Description
Billy Cannon’s name, his image, and his remarkable athletic career serve as emblems for Louisiana State University, the Southeastern Conference, and college football. LSU’s only Heisman Trophy winner, Cannon led the Tigers to a national championship in 1958, igniting a love of the sport in Louisiana and organising a tradition of greatness at LSU.
But like many stories of lionized athletes who upward thrust to the status of legend, there was once a fall — and in terms of Billy Cannon, also redemption. For the primary time, Charles N. deGravelles reveals in full the thrilling highs and unexpected lows of Cannon’s life, in Billy Cannon: A Long, Long Run.
Through conversations with Cannon, deGravelles follows the athlete-turned-reformer from his boyhood in a working-class Baton Rouge neighborhood to his sudden rush of fame as the leading high school running back within the country. Personal and up to now unpublished stories about Cannon’s glory days at LSU and his stellar but controversial career within the pros, in addition to details of his indictment for counterfeiting and his post-release work as team of workers dentist at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, unfold in a riveting biography characterized by uncanny success, deep internal struggles, and a champion’s spirit that pushed through it all.