JACK FAULKNER 1926-2008:

When people would call up Jack Faulkner to see if he could get them free tickets to a St. Louis Rams football game through his connections in the organization, people were never left wanting.

“Jack could not say no,” said his wife, Debbie. “He just didn’t have the heart to ask them for money.”

The truth is, Debbie said, Jack often times would just let people think the tickets he got them were free, be it for friends, relatives or perfect strangers who found his number. In reality, Faulkner’s kindness and urge to give to anyone and everyone would get in his way when it came time to take.

“It got to a point where I’d tell him to have people call me so I could say no,” Debbie said with a chuckle.

Faulkner, who for a time lived in Costa Mesa and annually raised money for local organizations such as Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, died Sunday. He was 82 and is survived by his sons Jon, Brandon and Ryan, and his daughter, Cathy.

Faulkner was part of professional football’s earliest years, one of the few remaining men who coached in both the National Football League and its early rival, the American Football League.

He coached the 1961 AFL San Diego Chargers’ record-setting defensive back unit before taking over the head coaching job for the 1962 Denver Broncos and winning Coach of the Year honors. In 1966, Faulkner began his lifelong relationship with the Rams as one of their scouts. After a short stint with other teams, he returned to the Rams in 1971, again as a scout. He stayed with the organization for the rest of his life.

“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Jack, who enriched the Rams’ organization for decades and was a driving force behind the emergence of the NFL as a marquee sport,” said Rams owners Lucia Rodriguez and Chip Rosenbloom in a press statement. “We loved him as we would a family member and will miss his vibrant personality and vast knowledge of the game he loved so much.”

Though Faulkner was born in Youngstown, Ohio, if his preference for warm weather and the night life was any indication, he was meant to stay in Southern California. He even changed his job within the Rams organization so he could remain in Orange County instead of moving to St. Louis with the team in 1994.

In Debbie’s home in Orange, there’s a statue given to Faulkner from John Wayne, the only man Faulkner said could drink him under the table. On the wall is a picture of Faulkner with the Rat Pack.

“People used to say the party didn’t start until Jack Faulkner got there and had his first drink,” Debbie said.

Like many others, Faulkner lied about his age and joined the military when he was 16 to fight World War II, battling with his fellow Marines in Okinawa and Saipan. After leaving the military, he played football as a linebacker for Miami University at Ohio where he would later coach. Debbie said he and Coach Sid Gillman would come up with some mischievous ways to beat other teams.

One year, Faulkner, presumably still young and in game-playing shape, enrolled in a Nevada university his Miami team was going to be playing that year. As Debbie tells it, Faulkner enrolled, made the football team, and would call Gillman almost daily with scouting reports. The Nevada team didn’t pick up on it until they arrived in the visiting team’s locker room in Miami without him, and noticed Faulkner’s picture on the wall as a coach with the opposing team.

Miami still lost, she said.

For his all of his antics, what Debbie and people loved most about Faulkner was his kindness.

“He would treat a bum on the street with the same kindness as he would the kings and queens of the world,” she said. She points to his 2002 heart bypass surgery as proof of his kindness.

“The surgeon told me later ‘I’ve done thousands of hearts, and this was the largest I’ve ever held,’ ” she recalled. “When I was engaged to Jack, so many people would say ‘You’d better be good to him.’ He’s the love of my life.”

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].