Hank Stram of Lew Wallace High School fame was an All-State halfback in football, but also lettered in basketball, track and baseball - all at 5-foot-7 and only 155 pounds.

He became a gridiron starter at Purdue University in his sophomore year, 1942. After a successful career, he was awarded the Big Ten Medal for being the conference's best all-around scholar-athlete. Boilermaker head coach Stu Holcomb offered him the job as first assistant coach enlisted from the graduating class. To expand his annual salary of $3,600, Stram played baseball for the great Fort Wayne General Electrics, champions of the Indiana-Michigan League. He received $400 a month, plus $100 for expenses.

Back in Gary he had been powerfully influenced by boxer Tony Zaleski, the Man of Steel, who was a friend of another good athlete, Stram's father.

A young Polish immigrant, Father Stram challenged the Barnum & Bailey wrestling champion and beat him. The circus signed him up to replace their former champ.

He traveled with the circus and, when he retired, he became a salesman for a custom-made clothing company in Chicago. He never stopped participating in sports. Along the sawdust trail , Dad picked up the name Stram, which seemed to work better than his actual name, Wilczek.

After an outstanding career as an amateur, Zaleski turned pro and lost a number of fights. He returned to Gary and worked in the mills for a year.

One night he came to talk to the itinerant wrestler Father Stram, who encouraged his friend to start boxing again, and Zaleski began winning. A terrific puncher, he went to Seattle in 1941 and won the middleweight championship of the world from Al Hostak.

When Zaleski came back to Gary by train, the whole town turned out to welcome him. After WWII, Tony fought Rocky Graziano and knocked him out in the sixth round in New York. Then he lost the rematch.

At that point, Hank Stram and another All-Stater from Lew Wallace, Julie Rykovich, ran into Tony at the Gary YMCA, where he was training for another rematch. Still ticked off about his loss, Tony told the boys, "I will fight him in an alley. I will fight him in a locker room, I will fight him in a phone booth, I will fight him for nothing. But I want my title back."

He knocked out Graziano in the third round.

The Garyite who most influenced Hank Stram was Tommy Harmon, of Horace Mann High School, whom Hank went everywhere to watch. Harmon was All-State in football, basketball and track, and a great pitcher in the Horace Mann Twilight League. At Michigan, Ol' 98 was a perennial All-American who capped off his collegiate career by winning the Heisman Trophy as the best college football player in the nation.

Stram coached in the American Football League and, after the AFL-NFL merger, National Football League, retiring with 131 victories, which at the time was the third best record among active coaches (behind Don Shula and Tom Landry).

He coached the Kansas City Chiefs to two Super Bowls and five divisional play-offs. He was Coach of the Year four times and coached two Pro Bowls, winning both.

Opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.