended his career in 1970 as a tight end. Sportswriter Rich Koster described Cannon ending his career as a "loner ... who snarled at sportswriters." During the offseasons, though, Cannon had gone to dentistry school. With five children, Cannon knew he had to prepare for the future. Because of his popularity, Cannon's practice flourished to an estimated $300,000 a year.
But Cannon was not satisfied. "Billy thought he could make $50 million," Moran says. "Billy never could stay away from living on the edge ... a risktaker. He was always working an angle to make a buck any way he could. Look what happened with Billy Jr."
In 1980, Cannon's son, at 18, was a probable first-round draft pick as a major league short-stop/outfielder. Publicly, Billy Sr. sent telegrams to the 26 major league teams advising not to waste a first-round pick on his son because he was going to college. Privately, the Cannons were meeting with George Steinbrenner, owner of the Yankees. Billy Jr. was drafted by the Yankees and signed for a reported $350,000 bonus. Then-baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn vetoed the signing. Kuhn said the other owners had been misled by Billy Sr.'s telegrams.
Billy Jr. went to Texas A&M and was the Dallas Cowboys' first-round draft pick in 1984 as a promising linebacker. He signed for a reported $1.9 million over six years. Despite advice to pay a $36,000 insurance premium in case of injury, Billy Jr. didn't. Eight games into his first year he suffered a spinal injury. Doctors warned of paralysis if he were hurt again. Billy Jr. claimed negligence by the Cowboys and filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. It was settled in 1992.
But Billy Sr. had his own woes. What follows is the story of folk hero turned desperado. What happened is based upon public records and interviews with Cannon, his friends, attorney and the federal prosecutors who sent him to prison:
Cannon invested in real estate, a shopping center, an office building and other ventures He also gambled heavily on sports and bought race horses. Luck, Cannon discovered, favors nobody -- even football heroes.
By 1983, Cannon was involved in nearly 40 financial lawsuits with lending institutions, real-estate agents, utilities and private citizens. A sampling of these lawsuits:
* Cannon borrowed more than $ 246,000 "in 23 various promissory notes" in 1981-82 from First Progressive Bank of Louisiana and "failed and refused" to pay until May 1983, when he reached an undisclosed settlement.
* Cannon bought a condominium for $122,000 in 1982 and never made a payment. The condo was sold at auction for $60,000 in March 1983.
* Cannon borrowed $55,000 in December 1981 and made no payments. A judgment was entered against him in February 1983.
* Cannon bought a Mack truck in July 1982 for $87,880. His first payment of $1,464 was due in September. He never made a payment. The matter was settled out of court in 1985, while Cannon was in prison.
(Cannon's financial misadventures continued after his release from prison. Since then, he has been involved in at least a dozen more lawsuits.
One Cannon venture in 1980 was printing souvenir T-shirts, according to Randall Miller, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted him. The shirts were printed by John Stiglets, a convicted counterfeiter.
"Cannon complained to a friend he needed to borrow more money," Miller says. "The friend told Cannon, Why borrow money? The guy printing those T-shirts makes the best money around.'" Miller adds: "At the time, Billy Cannon needed money like a dead man needs a coffin. He bankrolled Stiglets with $15,000 and got in deeper and deeper."
Stiglets set up shop in Texas. During the next two years, he printed $6 million in $100 bills. The plan was to pass the money far from Baton Rouge, but the counterfeiting ring had grown to a half-dozen or so. Not everybody was paying attention. The Secret Service was tipped in late 1982 that a man had bought a Bible, vitamins and jeans in three different stores with three $100 bills. Hmmm.
He was arrested. More $100 bills were taped under his car hood and found at his house. They were phony.
"Under questioning the guy said Billy Cannon was behind it all," says Stan Bardwell, then U.S. attorney. "The Secret Service agents were almost reluctant, embarrassed to tell me because it sounded so far-fetched."
Bardwell, it turned out, grew up with Cannon, though on the right side of the tracks. "I wasn't surprised. I knew his reputation as a punk ... a bully ... doing anything he damn well pleased."
Fifty-five federal agents descended upon Baton Rouge. Six wiretaps were placed on the phones of Cannon and other suspects.
Months passed without a break. Finally, on July 8, 1983, Cannon left his office about noon with a suspected accomplice. Agents followed, but Cannon's car "disappeared" on an unmarked dead-end street. The car reappeared at Cannon's office.
