To many on the outside, Hank Stram was just a coach. But to those that knew him, he was so much more. He was a leader, a mentor, a pioneer, and pure entertainment.
Born in Chicago, Stram grew up in Gary, Indiana, and graduated from Lew Wallace High School in 1941. He attended Purdue University, where he joined the school’s Sigma Chi fraternity and played for the football and baseball teams in 1941, 1947-47. He joined the United States Army Air Forces during WWII, which interrupted his college career.
In 1948, he stayed at Purdue following graduation, joining the Boilermakers football coaching staff as an assistant, and was the head baseball coach until 1955. In 1956, Stram began a trek around the football coaching landscape, working as an assistant coach for SMU (1956), Notre Dame (1957-58), and Miami (1959).
In 1960, Stram was hired by Lame Hunt to be the inaugural head coach of his start-up franchise Dallas Texans, of the new-American Football League. After two mediocre seasons in 1960 and ’61, Stram reunited with quarterback Len Dawson, who was at Purdue while Stram was an assistant there. The Texans made the AFL Championship at the end of the 1962 season, defeating the two-time defending champion Houston Oilers, 20-17 in double-overtime.
In 1963, the Texans moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and rebranded as the Kansas City Chiefs. Stram remained as the head coach of the team until 1974. In 1966, Stram’s Chiefs finished with an 11-2-1 record for first place in the AFL West division and a trip to the AFL Championship, where they defeated the Buffalo Bills convincingly, 31-7, for the franchise’s first championship victory since the team left Dallas for Kansas City. The win over the Bills also earned Kansas City a bid to represent the AFL in Super Bowl I against the NFL juggernaut Green Bay Packers, who routed the Chiefs 35-10.
Three years later, Stram and the Chiefs had another shot at a world championship in 1969, when the Chiefs finished 11-3 on the season and upset the defending champion New York Jets by holding Joe Namath and the Jet offense at the one-yard line to hold onto a 13-6 win, followed by a 17-7 triumph over the Oakland Raiders in the AFL Championship for the right to fly to New Orleans for Super Bowl IV.
Despite being a 13-point underdog, Stram wasn’t intimidated by his NFL opponent Minnesota Vikings, who featured one of the most formidable defensive units famously known as “The Purple People Eaters,” and neither were his players.
The Chiefs were noticeably better than the Vikings as Kansas City galloped to a 23-7 victory. But another performance occurred along the Chiefs’ sideline after Stram agreed with NFL Films to wear a mic during the game. He became the first coach to be wired during a Super Bowl and became famous for his coined phrases such as ‘matriculating the ball downfield’ and ’65 toss power trap’ as the game continued. It was a historic moment for the entire nation to glimpse the unique verbiage Stram often used.
The Chiefs made the playoffs one final time with Stram as head coach in 1971 when Kansas City fell to the Miami Dolphins, 27-24, in an exhausting battle that lasted for six quarters and became infamously known as the longest NFL game ever played.
After Kansas City failed to make the postseason from 1972 to 1974, the Chiefs cut ties with their long-time coach. Stram was hired by the New Orleans Saints in 1976 and coached the team for two seasons before retiring from coaching for good.
Stram coached for seventeen seasons in the AFL/NFL and finished with a 131-97-8 regular season record and a 5-3 record in the postseason. He is most remembered for his time in Kansas City and the strange language he often used; he referred to his players as ‘rats’ and called the officials ‘puss bellies’ or ‘sausage pushers.’ He was a civil rights pioneer and offered ample opportunities to black players, including hall of famers: Willie Lanier, Bobby Bell, Buck Buchanan, Emmitt Thomas, and Curley Culp, among many others.
He was as successful at making people laugh while on the sideline as he was coaching his football teams and will forever be a part of football lore and the Chiefs Kingdom.
He was inducted into the Chiefs’ Hall of Honor in 1987 and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2003.
Stram tragically passed away on July 4, 2005.
