Longtime NFL coach Frank Gansz Jr. dead at 64

Longtime special teams coach Frank Gansz Jr.died at the age of 64, according to the UFL.No cause of death has been revealed.The Gansz family is among the most respected special teams coaching families in football history, as his father, Frank Gansz Sr., is largely responsible for creating the special teams coordinator position. Gansz Jr.

was most recently the special teams coach for the St.Louis Battlehawks of the UFL.“The United Football League and St.

Louis Battlehawks extend their deepest condolences to the Gansz family, his friends, former players and coaches, and the countless people throughout the football community whose lives he touched during his remarkable coaching career,” The United Football League said in a statement announcing the death of Gansz Jr.“His passion, knowledge, competitiveness, and example he set will be remembered throughout the UFL and Battlehawks organization and carried forward by all those he came across.”Gansz Jr.had a nine-season run in the NFL with the Raiders (1998-1999), Chiefs (2001-2005) and Ravens (2006-2007). While with the Chiefs, he oversaw one of the best special teams units of the decade, headlined by legendary return man Dante “The Human Joystick” Hall.After a mostly successful run in the NFL, he returned to the college ranks with UCLA from 2008-11, helping groom Kai Forbath into an elite kicker.He was named special teams coach for SMU for 2011, the same job his father had in 2008 before dying in 2009. Gansz Jr.

left the college ranks in 2013 and returned to football in lower-level leagues, including the CFL, XFL, and USFL.His father was the two-time Special Teams Coach of the Year for the Lions (1989) and Rams, winning a Super Bowl with the latter as part of the “Greatest Show on Turf” in 1999. ...