Mike Minter: A True Panther

Nacho: Look at that smirk.

God smirks like that.

That there's a smirk that says, "What you just said was mildly humorous, now why don't you drop outta that green jumpsuit and show me dat phat ass?"

Any Panther fan worth their fur can tell you tales of Mike Minter. He played his entire career with the Cats; he holds records for most starts and most consecutive starts and in 2003, when the Panthers went to the Super Bowl, it was because Mike Minter deemed it so.

Mike best embodied all the things that make a Panther a mythological beast. (Honestly, any time one can link to a website entitled Medieval Bestiary, one should.) Mike is gentle, his only known predator being the dragon. Pliny the Elder told me so.

Mike Minter nurses lepers back to health with his pure soul.

Mike Minter got me pregnant, and two things are interesting about this: 1) I'm a dude, and B) I wasn't all that upset about it. I mean, we made it work. Mike's a great father and I will continue to attest to that, right up until the alimony checks start bouncing.

A slightly less silly remembrance from Brethren after

Brethren: Minus the whole winning a Super Bowl thing or ever going to a Pro Bowl, this is how you have an NFL career. Mike Minter, FS, #30. Played for the same (badass) organization his whole career. Started more games, made more tackles, brought more stability than any other Panther in team history. He stuck it out thru the Capers Era, the Seifert Era, bought into the Fox Era. He played tough during the 1-15 year. He played hurt during the Super Bowl run. He truly was a player we could call our own.

That last point is more important really than other I could make. When we Charlotteans first got the franchise, the Richardsons told us how they were gonna build a team that had an identity, how we were gonna resign the core players, and give the city a team we could grow up with. And that's what's happened with Mike Minter. Nacho and I, we grew up with him.

Minter helped shape that Panther mentality. That, show up, outwork your opponent, be proud, be powerful, be a badass mother that don't take no shit from no one Panther mentality.

Right now, only Sam Mills, the field mouse warrior who lost his life to cancer, and Mike McCormack, the original GM, are the only two enshrined in the Panthers Hall of Honor.

We should be adding a third to that list pretty soon.