Hank Stram RIP

Former NFL Head Coach Hank Stram passed away last weekend. He was 82 years old.

Stram was a coach in my early football following days.(I started watching the sport in 70-71. The less said about the 70's Jets the better.) My best memory of Stram wasn't from any live game I watched but NFL Films highlights show for Super Bowl IV. Coach Stram wore a microphone during the game.

This particular Super Bowl was made to stand out in my mind because of this. We got to hear the head coach live and un-edited as he made his decisions on the way to a Super Bowl victory. I didn't watch the Super Bowl back then but this game was given a unique flavor because of the ability to get into a coach's true mind, not what the play by play and football commentators think he is thinking.

RIP Coach Stram.

Ex-coach Stram dead at 82
By Kevin McGill
ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 5, 2005

NEW ORLEANS -- Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram, who took the Kansas City Chiefs to two Super Bowls and was known for his inventive game plans and exuberance on the sideline, died yesterday, his family said. He was 82.

Stram had been in declining health for several years, and Dale Stram attributed his father's death to complications from diabetes. He died at St. Tammany Parish Hospital, near his home in Covington, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. He built a home there during his two-year stint as coach of the Saints and retired there.

"Pro football has lost one of its most innovative and creative coaches and one of its most innovative and creative personalities as well," Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt said in a telephone interview.

Stram was the Chiefs' first and winningest coach. He took over the expansion Dallas Texans of the upstart AFL in 1960 and coached them through 1974, moving with them to Kansas City where they were renamed the Chiefs in 1963.

The gregarious, stocky, blazer-wearing Stram carried a rolled up game plan in his hand as he paced the sideline. He led the Chiefs to AFL titles in 1962, 1966 and 1969 and to appearances in the first Super Bowl, a 35-10 loss to Green Bay, and the fourth, a 23-7 victory over Minnesota in 1970.

He had a 124-76-10 record with the Chiefs and in 17 seasons as a coach was 131-97-10 in the regular season and 5-3 in the postseason.

Stram was credited with popularizing the two-tight end offense that provided an extra blocker.

He was the first coach to wear a microphone during a Super Bowl, and Stram's sideline antics, captured by NFL Films, helped bring the league into the video age.