Rich Stanfel was in his room at the Stanford Court Hotel in San Francisco the night before Super Bowl 50 when he thought he heard a knock on his door. He was hoping a Pro Football Hall of Fame representative would be knocking to inform him that his father, Dick, had been selected for induction, so the reaction was understandable.
He tensed up. He got nervous.
Was this it? Could it actually happen?
Then the eldest son of Dick Stanfel realized the knock was on a different door, for someone else on the floor, Kevin Greene.
"It startled us," said Rich Stanfel, whose father was an All-Pro lineman for the Detroit Lions and Washington Redskins in the 1950s. "And we sat and we waited. And we waited. And we waited. And my wife goes and said, 'Well, that's it, they're not coming to our door. It's been such a long time.'
"Literally seconds later, this tremendous knock."
It was a representative from the Hall of Fame. After being passed over in 1993 and barely missing enshrinement in 2012, then receiving a rare third nomination by the seniors committee, Dick Stanfel was going to be enshrined into the Hall of Fame a little more than a year after his death.
The Stanfels went to the green room for the announcement. They couldn't tell anyone yet. They saw Brett Favre walk in. Then Tony Dungy and Orlando Pace and Greene.
"The company you're in," Rich said. "You're still awestruck and not believing it's happening."
Still in shock, Rich called the man who had pushed so hard for his father to be enshrined, Hall of Fame coach Marv Levy. Stanfel and Levy went back decades, first meeting when Levy hired Stanfel to be his offensive line coach at the University of California, Berkeley. They worked together for one season before Stanfel left for the Philadelphia Eagles in 1964.
A few years later, in 1969, Stanfel suggested to then-Eagles head coach Jerry Williams he should consider hiring Levy to be the team's first special-teams coach. Levy was hired and Stanfel played a role in forever altering another Hall of Fame career.
"Dick knew of my love and belief in the kicking game and how important it was, and Jerry gave me that opportunity," Levy said. "Dick Stanfel is the reason I was able to enter the pro football ranks. Very much so. I have been indebted to him for that forever."
Levy said he told Stanfel that from time to time, especially as Levy's career took off and he became head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs and, most famously, the Buffalo Bills. Levy and Stanfel remained friends and lived in the Chicago area after Levy retired, often dining together at Harry Caray's.
When the Stanfel children decided who they wanted to present their father at the Hall of Fame, the choice had to be Levy. He knew the family. He saw Rich at football-related events and would chat with Stanfel's middle son, Scott.
Levy campaigned hard for Stanfel because he had the backing of many players from Stanfel's era. Levy said Chuck Bednarik, Art Donovan and Gino Marchetti told him Stanfel was the best offensive lineman they ever faced. Levy saw it first-hand at Cal during a drill when Stanfel felt his linemen weren't trapping correctly.
"He just jumped right in and had the Cal outside linebackers blitz and he pulled and trapped, no pads, nothing," Levy said. "No helmet, nothing. I had seen him play and always admired him greatly, but offensive linemen are rarely in the spotlight, and it's so worthwhile that Dick will now be going into the Hall of Fame.
"So many of the Hall of Famers from that era realize how worthy he is of going in."
A second-round pick of the Lions in 1951, Stanfel missed his first season with a knee injury. He played for Detroit from 1952 to 1955 and then Washington from 1956 to 1958 before retiring to coach the line at Notre Dame. He was named a first-team All-Pro five times in seven seasons. He was named to five Pro Bowls and was on the NFL's All-Decade team for the 1950s. He won championships with the Lions in 1952 and 1953, including being named MVP of the 1953 team -- astonishing for an offensive lineman.
"That was my biggest honor and a pleasant surprise for a guard," Stanfel told the Tribune in 2012. "I got lucky."
Stanfel didn't go to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis the last time he was up for induction, preferring to stay with his family in Chicago. He told the Chicago Tribune then: "If it comes, it comes. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But I sure would be happy if it happened."
It finally did, a year after his death. It's a moment both Rich and Scott called "bittersweet," because their father, who died on June 22, 2015, at age 87, isn't around to experience it.
Saturday's Hall of Fame enshrinement will be a posthumous culmination of a life spanning six decades in college and pro football. After his playing days he coached in college at Notre Dame and Cal. Then he made his living teaching offensive line play in the NFL with Philadelphia, San Francisco, New Orleans and most famously Chicago, where he won a Super Bowl ring.
After Stanfel retired, he would spend Sundays at Scott's house, eating between five and seven chicken legs and then spending time with his daughter-in-law and grandchildren.
"My wife and I said, 'How many damn chickens did we kill?'" Scott said. "We had him up every Sunday night for the past 20 years. That's thousands of freaking chickens. Thousands of chickens.
"And he loved coming up to watch my kids play football, but he'd rather stay home and play cards with the kids or with my wife and have an orange soda or a vodka tonic and play cards and be that guy."
Vodka tonics will be one of the featured menu items at the enshrinement party the Stanfel family is throwing in honor of their patriarch at the Onesto Hotel in Canton on Saturday night. Rich believes around 150 people will be there. He invited hundreds.
They saw this weekend as one final way to celebrate Dick Stanfel's career and life. Rich said the Lions are giving the family jerseys with Stanfel's name and No. 63 for them to wear. The franchise is also picking up some of the party costs and making banners. The Stanfels bought blue Hall of Fame hats with Stanfel's name and number on them to wear during the weekend.
The party itself will be a giant celebration of Stanfel, with his favorite foods -- from a filet mignon station with creamed spinach to a Mexican-food station, sourdough sandwiches and baked potatoes. Chicken legs should also make an appearance. Vodka tonics will be a popular beverage. Bowls of M&M's -- plain or peanut -- are expected to be around because that was Dick Stanfel's go-to candy.
This was all unexpected for the Stanfels when they sat in that San Francisco hotel room in February. Their patriarch is posthumously going into the Hall of Fame.
"It's a culmination of being recognized as being one of the greatest of all time is really special for all of our family," Rich said. "Even though he's not here, we understand the legacy. ... It's a select class of people.
"It's something that we'll be able to remember him even though he's not with us. It'll be a great remembrance for us and our family name for now and the rest of history. It's very wonderful."
