Biloxi, Miss. ? Hank Stram will be remembered as a Pro Football Hall of Famer, a squat, animated coach who guided the Kansas City Chiefs to a remarkable victory in Super Bowl IV.

Beyond that, though, he was just a guy who loved football.

Stram, 82, died Monday after a long fight with diabetes. He made suburban New Orleans his home after John Mecom ended his two-year run as the Saints’ coach in 1977. He never coached again, but his legacy stayed intact. Most of all, he was never embittered.

And he became one of the best football broadcasters the game has ever seen, particularly when he was calling “Monday Night Football” on the radio with another booth legend, the late Jack Buck.

Stram established himself as a direct, innovative coach in the early days of the American Football League. He won an AFL title in 1962 with the Dallas Texans, before the team relocated to Kansas City. His Chiefs squad was no match for Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers in the inaugural Super Bowl, but three years later, Stram was ready for his second chance.

More than ready. He was poised, polished. One step ahead of the competition.

Stram’s Chiefs crushed the Minnesota Vikings, 23-7, in that fourth Super Bowl at Tulane Stadium, a mismatch that showed why the NFL was merging with the upstart AFL.

He agreed to wear a microphone for NFL Films – for a thousand bucks, it turns out – in that game, showing his colorful side as the Chiefs manhandled the Vikings. He walked up and down the sideline, rolled-up game plan in hand, while telling his charges to “keep matriculating down the field, boys.”

It was a defining moment for NFL Films, and obviously for Stram himself.

The maddening, ultra-political process for determining Pro Football Hall of Fame selections overlooked Stram until the Senior Committee got him through in 2003. He was the winningest coach in AFL history, and the Chiefs remained a viable NFL team under his tenure, going 124-76-10 in his 15 seasons with the club.

Stram was confined to a wheelchair on that warm July day in Canton, Ohio, when he was immortalized with a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His taped induction speech, however, showed all sides of Stram’s personality, a fiery yet charismatic coach who could relate to athletes and get them to perform at their best.

“He had the ability to make each and every one of us feel special,” said former Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson, who like Stram later worked in television and radio. “I wear a Super Bowl ring on this hand, and a Hall of Fame ring on this hand, and it’s all because of Hank Stram.”

Stram had some of the premier defensive players from his era, in part because the Chiefs were aggressive in their scouting of historically black universities.

Wideout Otis Taylor came to the Chiefs from Prairie View. Defensive tackle Buck Buchanan played at Grambling. Willie Lanier, one of the best linebackers on the planet, was a second-round draft pick from Morgan State.

The Chiefs employed a “stack defense” in which their linebackers lined up directly behind their teammates up front. It created mismatches and gave the Chiefs the opportunity to make big plays.

“All of us had great joy in being able to experience the sport at the level we did, because of his creative mind and the kind of personality he put around you,” Lanier told The Associated Press.

“That allowed everyone to perform at levels higher than they would have without him.”

Stram’s brief tenure with the Saints never measured up, of course. Mecom, the bumbling owner, said he gave Stram “an unlimited budget and he exceeded it.” Stram used to refer to Saints quarterback Archie Manning as a “franchise quarterback without a franchise.”

Twenty years ago, my first year of covering the Saints for a Baton Rouge newspaper, I reached Stram for a telephone interview. It was the first of many. Stram was engaging and had plenty of insight. He always had something to say, and he cared deeply about the game. When his health failed, his wife, Phyllis, helped him get through the tough times.

“I’ve lived a charmed life,” Stram said. “I married the only girl I ever loved, and did the only job I ever loved.”

Rest easy, Hank.