That afternoon, two men in a pickup -- suspects -- headed for the same dead-end street, making U-turns, stopping, pulling over and constantly "looking around to see if anyone was following them," documents reveal.
Agents watched the pickup drive to the dead end and vanish into grass four to six feet high. The pickup emerged. The men drove to a warehouse and unloaded two large plastic garbage bags. The bags held about $1 million in counterfeit $100 bills. Agents returned to the tall grass and dug up two empty Igloo coolers. The property belonged to Cannon. He spotted the agents the next morning and was told they had a search warrant. He shrugged and drove to Jefferson Downs race track near New Orleans. He was arrested upon his return.
The seventh-largest counterfeiting ring in American history was no more.
"I expected Cannon to be a smart ass who was going to fight it all the way," says Miller, the federal prosecutor. "Instead, he was the opposite. He seemed relieved. His attitude was: 'You got me. I'm gonna take my medicine like a man."'
Miller says Cannon's eyes widened when he learned agents spent the night tromping over his property. "You're kidding!" Cannon had gasped. "We took two dozen poisonous snakes outta there a few days ago."
Miller laughs over the anecdote. He turns serious. "Cannon did something else that struck me. We hit a break in debriefing him. Then, out of the blue, like he was talking to himself, Cannon said, 'Maybe now, some people won't be as mad at me as they are.' Cannon looked at me and realized I overheard him. He felt compelled to explain: Everybody wanted me to take part in the Special Olympics. I couldn't do it 'cause I knew you all were investigating me, and I didn't want to embarrass anybody. Now maybe they'll understand."
Cannon led agents to other buried coolers packed with counterfeit bills. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess and deal in counterfeit money. He cooperated with prosecutors and testified against his five cohorts in hope of avoiding prison.
At the sentencing, Cannon told Judge Frank J. Polozola: "... what I did was wrong, terribly wrong. I have done everything within my power to correct my mistakes..."
Polozola replied: "If the name of the person I was about to sentence was not Dr. Billy Cannon, what sentence would I impose? The court refuses to allow those who have fame and fortune or status in life to commit a crime and then have a slap on the hand while imposing jail sentences on others who are less fortunate."
Polozola gave Cannon the maximum: Five years in prison and a $10,000 fine He sold his practice to another orthodontist and surrendered his dentistry license.
Cannon entered federal prison in Texarkana, Tex., on September 12, 1983.his lawyer and others beseeched Polozola to reduce or modify the sentence. Their arguments included:
* Cannon's sentence was harsher than the other defendants, given his cooperation.
* Cannon's immediate family would be "virtually unable" to visit him because Texarkana is so far from Baton Rouge (307 miles). His "infirm mother and elderly mother-in-law are unlikely to visit him at all."
* Cannon's December 1983 induction into the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame was revoked.
* Cannon "was unable to witness his son's final year of collegiate football."
* Cannon had to "remain in the same clothes" for one week because prison officials lost his other clothes.
* Cannon is bored. He has nothing to do in prison.
The judge replied he was "confident that one or more jobs can be found at the prison for Cannon to perform ..."
As for Cannon's claim that five years was unfair, the judge said that if Cannon had not agreed to testify against his fellow counterfeiters, "Cannon's maximum exposure in this case would have been 100 years or more." The judge ruled that a sentence reduction "only would encourage a belief that persons with fame and fortune receive preferential treatment..."
Cannon was a loner in prison. He discouraged visitors.
"I was planning to go see him," Manasseh says. "But I was told he didn't want to see anybody. He just wasn't particularly interested in seeing anybody." Even Billy Jr. once told a reporter that he visited his father only two or three times.
"There was nothing good about (prison)," Cannon later told a writer from the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "I was away from my family, and that is the worst punishment of all." Cannon added that he did receive many letters from supporters, including a "wonderful, uplifting letter" from the person who presented him the Heisman Trophy -- Richard M. Nixon.
Cannon served 2 1/2 years, then went to a Salvation Army halfway house in Baton Rouge. He was released November 28,1986.
Not everybody cheered. "Jailbird! Jailbird! Jailbird!" a woman screeched. Recalling the incident, Cannon once remarked: "I wonder if she thinks I don't know I was in jail."
