Frank Gansz Jr., of Lansdowne, Pa., the former Kansas City Chiefs special-teams coordinator and son of the franchise’s head coach in the late 1980s, has died. He was 64.
Northeastern State University football coach Darrin Chiaverini announced the news on social media and said Gansz died over the weekend. The post did not cite a cause.
“’Frankie’ was one of the best coaches and teachers I have been around in my career. I was his assistant (at UCLA) in 2009 and I enjoyed everyday being around Coach Gansz!” Chiaverini wrote. “He taught you about more than football…he taught you about life! I will forever miss you ‘Frankie’…Love you always for everything you did for our family and who you were as a person! Rest in paradise.”
Gansz Jr., whose father was the Chiefs’ head coach in 1987 and 1988, had been working as special-teams coordinator with the St. Louis Battlehawks of the UFL.
UFL president and CEO Russ Brandon released a statement about Gansz’s death.
“The UFL and St. Louis Battlehawks mourn the passing of Frank Gansz Jr., a second-generation football lifer who carved out his own path as a respected coach, teacher, and mentor,” Brandon wrote in a social media post. “Frank was old school in the best sense of the word. He was a student of the game, passionate about his craft and deeply respected by his peers and players. With a remarkable ability to bridge generations, Gansz delivered a message that blended his love of history with his love of football, using lessons from the past to shape how his teams prepared for the present.
“Frank brought passion, knowledge, discipline, and resiliency to everything he did. His impact on the UFL, the Battlehawks, and the people around him went far beyond the field. We extend our deepest condolences to the Gansz family and the countless people throughout the football community whose lives he touched during his remarkable coaching career. We will miss him.”
Coaching start at KU
While his dad was the Chiefs’ head coach, Gansz Jr. was a graduate assistant at the University of Kansas in 1987 after getting his degree from The Citadel two years earlier.
Stints at Pittsburgh, Army and Houston followed his time in Lawrence; then came a season with New York/New Jersey of the World League.
After two years with the Raiders, Dick Vermeil hired Gansz Jr. as an NFL special-teams coordinator, a job he held for five seasons.
“I knew what I wanted,” Vermeil told The Star in 2001. “I wanted (Frank Jr.). There won’t ever be another Frank Gansz coaching special teams, OK? We’re very smart to allow Frank Jr. to be Frank Jr.
“I see the intensity, the voice command, the demanding style, the attention to detail. He’s not the philosopher Frank (Sr.) is or the guy that’s read everything there is about world history, in every world. But he is a chip off the old block.”
During the 2003 season, when the Chiefs won the AFC West with a 13-3 record, they led the league in both punt-return average (16.4) and kick-return average (25.4). Dante Hall led the NFL in punt-return average, punt-return touchdowns and kickoff-return touchdowns.
The Chiefs also blocked two field-goal attempts that season. In the previous two seasons, the Chiefs blocked four punts.
In 2003, Gary Stills made the Pro Bowl as a special-teams player, and Kendall Gammon went to the NFL’s all-star game the following season as a long-snapper.
After leaving the Chiefs, Gansz Jr. coached the Baltimore Ravens’ special teams, then worked at UCLA and SMU. He also worked for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in Canada, and then had stops with teams in the XFL and USFL, according to Football Scoop.
As Gansz Jr. told The Star in his first season with the Chiefs, his original dream was to fly jets.
“I wanted to be a Marine pilot,” he said at the time. “But after a while I found out I wasn’t going to be able to fly because of my eyes. I couldn’t pass the physical.
“Then the first thing you find as a Marine is that you’re part of the Navy. You’re studying celestial navigation and steamship engineering. I wanted to rappel, so I wound up switching over to the Army.
“When you’re exposed to the military like you are at The Citadel, there’s a lot of things you don’t like about it. You decide you want to do something else.”
https://www.kansascity.com/sports/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/article316922695.html