Just about every June over the last decade or so, I was privileged with the chance to talk football with Jim Hanifan over breakfast.

Well, actually, he talked football.

I just asked the questions, then let him do the rest.

I was there thanks to the invite from Dale Nosworthy, co-owner of Nosworthy's Hall of Fame restaurant in Coeur d'Alene. Nosworthy, a star receiver in high school, was recruited to the University of Utah in 1968 by Hanifan, who was an assistant with the Utes at the time.

The two have remained close ever since, throughout Hanifan's 36-year coaching career, many of them spent as one of the top offensive line coaches in all of football. He was O-line coach when the Washington (Football Team) won the Super Bowl in 1992, and when the St. Louis Rams won the Super Bowl in 2000.

For years after he retired in 2002, Hanifan was a popular figure on the radio in the St. Louis area, talking football.

More recently, every year that he could, Hanifan came to Coeur d'Alene to participate in a benefit golf tournament put on by Nosworthy.

SOMETIMES, AT these annual June gatherings with Hanifan at Nosworthy's, another coach would join us, and it was just as entertaining to listen to them talk football.

But, make no mistake, Hanifan was the main attraction, and not because he had the cache of a couple Super Bowl rings.

When he spoke, we all listened.

And often laughed. If those June gatherings were turned into podcasts, there would be a lot of "bleeps."

I even switched my usual breakfast order there, after seeing what he ordered one time.

I figured if it was good enough for Coach ...

So when I heard from Nosworthy that Hanifan had died on Tuesday, at age 87, in St. Louis, I thought back to some of those meetings at the restaurant over breakfast.

Here are some highlights:

ON HANIFAN recruiting Nosworthy to Utah:

Hanifan recalled the recruiting weekend where Nosworthy, then a senior at Wilson High in Long Beach, Calif., visited the University of Utah. Hanifan was the offensive coordinator of sorts for the Utes, Nosworthy a highly regarded wide receiver.

"Dale was like a lot of other guys — kind of a wild young fella, and that weekend, he exceeded his boundaries, let me put it that way. And it really ticked me off," Hanifan said. "So I decided, I've had it. He kept telling me, 'I'm thinking about Oregon State, I'm thinking about Colorado ... '

It was apparent to me that he didn't give too much of a hoot about the University of Utah."

On Sunday afternoon Hanifan drove Nosworthy to the airport for the flight back to Long Beach. He told the young prep star he wasn't interested in him coming to Utah.

"I said the way you acted this weekend, I don't want any part of that," Hanifan said. "You go your way, and I'll go mine. I said 'Go to Oregon State, go to Colorado, go wherever the hell you want to go, and I wish you the best. See ya.'"

Nosworthy got on the plane, and Hanifan headed for home, thinking about what he was going to tell the head coach then next day. If asked, he said that he was going to say that the player wanted to get paid for coming to school, figuring the coach would accept that as a reason not to keep recruiting the kid.

Hanifan was home watching TV later that day when the phone rang. It was Nosworthy. The coach was expecting to hear the player give him the what for.

"Instead he said, 'You know what? I need you. You call it the way it is,'" Hanifan recalled. "I want to have you be my coach. I need someone like you to kick me right in the (rear end). And I said 'Well, if that's the case, count me in, man.

"If you're really honest about this, I welcome you with open arms.'"

"I had a huge head," Nosworthy recalled at the time. "I was a Parade magazine All-American, I was being recruited by all sorts of schools. The University of Utah was the last thing on my mind."

"It tells you a lot about Dale," Hanifan said. "Here he was, this immature youngster, this 17-year-old kid, but by gum, he figured it out that I need somebody that's going to tell me to shape up or ship out."

AMONG THE other coaches who were part of the annual June breakfast at Nosworthy's was Henry Hamill, a longtime football coach in the region, most notably at Coeur d'Alene and Lake City high schools.

One morning, perhaps the most knowledgeable offensive line coach in the region was picking the brain of the guru of offensive line coaching in the NFL.

Another time, we were joined by John Pease, whose coaching career spanned more than four decades and included stops in college, the NFL and the USFL.

In 1968, when Pease decided he wanted to make coaching his career, he paid a visit to Hanifan at Utah.

“So I walked into (Hanifan’s) office and said, “I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” Pease recalled.

Pease worked two years at Utah as a graduate assistant (where he first met Nosworthy, then a receiver for the Utes), soaking up whatever knowledge he could from Hanifan.

“He gave me a good introduction,” Pease said. “How to play the game hard … I think there’s a lot of unwritten laws in football, like if you get the chance to blow somebody’s knee out, you don’t do it. You learn how to play the game.”

ANOTHER TIME, the man with two Super Bowl rings was joined by Dennis Erickson, who boasts two national championship rings with the Miami Hurricanes.

Erickson also coached in the NFL, with the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers.

