Billy Cannon of The Louisianna State Tigers

Billy Cannon started high school at Istrouma in Baton Rouge, in 1952. He was noted for his speed and strength, and became a star athlete in football and track. In football, he scored 39 touchdowns his senior year, was named All-State and All-America and led his high school to a state championship in 1955. He would later run the 100 yard dash in 9.4 seconds and throw a 16-pound shot put 54 feet.

Cannon played three seasons for LSU: 1957, 1958, and 1959. In 1958, Cannon led LSU to its first AP national championship. Number 1 LSU clinched the title in the Sugar Bowl, beating #12 Clemson 7-0. The only score was a pass from Cannon to Mickey Mangham. In 1959, Cannon led #1 LSU to a victory over #3 Ole Miss. The Tigers were trailing 3-0 when Cannon returned a punt 89 yards for a TD, breaking seven tackles. It was the only TD of the game, resulting in a 7-3 victory for LSU in Tiger Stadium. ( Click  HERE to see Cannon's amazing touchdown run for LSU on that Halloween night in 1959 ).  That year, Cannon won the Heisman Trophy. Other big games from Cannon's time at LSU were unranked LSU's 20-13 victory over #17 Georgia Tech in 1957, #1 LSU's 14-0 victory over #6 Ole Miss in 1958, and #1 LSU's 10-0 victory over #9 TCU in 1959. The No. 20 worn by Cannon was retired after the 1959 season. It is the only number that LSU has retired.

In 2008, Cannon was elected into the College Football Hall of Fame. He was formally inducted during a ceremony on December 9, 2008.

Cannon had an uncommon combination of brute strength with the speed of a sprinter. A track and field coach is reported to have remarked during his college career that he could have lost 15 pounds and won the Olympic gold in the 100 meter dash, or gained 15 pounds and won the Olympic gold in the shotput. In 1960, his signing by the Houston Oilers followed a fierce bidding war that began when Oilers owner Bud Adams met Cannon in the end zone following LSU’s Sugar Bowl victory, and ended in court, with the AFL winning against the NFL. That put the fledgling league on the football map. Cannon, at halfback, scored an 88-yard touchdown on a pass from George Blanda in the first AFL Championship game, a 24-16 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers. He scored the only touchdown in the Oilers’ repeat victory over the then-San Diego Chargers in the second-ever AFL Championship game.

Cannon amassed 2,043 all-purpose yards in 1961, and led the league in rushing. He played for the Oilers from 1960 through 1963 and went to the Oakland Raiders in 1964. Al Davis converted him to tight end during the 1964 season, and he finished his career as one of the best players of all time at that position. Cannon was All-League in 1961 and played in the AFL All-Star Game as a halfback in 1961. He was an AFL All-League selection at tight end in 1967, when he scored 10 receiving touchdowns. . He played tight end in the in 1969 AFL All-Star Game. He accounted for a total of 64 touchdowns in his career, 47 of them receiving. For his career, he amassed 3,656 yards receiving, 2,455 yards rushing, and 1,882 return yards for a combined total of 8,003 yards and 63 touchdowns. He also passed for 46 yards and one touchdown. He played in a total of six AFL Championship games, winning twice with the Oilers and once with the Raiders.

Billy Cannon is one of twenty players who played the entire ten years of the American Football League's existence.

Cannon became an orthodonist after his pro-football career, earning a D.D.S at the University of Tennessee and additional degrees in orthodontia from Loyola University Chicago. Despite a successful practice, by 1983 he was in financial difficulties from bad real estate investments and gambling debts. He became involved in a counterfeiting scheme and served 2 1/2 years of a five-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Texarkana. He printed $50 million in U.S. dollar bills that he stored in ice chests, buried in the backyard of one of the houses he owned and rented out. Upon his release in 1986, he regained his license and is currently the resident dentist at the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

His life is claimed to be the vaguely disguised subject matter of the novel (and subsequent motion picture ) Everybody’s All-American by Sportswriter Frank Dedford, although Deford denies this.

Billy's son Billy Cannon, Jr. played linebacker for Texas A&M and was selected in the first round of the NFL draft in 1984, by the Dallas Cowboys.

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