"There's still a lot of ill feeling in this town," grumbles Manasseh, Cannon's close friend. "Some people will not forgive. Deep down, they think Billy betrayed them. He's got that onus on him the rest of his life. He's paying the price."
After prison, Cannon's license was reinstated, following a 40-hour refresher course with Dr. John Sheridan at the LSU School of Dentistry.
"Billy Cannon was like a god to me growing up in Baton Rouge," Sheridan says. "And now Billy Cannon himself walks into my office. Despite the counterfeiting, it's hard to forget what he did for Baton Rouge and LSU."
As the years passed, Sheridan says, it was clear that Cannon could not rebuild his practice. "He's still revered as a football hero, but that counterfeiting deal, prison, the craziness of it all ... I guess it makes people wonder, and wonder enough to see another orthodontist."
Sheridan adds: "The sad, the pathetic thing, the pity of it is that Dr. Cannon is a good orthodontist." Sheridan thought for a moment. "But I'll have to admit, Dr. Cannon is the only dentist I've ever chews tobacco."
Thomas J. Moran proudly guides me through the packed lunch crowd of one of his six restaurants, T.J. Ribs Baton Rouge's most popular rib joint and a hangout of the sporting crowd. Re walls are lined with signed basketballs, footballs, helmets, trophies, pictures, uniforms, baseball cards.
With a flourish, Moran says: "Mere it is!" He points to a five-foot high, 6-foot by 6-foot, glass-enclosed trophy case protected by brass railings and anchored to brick pillars near the entrance. Inside, on a pedestal looking down upon the autographed gun boats of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O'Neal is Billy Cannon's Heisman Trophy.
Moran beams. "Billy says it's real silver -- not bronze like the others -- 'cause his trophy marked the silver anniversary of the Heisman." We study the 36-pound striking sculpture of a running back.
"How come it doesn't look silver?" I ask.
Moran frowns. "That's what Billy tells everybody." He pauses. "I never really had it tested."
Well, actually, the trophy is kind of, sort of, but not really, silver. It's not even silverplated. "It's what they call 'silverized,' or oxidized," says Jamie Crimmins, athletic director of the New York Downtown Athletic Club, which handles the Heisman Trophy Award. "It cost $54 to have that silverizing done. But the last time I saw Cannon's Heisman in the restaurant, the silverizing was gone ... worn off ... maybe tarnished. It looked just like any other Heisman Trophy."
Crimmins says it costs about $2,500 to make a Heisman. There is no argument, however, that a memorabilia collector, particularly in Louisiana, might pay far more for Cannon's Heisman.
Cannon's trophy first appeared in T.J. Ribs in 1986 -- the year the restaurant opened and Cannon was released from prison. It became common knowledge among Moran's friends that he bought the Heisman from Cannon for an undisclosed amount.
Cannon bristles when asked if he sold his Heisman. He stares sullenly, then angrily squirts an extra long stream of tobacco juice into his bottle. His voice is edgy. "Let's just say it's being protected (against creditors)."
I call Crimmins, the Heisman official. He groans. "Billy and I are personal friends. I know he's got financial problems. But to put all this in about the Heisman Trophy. ... This will open a can of worms. I think, maybe, this was the kind of thing where he gets to eat a free lunch."
Moran says: "I bought (the Heisman), but that's not for publication." Moran was told if s the worst-kept secret in Baton Rouge, and Cannon won't deny it.
Moran grimaces. His voice drops. "Billy always lived in a world of adulation. ... The star. He won everything he ever tried. He felt he could do anything he wants to do. He began doing things of his own imagination. A lot of people 'took' him, and when it came to the nut-cutting, many bailed out."
Moran rethinks his comment. "Hey, Billy gave so much to this state and I think he deserved ... he's a good family man, goes straight home at night ... no drinking, no playing around."
Moran looks away. His voice turns hoarse. "Billy's so broke. He's going down. I promised him he's always got a place to stay .. always will have three hots and a cot."
Michael J. Goodman is a freelance writer who lives in Los Angeles. Eric Jenner contributed to his story.
COPYRIGHT 1995 Sporting News Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group >>
Billy has made a ton of mistakes. bad ones. Hopefully he has turned a corner, he had done so much for LSU and the state of Louisiana before his troubles that a lot of people had felt betrayed by him, now people around here tend to just remember his super star prowess as a Tiger, Houston Oiler and Oakland Raider. In Louisiana even are greatest legends are tainted.