With the retirement of Mike Minter, a void has been left that Cameron Jones hasn't felt in a long time.

I’ll never forget the moment.

On January 13, 1999, I had to say goodbye to the greatest athlete these eyes had ever seen. When Michael Jordan made it official seven months after hitting the most clutch shot of his career to beat the Utah Jazz for his sixth NBA title, the world came to a screeching halt. After all, he’d retired before and come back but now, he was really serious.

Never mind his Wizards stint a few years later. I filed that in the “Things I wish had never happened” part of my brain. Here I was, in a state of complete shock that my favorite athlete was not coming back. A little part of my love for the game of basketball died that day. I knew the NBA would take a long time to recover from this moment. It still is today.

Fast forward to last Tuesday. There I was, watching another retirement speech only this time it was much closer to home. Mike Minter was making the shocking announcement that instead of waiting until after the season to retire, he was hanging it up immediately.

When I first got the news back in April that Minter would be playing one more year with Carolina, I knew that one of my columns this year would be a tribute and I began to think about what I would write. After all, a lot of thought has to go into a piece about arguably the greatest Panther ever, one of the most underrated defensive backs in the NFL and an all around great guy.

Now that the time has come a little earlier than usual, I sped up my thinking process and decided to just say what I thought about Mr. Minter.

When Minter was drafted by Carolina in 1997, I remember that he was criticized for being too small both height and weight wise to be a safety in the NFL. He also wasn’t getting much press in Charlotte due to the fact that he wasn’t our first round pick, a distinction that went to a Colorado receiver named Rae Carruth.

But Mike didn’t let that bother him. After all, he’d done his work on the field while playing at Nebraska where he was a starting safety on their 1995 national championship team and earned All Big 12 first team honors as a senior playing both safety and linebacker.

His grittiness and hard hitting earned the respect of the coaches at Carolina enough to make him the 51^st overall selection. What a pick it would turn out to be. Minter was starting at strong safety by the sixth game of his rookie year.

Minter would battle through a staph infection and return to the field in 1999 where he would start every game until missing the first two games of the 2001 season with an injury. Starting with that third game, he would not miss anymore until his retirement.

Tough does not even begin to describe Minter. In the 3^rd quarter of Super Bowl XXXVIII against the Patriots, it was revealed he had broken his left foot. Despite this, Minter stayed in the game and equaled a career high 18 tackles which was also second on the defense that game.

Minter also earned a reputation of being one of the hardest hitting safeties in the league as well as one of the most respected. I’ll always remember a Monday Night Football game back in 2000 against Green Bay  when Antonio Freeman went across the middle for a pass from Brett Favre and Minter popped him right as he caught it, jarring the ball loose. The hit could be heard in the cheap seats it was that big. Falcons TE Alge Crumpler said whenever they played Carolina, he was always looking for where Minter was. “I always had to account for where he was on the field…He was one of the toughest I’ve ever played against.”

“I always remember him for not being disrespectful,” added Atlanta WR Joe Horn, “He would always do his job and hit hard.”

Mike was not only a terrific on the field player but off the field as well. He has done numerous work with inner city children in Charlotte as well as put his name on various charities that benefit the less fortunate particularly at Christmas time. He quickly grew to become one of the most recognizable faces associated with the Panthers’ off the field projects.

It’s people like Mike Minter that make you stop and think why they don’t get more press coverage. In today’s NFL, with so many players getting in the news for all the wrong reasons, it is nice to see someone who didn’t let the celebrity status get to their head. The term “blue-collar player” gets thrown around too much but it is definitely a way to describe Minter. Never once did he complain about playing time or point fingers.  As a captain, he recognized that responsibility for the defense rested on his shoulders and he accepted when plays worked and when they went wrong. That was why he garnered so much respect from his peers along with the entire coaching staff.

As Mike rides off into the sunset, the last thing I’ll remember was Coach John Fox’s comment during the retirement ceremony.  “We had a guest speaker talk two seasons ago, Joe Ehrmann, an ex-football player from the Baltimore Colts. He said that being a man and the success of a man is about relationships and is it better now than it was before you came. And Mike, I can say right now this football team is a better team, and we thank you for all of it.”

Thanks Mike.

Cameron Jones is a writer for DCPanthersfans.com. He can be reached at