There’s always a Nashville connection. And Super Bowl LIV was no exception. One of the unsung heroes of Kansas City’s Super Bowl championship is a man who has been in Nashville for the past 20 years and has spent the past 11 of those years working as a scout for the Chiefs.

Pat Sperduto joined the Chiefs in 2009 as the club’s southeast regional scout and has stuck with the organization through several head coaching and general manager changes.

Most football fans in Nashville remember Sperduto first as an assistant and then the head coach of the old Nashville Kats franchise in the Arena Football League.

Sperduto has certainly taken the road less traveled to get the chance to taste victory in a Super Bowl. He spent time in the Canadian Football League and the Arena League in the early ‘90s as a player before turning his attention to coaching, working as an assistant for such memorable teams as the Tampa Bay Storm and Connecticut Coyotes before coming to Nashville to be the Kats’ defensive coordinator in 1997.

By 1999, Sperduto had been promoted to head coach, and even after the Kats’ original incarnation fled to Atlanta in 2002, Sperduto stayed in town with his wife Laura and their children, working as a scout and special front office assistant for the Tennessee Titans.

When Bud Adams bought a stake in the Arena League and relaunched the Kats in 2005, Sperduto returned to the sideline for a couple of seasons. The Kats were gone again after 2007, and by 2009 Sperduto had landed with the Chiefs’ scouting department, having a hand in them drafted such stars as Eric Berry.

So even though seeing the Chiefs hoist the Lombardi Trophy might have been bitter to Titans fans who saw their team come so close to a shot at a championship, it is hard not to be happy for someone who has persevered in football for as long as Sperduto.