RIP Frank Gansz, Sr.

Died from complications suffered after knee replacement surgery. His son is a coach at UCLA.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4106197

DALLAS -- Former Kansas City Chiefs coach Frank Gansz, who was special teams coach at SMU last year, has died in a Dallas hospital. He was 70.

SMU spokesman Brad Sutton said Gansz developed complications after undergoing knee replacement surgery last Wednesday. He said Gansz died Monday afternoon.

Gansz came out of the surgery without any issues but suffered complications from a blood clot soon afterward, UCLA coach Rick Neuheisel told ESPN.com's Ivan Maisel last week.

During his 38 years of coaching, Gansz spent 24 years in the NFL with eight different teams (1978-2001). He served two seasons as head coach of the Chiefs (1987-88), where he had a 8-22-1 record.

Gansz was hired in Detroit the following season and was named NFL Special Teams Coach of the Year. Gansz also coached special teams for the St. Louis Rams when they won the Super Bowl in the 1999 season. He retired from the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2001, only to be lured back to the field by June Jones at SMU last year.

Gansz is a 1960 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he played center and linebacker.

 

The special teams guru.

 

Years ago, when Gansz was coaching the Chiefs, they came to Suwanee for a week of joint workouts with the Falcons during training camp. The Atlanta players were warming up before practice the first day when Gansz comes striding out onto the field with his team behind him and starts barking orders through a bullhorn like he's commanding a batallion through some kind of close order drill. I remember the Falcons players all looking around at each other with these quizzical looks on their faces, wondering what in the world was up with this guy.

We'll miss you, Crash.

 

I don't know much about Frank Gansz Sr. except for the fact that I remembered that he'd gone from being a special teams coach to being the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. Having said that, it's a stunning loss.

RIP.

 

The 1986 Kansas City Chiefs may have been one of the worst playoff teams in NFL history. Bad offense, decent defense, great special teams because of Gansz.

In the playoff-clinching win against Pittsburg, Kansas City scored on a blocked punt return, blocked field goal return, kickoff return and field goal for all their points.