July 25, 2012 Charlotte Observer, Ryan Kalil Issues his guarantee for a Panthers Super Bowl this year

By David Hauser

Heck, I’m not even laughing, I’m just impressed.

Impressed first, that a young guy is so well versed in his franchise’s roots, especially considering that Kalil is a Cali kid with no ties whatsoever to the greater Smoky Mountain region.  How does he know so much about such a young and mostly anonymous NFL franchise, a team that he grew up literally 5,000 miles away from?  A lot of professional athletes get tagged with the mercenary label: there to get a pay check, fame, and a bunch of twitter followers…and barely know what city they are playing for.  Not Kalil, you can almost feel the retro-active pain he feels for his club’s “Dom Caper Years,” when all that Panther Nation[1] had to root for was possessing the league’s most unheralded fantasy QB in Steve Beuerlein[2] and rooting for one of the greatest names to ever bless the field of sport in tailback Tshimanga (pronounced Tim-monga) Biakabutuka. Continue reading →