Ed Daniels biologically was an only child, but he managed to accumulate handfuls of brothers and sisters.

He and his wife, Robin, had a blended family of five children, but a few hundred others counted Ed as a caring father figure/mentor/teacher.

If legacy equates to effective reach, Daniels had a legacy that bathes Louisiana, likely covers parts of the Southeast and possibly has spots across the country, because his reach was as vast as the indefatigable work ethic that defined him.

There was a doggedness and relentlessness that defined Daniels like few others, a fire that burned throughout a distinguished professional career as a television sports reporter/anchor/director and was the driving force behind the trend-setting high school football show, "Friday Night Football," which began in 1992 and generated spinoffs throughout the state.

Daniels died Friday at the age of 67.

"I have never worked with anybody who worked harder, or cared more, than Ed," said WWL-TV sports director Doug Mouton. "Ed always put doing the best he could on TV ahead of everything. He was a professional every minute that I knew him.

"No one cared more than Ed. And I'll also say, I was in those early meetings when we were starting 'Friday Night Football,' and it was 100 percent Ed's brainchild. And I was in those meetings when people told us a high school football show will never work in New Orleans. And 33 years later Ed continued to make that thing work. Ed's been one of the great proponents of high school sports in New Orleans over the last 30 years. The high school sporting world will miss Ed in a huge way."

"Beyond a shadow of a doubt, he's the hardest worker I've seen," said Ken Trahan, who met Daniels at the age of 15 and became his best friend. "He's just out of sight when it comes to hard work. He doesn't have any substitute for that. He goes above and beyond; he's like an NFL coach, stay up late at night and early in the morning doing things, and that's just the way he is. He took pride in what he did and trying to do it right and trying to do it well. He'd challenge me and push me in that regard, too, and I really adopted that and appreciated that."

But that doesn't come close to encompassing the totality of Daniels, who graduated from Archbishop Rummel in 1975 and after stints as a sports director in Lake Charles (1980-81) and a sports reporter and weekend anchor at WDSU in New Orleans, found his permanent professional home a WGNO-TV, where he became sports director in 1992.

There was a sense of humor and sensitivity, masked by the stern look that gave off an impression of perpetual seriousness and tunnel vision.

"He always had this front of being gruff and humorless," said Ro Brown, who worked with Daniels in Lake Charles and in New Orleans at WDSU. "But he was just funny; god, he was funny. He used to have us rolling with laughter all the time. He had this gruff thing, and then five minutes later, he'd take me in a corner and come whisper, worrying about somebody that he'd just been gruff with, or acted gruff with.

"When my mom passed away in 2010, I called him to tell him. He and Robin were on vacation. The funeral comes about, and they were at the funeral. It wasn't like it was the next day, but I'm thinking to myself and I asked him, 'Did you cut your vacation short to come back for mama's funeral?' He said, 'No, no, we were back.'

"To this day, and I told him, he was lying. He came back. And even if he wasn't lying, that tells you something that I believe he was lying. But I really think he cut his vacation short to come back. I really believe that."

That side of Daniels, who sang in his church choir and faithfully attended Mass, was another layer not everyone knew intimately, but often received glimpses of.

"He was a real strong guy of faith," said Trahan, who was Daniels' classmate at Rummel and Loyola University, where the two majored in communication, along with Brown. "He sang in his choir, (which) really defined him as much as anything. He was extremely faith-based.

"(Daniels singing in the choir) is in itself pretty interesting," Trahan said, chuckling. "Hearing him sing probably wouldn't be for my ears, because I know him too well. But just a great guy.

"He championed high school sports on television when nobody would and created something that has not only stood the test of time, but it's the pinnacle of high school sports on television – not only in this market, but really statewide, even though he's also done a great job covering the Saints and Tulane and LSU and UNO and everything else imaginable."

Faithfully, and unapologetically, Daniels covered New Orleans' professional and college teams, and often behind a with-all-due-respect caveat, never shied away from asking an uncomfortable question.

"From a personal standpoint, Ed was an amazing mentor for me," Mouton said. "I interned with Ed and Ro (at WDSU) and they were both such good people who cared so much about what they put on TV. And just to be around those guys at that time was incredibly inspirational for me.

"It so lit a fire under me to do this for a living, because they both did an exceptional job – both worked hard, and they both treated people the right way in the sense that, I feel like I learned how to do the job and how to act from Ed and Ro."

Daniels did his job until the end; he was in Los Angeles, preparing for Saints training camp in Irvine, Calif., when he suffered a massive heart attack.

A pro's pro all day, every day, until his last day.