Chief Coach Gansz’s Background Probed

Records and interviews do not support assertions Kansas City Chiefs Coach Frank Gansz has made over the years about his military and athletic career, The Kansas City Star reported in a copyright story.

Gansz, who has been portrayed as a jet fighter pilot who flew dangerous combat missions, is on record as saying his squadron was “shot at practically every place we flew.” His military personnel record shows he flew jet trainers and propeller-driven military transports, the Star reported.

The first-year head coach’s military record also shows he never was stationed as a jet fighter pilot nor was he involved in any combat missions while a member of the U.S. Air Force, the Star said.

“When I first got hired here in ’81 and ’82 and again last year, the only thing I can remember saying was the fact that I was an Air Force jet pilot. I don’t write this stuff,” Gansz said in an interview with the Star.

The newspaper said records and interviews also do not support assertions that Gansz lettered in football at Navy, that he was special assistant to the athletic director there and his version of a military flying experience that earned him the nickname “Crash.”

Gansz’s account of piloting an aircraft on a low-level training mission when it struck 12 power lines has been reported in publications across the nation. According to one account by Gansz, he then “was able to bring the plane down safely.”

Air Force records show the incident occurred July 13, 1961, about 12 miles southwest of Tulia, Tex., but that an instructor, William J. Groves, “took the aircraft, climbed it back up and returned to Reese” Air Force Base.