“That ’95 team, you were living Keep Pounding and you didn’t even realize it,” he said.

Of the later teams, he said: “You have to explain to the younger guys what Keep Pounding means; you’ve got to teach them.”

As the event reached its official conclusion, many players lingered. There was Bailey, a linebacker on the first team who played next to Mills, hugging Smith and shaking his hand, and saying: “the love, the passion you have, you represent the old school guys.” There was Kuechly on the other side of the room, taking in stories about a man he was never able to meet, but one whose film he absorbed as he became another link in the team’s proud linebacker lineage.

“This is what it’s all about,” Sam Mills III said as he surveyed the room. “People talk about wanting to build a foundation of a great organization; this is it, right here. The Panthers are so young, they have a chance to start anything they want. And it starts with guys like that.”

Smith knew his father well. Kuechly didn’t know him at all. But they recognized the impact Mills had on so many.

And as they dispersed into the night, there was a tacit promise to keep the stories alive.

To, for lack of a better word, Keep Pounding.