1959 Billy Cannon Taking the Southwest Relays 100 from Dave Styron and Dee Givens
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the passing of one of my former teammates, Dee Givens, Oklahoma University, who in 1959 or 60 probably ran a 9.3 100 yards, though I could not find evidence of the race. He was sixth in the US Olympic Trials 200 meters, so his performance was not a fluke. In that piece I published a picture of Dee in action at the Southwest Relays in 1959, but cropped it to only show Dee. However that picture came from a finish photo in which Dee only placed third behind Billy Cannon of LSU, the Heisman Trophy winner and another very good sprinter Dave Styron of Northeast Louisiana. Styron would move on to Southern Illinois, and Cannon would move on to a formidable career in the NFL and then another career driving a dentist chair. Actually he was an orthodontist. In that Southwest Relays meet Cannon also won the shot put defeating Oklahoma's Mike Lindsay who would place fifth in the Rome Olympics for Great Britain.
To go off track a bit more, Lindsay was incredibly versatile. He weighed about 220 pounds. He could high jump 6' 0" and was one of the fastest on the team out of the blocks for 30 yards. Cannon showed that same versatility as well playing both offense and defense on the football field, punting, and running back kickoffs and punts. Walt Murphy recently noted in his daily reports that Ken Bantum who was the leading shotputter in the US before Parry O'Brien came along, had run a leg in the 4x220 for his team at the Penn Relays.
The following is from Wikipedia on Billy Cannon's football career and later life. He had some low points, but if you read through it's entirety, you will see that he definitely redeemed himself.
1959 season
With Cannon and most of the defensive starters returning in 1959, LSU was expected to compete for another national title. The Tigers began the season as the top-ranked team, and the number of season-ticket holders tripled compared to the previous season. The team won its first six games without allowing a touchdown. Cannon showed his versatility in those games; he led the team in total yards on offense, returned an interception for a touchdown on defense, and averaged 40 yards per punt while also returning punts and kickoffs. This set up a highly anticipated match-up between LSU and rival Ole Miss Rebels, who were also undefeated.
Halloween run
| External video | |
|---|---|
 Cannon's punt return, YouTube video. The return begins at 1:15 of the video. |
On Halloween night, Cannon led LSU into Tiger Stadium to face the third-ranked Ole Miss Rebels. For most of the game, neither team's offense managed to reach the end zone. Late in the fourth quarter, when the Tigers trailed 3–0, Cannon returned a punt 89 yards for a touchdown, breaking seven tackles and running the last 60 yards untouched. The Rebels mounted one last drive and reached the Tigers' 1-yard line before Cannon and Warren Rabb made a game-saving tackle on the fourth down and with 18 seconds on the clock. The Tigers won 7–3.[ After the game, Cannon lay down in the tunnel, exhausted and unable to reach the locker room. LSU's chances to repeat as national champion effectively ended the following week with a 14–13 loss to Tennessee, after a failed two-point conversion attempt by Cannon. The Tigers finished the season with a rematch against Ole Miss in the Sugar Bowl, in which they were defeated 21–0.
Heisman Trophy
After the season, Cannon was awarded the Heisman Trophy as the nation's most outstanding player in 1959. In the award's balloting of 1,197 media members, he received 519 first-place votes; runner-up Richie Lucas received 98 such votes. Although he scored only six touchdowns during the season, Cannon's defensive play and his performance on Halloween night was enough to convince voters. He received the award from Vice President Richard Nixon during a ceremony on December 9 at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City. Nixon described him as "not an ordinary Cannon, but an atomic Cannon—the ultimate weapon in the arsenal of Paul Dietzel. He was the second player from the SEC to win the trophy, following Georgia's Frank Sinkwich in 1942. Cannon was also a repeat winner of nearly every award he won the previous season, including unanimous All-America recognition.
Personal and later life
Cannon married his high school sweetheart, Dot Dupuy, while they were both freshmen at LSU. They had five children together. His son Billy Cannon Jr. played as a linebacker for Texas A&M and was selected in the first round of the 1984 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys.
Cannon Sr. graduated from LSU in 1959 and completed post-graduate studies at the University of Tennessee during the Oilers' off-season. There, he earned a D.D.S.; later, he earned additional degrees in orthodontia from Loyola University Chicago.[ After retiring from football, he returned to Baton Rouge and started his own dental practice.
Despite a successful practice, by 1983 he was in financial difficulties from bad real estate investments and gambling debts. Becoming involved in a counterfeiting scheme, he printed $6 million in U.S. 100-dollar bills, some of which he stored in ice chests buried in the back yard of a house he owned and rented out. Charged along with five others, he served two-and-a-half years of a five-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Texarkana. Upon his release in 1986, he regained his dentistry license but struggled to rebuild his practice. In 1995, he was hired as a dentist at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, initially as a contractor. At the time, the dental clinic in the prison was in chaos; many dentists refused to work there and inmates were often unable to make appointments Cannon reorganized the dental program with great success and was soon hired as a full-time employee. Warden Burl Cain, impressed with Cannon's work with the dental program, put him in charge of the prison's entire medical system. Cannon remained the resident dentist at the penitentiary, where inmates typically call him "Legend".
Billy Cannon died May 20, 2018.
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