NEW ORLEANS — For 50 years, the only Super Bowl the Chiefs had ever won was the last one they played here. So the storylines of that 23-7 victory over Minnesota in Super Bowl IV became all the more indelible from forever being a standalone:

A defense replete with six future Pro Football Hall of Famers pummeled Vikings quarterback Joe Kapp and allowed just one touchdown against the 13-point favorites.

The great Otis Taylor transformed a short Len Dawson pass into a high-stepping 46-yard touchdown by shrugging off Vikings defender Earsell Mackbee and juking Karl Kassulke.

Mike Garrett scored on a play call (65 Toss Power Trap) that would become legendary because of how it was further animated by secretly mic’d-up coach Hank Stram’s showmanship in calling it.

The crowning glory of the final AFL game was an essential validation of team owner and AFL founder Lamar Hunt’s vision, and Dawson was named the game’s most valuable player.

Afterward, Stram received a congratulatory call on a locker room phone from President Richard Nixon — who later also spoke with Dawson, since he was the MVP.

But there was a curious initial glitch in the White House’s ability to reach Stram.

With a little symbolism attached.

Kicker Jan Stenerud was tying up the phone because, well, an acquaintance of his from National Guard basic training in Fort Polk, La., somehow had gotten the number and wanted to congratulate him.

The chat started with … “Remember me?”

“How he found the number, I have no idea,” Stenerud said with a laugh as we sat in his home recently.

Puzzled as Stenerud was, they chatted a moment or two before the operator cut in and said “you have to get off the phone; the White House is calling for Hank Stram.”

But here’s the thing: Overshadowed as Stenerud might have been in the hoopla, perhaps Nixon should have paused to congratulate him first. Or at least gotten him on the phone later.

Because as hard as it might be to properly appreciate today, Stenerud’s three field goals that day made him a worthy Super Bowl IV MVP.

Afterward, Vikings defensive end Carl Eller told reporters Stenerud deserved it over Dawson.

“He gets my vote,” Eller said. “He was the one who put us in a hole and gave them momentum.”

It wasn’t merely that Stenerud, the first “pure” placekicker to be inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, on his own outscored the Vikings with 11 points ... and a 9-0 start to the game.

More than anything else, it was the impact of his 48-yard field goal on Kansas City’s first possession — a tone-setting kick that apparently frazzled a Vikings team that already was wary of him.

When San Francisco played Denver on the 20th anniversary of that game, Minnesota’s Ron Yary told the San Francisco Examiner that Stenerud had been the Vikings’ “biggest concern.”

“If any one thing made us uptight going into the game,” he said, “it was Stenerud’s kicking.”

While 48 yards is a fairly routine distance today, it stood as the longest field goal in Super Bowl history for 24 years until Buffalo’s Steve Christie hit one from 54.

The record now is 57 set last season by the Chiefs’ Harrison Butker.

At the time, though, 48 was pushing the envelope.

Or at least pushing the boundaries.

Stenerud and the impending wave of so-called soccer-style kickers helped change the very calculus of the game by compelling the NFL to move the goalposts from the front of the end zone to the back in 1974 — a move that also opened up the end zone for passing purposes and eliminated what had been a peculiar hazard.

But with the goalposts still very much out front for Super Bowl IV at Tulane Stadium, the Vikings were surprised to even see Stenerud come out on the field after stopping the Chiefs at the Minnesota 41 on KC’s first drive of the game.

That was in stark contrast to Minnesota opening the game by punting from the Kansas City 39.

The Vikings “were almost laughing,” recalled Stram’s son Dale, who was on the sidelines that day.

At the time, George Blanda held the pro football record of 55.

And while Stenerud himself had set what was then known as a small-college record at Montana State, with a 59-yarder, and hit several from 54 in regular-season play for the Chiefs (including in his first game in 1967), 48 still was an uncommon stretch.

That season, pro football kickers attempted 98 kicks of 48 yards or longer and made just 15 — 15.3%.

Beyond that, because of rain and a leak in the tarp, the field conditions were treacherous.

Enough so that Stenerud’s cleats were tweaked with spikes longer than usual. Several times during the game, he adjusted where he’d normally want to step into a kick in order to navigate mud holes.

All of that had weighed on Stenerud on what he considered “a bad day” warming up with the wind and mist and the commotion of NFL Films people all over the place.

But his 48-yard kick went through with room to spare.

And, as Dale Stram put it, “It took the blood out of their faces.”

Certainly, it sent the message that the Chiefs were likely to score if they even got in Minnesota territory.

Which they also did on two of their next three possessions to take a 9-0 lead. They went into halftime leading 16-0 after Charlie West fumbled a Stenerud kickoff to set up Garrett’s touchdown.

And after Minnesota cut it to 16-7 in the third quarter, the Chiefs effectively put it away by immediately replying with Taylor’s touchdown.

The ever-genial and self-effacing Stenerud, now 82, would never describe himself as the key to that win.

For that matter, he even seemed sheepish about acknowledging it as the finest day in a 19-year career that landed him not only in the Hall of Fame, but also on the NFL 100 All-Time Team (along with Bobby Bell, Buck Buchanan, Tony Gonzalez and Willie Lanier) and the Super Bowl Silver Anniversary Team.

Hank Stram spoke aptly to both Stenerud’s prowess and enduring humility in his 1991 Hall of Fame presentation of the player he affectionately called “Jan-ski” — a moniker by the maestro of nicknames in apparent homage to the Norwegian-born Stenerud’s improbable path to the NFL by way of a ski scholarship.

“When I think of Jan, I think of impact, and impact defined is ‘an instantaneous stroke communicated through a body in motion.’ … Jan is that body in motion,” Stram said, later pointing to the “stunning effect” that impact had on the Vikings that day.

For all of his accomplishments, Stram added, “The best thing about Jan is Jan the person. He never changed. … He didn’t have a prima donna bone in his body. He was respected, admired and loved by his teammates and coaches. He always handled himself with class and style, grace and dignity.”

Still true to that modesty, Stenerud is not sure if he even still has the Super Bowl IV jersey for which someone offered him $150,000 — 10 times the winning players’ share he helped ensure that day.

He wouldn’t even have the cleats from the game, with the spikes now in varying stages of decay, if Dale Stram hadn’t purchased them for Stenerud when he spotted them at a sports memorabilia show.

And before Stenerud even left the field that day, he gave away the warmup jacket to some guy on the sideline who’d been nagging him about it even during the game.

“I didn’t want any distraction at all,” he said. “I thought, ‘Leave me alone.’ ”

Stenerud thought it had to be somebody important but didn’t figure it out until later. Turned out to be Pat O’Brien, the actor who recited the national anthem as Doc Severinsen played the song on trumpet.

And, yep, Stenerud gave him his jacket.

Then he promptly headed to the locker room — where he took the curious phone call that blocked the incoming one that perhaps should have been for him, too.

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