[2] His Polish-born father, Henry Wilczek, a tailor, had wrestled professionally under the name Stramm, the German word for "sturdy," and the family's surname was eventually changed to Stram.
In 1966, they won the AFL title again on the back of one of the best defensive teams in the history of professional football featuring three hall of famers and eight all star players.
To overcome the Chiefs' defense, Packers' coach Vince Lombardi used a short passing game which proved successful, with quarterback Bart Starr becoming the first Super Bowl MVP.
In Super Bowl IV, his ingenious innovations, the "moving pocket" and the "triple-stack defense", dominated the Minnesota Vikings on both sides of the ball.
"65 Toss Power Trap", "Kassulke was running around there like it was a Chinese fire drill", and his assessment of the Vikings' ineffectual play: "You can't do that in OUR league!".
The Super Bowl victory was the second straight by a team from the AFL and added credibility to the newer league, which would complete a planned merger with the NFL the following season.
Stram's tenure in Kansas City ended with a 35–15 loss at home to the same Viking team the Chiefs defeated in Super Bowl IV.
Hampering Stram's efforts to rebuild the typically struggling Saints was a severe elbow injury to quarterback Archie Manning, who missed the entire 1976 season and parts of the 1977 campaign.
Perhaps the biggest highlight of his New Orleans tenure was a 27–17 win over his former team, the Kansas City Chiefs, at Arrowhead Stadium in 1976, Stram's first victory with the Saints.
The 1977 campaign culminated in an historic home loss to the previously winless Tampa Bay Buccaneers who were riding a 26-game losing streak over two seasons.
He helped develop Hall of Famers Len Dawson, Bobby Bell, Buck Buchanan, Curley Culp, Willie Lanier, Jan Stenerud, Emmitt Thomas, and Johnny Robinson, and others like Ed Budde and Otis Taylor.
He was considered a motivational genius, and his emphasis on the Chiefs' wearing of a patch commemorating the AFL in Super Bowl IV was one of his typical ploys, extracting maximum effort from players who had been derided by proponents of the NFL.
Stram was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2003, nine years after Bud Grant, the man whose team he had convincingly defeated in Super Bowl IV, had been enshrined.
At the Hall of Fame ceremonies, Stram was so weakened by the effects of diabetes that Len Dawson pushed his former coach onto the stage in a wheelchair.
[1] Following his retirement from coaching, Stram enjoyed a long and successful career as a color commentator on CBS' television and radio broadcasts of NFL games.
On January 10, 1982, Stram, along with Vin Scully, called the famous NFC Championship Game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys.
During a 1988 broadcasting trip to Indianapolis for a Chicago Bears–Colts game, Stram collapsed with a severely blocked aortic valve and underwent open heart surgery.