They never coached together. But, they were asked, what if they had coached together — Erickson the head coach, with his single-back offense which featured lots of throwing, and Hanifan as the offensive line coach?

Hanifan once coached Dan Dierdorf and Conrad Dobler with the St. Louis Cardinals, and coached the “Hogs” when they paved the way to a Super Bowl title with Mark Rypien at quarterback in the early 1990s.

“I think we would have worked very well,” said Hanifan, who last coached in 2002.

Added Erickson: “It would have been a marriage made in heaven. Offensive line coaches are, I think, the key to good offensive football … he (Hanifan) was probably one of the best.”

But a coach who likes to pass a lot, teaming with an O-line coach who likes to run the football?

“If you can’t run the football, you’re not going to win,” Erickson said. “All this spread crap … nobody learns to get off the football.

“Even the teams that are in the shotgun, the teams that can run the ball win. Some guys can score a lot of points, but when it comes down to winning it all, the teams that are tough up front win.”

Hanifan agreed.

“You have to have a head coach that’s going to have the final say,” he said. “You have to have a good marriage (working together with the head coach) … you can’t have a coach that’s craving for attention. Enjoy what you’ve got. … a lot of teams don’t have that good marriage; they’re constantly fighting.”

HANIFAN ON a few other topics:

On the Seahawks throwing the ball on second-and-goal from the 1-yard line in the closing minute of the Super Bowl in 2015, instead of handing the ball to Marshawn Lynch and letting him live up to that “Beast Mode” nickname again:

“What happened to (Seattle) is, (New England) stayed nickel,” Hanifan said. “New England went goal line, so Russell Wilson comes up to the line of scrimmage, and all of the gaps are taken, he can’t hand the ball off to Marshawn, so he’s got to go to the other option.”

So Lynch couldn’t have run it in anyway, even against a defense stacked to prevent that? Seems like we’ve seen it happen before.

“You were going to have guys that you couldn’t block,” Hanifan said.

"You’ve only got five offensive linemen … they’ve got more than you’ve got. … NFL caliber linemen and linebackers, untouched, should be able to make the tackle.”

What else could the Seahawks have done?

“The head coach or the offensive coordinator could have yelled out “jumbo” or ‘heavy’ package,” Hanifan said. “That’s what they should have done. Now you have the blockers. Now you hand the ball off to Marshawn, and now you win the game.

“They gave Russell the option to run or pass. What they didn’t expect was, down there on the 1-yard line, was for New England to go goal line. Didn’t expect that. Thought they’d stay in nickel defense.

“What a way to lose a game.”

On his coaching philosophy for offensive line play.

In 2015, he said if he were still an offensive line coach, he could coach the same way he did many decades ago.

"The big thing that did change, and hopefully I was a part of that, is the use of the hands," Hanifan said. "Before, they couldn't extend their hands, they couldn't strike, so they would have to engage the rusher just by putting your elbows out and their fists on their chest. It was kind of an awkward, stupid situation.

"When I started coaching the offensive line at San Diego State (in 1972) I said we're going to strike like a boxer. We're going to hit guys. When I came to the NFL, we started doing it in the NFL."

Did his linemen get accused of holding?

"We were not holding, my friend, we were not grabbing, we were striking them; they did not like that," he said.

Hanifan said, even after the head slap by defensive linemen was outlawed, "we continued to strike, and they continue to today."

Hanifan coached some of the best offensive line-men of all time - Dan Dierdorf, Orlando Pace, Jim Lachey, Russ Grimm, Joe Jacoby and Ed White, among others.

Asked who was the best he ever coached, Hanifan says the political answer is to say he's coached several great ones. However, he did say Dierdorf was the best drive blocker he's ever coached, and Pace was the best pass protector.

As for former St. Louis Cardinal guard Conrad Dobler, who also played for Hanifan and was once on the cover of Sports Illustrated as "Pro football's dirtiest player," Hanifan said he was not a dirty player.

"No, he was very bright," said Hanifan, who said he played golf with Dobler a couple of weeks ago. "What Conrad brought to the table was intensity - a great passion for the game. Guys opposite him either feared him, so he got to do whatever he wanted to do with them, or they got so psyched up for the encounter, they went bonkers and (messed) themselves over."

....

ON WHY Nosworthy and Hanifan remained friends, and in such close contact, over the past five decades:

"The No. 1 thing about Jim Hanifan is what a loyal human being," Nosworthy said. "In a lot of ways he was a mentor and a father figure during times in my life."

Said Hanifan:

"He (Dale) and I have always kept our friendship, and it's always been special. I'm that way with a lot of my ex-players. We've kept these special bonds. I was their coach, so I was pretty demanding, but at the same time I realized that there was a lot more to the game and a lot more to the relationships than just the football end of the stick. These guys were young guys, just out of college themselves, so I hoped I helped them along the way, not only football wise, but life wise."

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @CdAPressSports.