CHARLOTTE — There was a party going on in Charlotte the night of Jan. 18, 2015, so anybody involved had every reason to sleep in.

The Panthers had just blasted the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Championship Game, a 49-15 exclamation mark on a 15-1 regular season, which was sending them to the Super Bowl, and the confetti was still falling when the sun came up.

Thomas Davis was out cold, but only because he was in the hospital.

After breaking his arm in the second quarter of that blowout, he had surgery at 6 a.m. the next day to install plates in his arm in hopes of being able to play in the Super Bowl. But when the anesthesia kicked in, there was no way of knowing if it could work, or what he'd feel like when he woke up.

What he felt was comfortable, because there was a familiar set of eyes looking at him when he came to.

"When I went through my surgery after the NFC Championship Game, I woke up out of surgery, and Luke was the one that brought me home from the hospital," Davis said recently. "Like we just won this big-ass game, he just had a phenomenal game, the pick-six, the whole nine, we're going to the Super Bowl, and to think that's where his mind was.

"His mind was fixated on being there for his guy, making sure that I was good. We didn't know at that point whether or not I was going to be able to play in the Super Bowl or not, but he knew how important that moment was to me. He knew where I was mentally in that. And he wanted to be the person that was there for me after I came out of that surgery.

"So I think that just really speaks volumes for really who he is as a person, man. He was standing over me. That's him, man. That's him. That's him."

When you start talking about Luke Kuechly's legacy with the Carolina Panthers, the incredible football-playing gets a lot of attention, as it should. But those who know him best will also attest to the trail of random acts of kindness he'd perform over the years.

Whether it was poignant gestures like standing by the bedside of a fallen friend, or stuff you just do to help out a neighbor, Kuechly racked up nearly as many of those as tackles. Actually, probably more.

He only had 1,092 tackles.

Greg Olsen can talk all day about Luke Kuechly's displays of generosity, because he's experienced a ton of them. (Olsen can talk all day about a lot of things; this one he particularly enjoys.)

When they were still playing, Kuechly went along with Olsen's family and Ryan Kalil's family to the wedding of athletic performance analyst Brett Nenaber. It was in Hawaii, and it turned into a family vacation for most of them. And even though he doesn't have kids, Kuechly was right in the mix.

"You know, we've got a bunch of little kids, and we went to the Disney resort, and there's Luke, and he's walking up to the water slide and waiting in line with my son TJ for an hour to go down the water slide," Olsen said. "And he's just doing it because he's Luke and he genuinely enjoys being in the moment and connecting with them. And whether it's a grandma, whether it's an adult, or whether it's a 5-year-old daughter or your 5-year-old son, like, it's just Luke.

"It's genuine. He's consistent about it, and I have a million of those stories that don't have anything to even do with football that he's made impacts on my family, my kids, my wife, my parents. And everyone that knows him probably has similar stories, and it's just a unique trait. It's a unique, wholesome, very genuine trait that very few people have, and he has it."

Olsen's right — many, many people have these stories.

Former Panthers safety and frequent Kuechly hunting buddy Colin Jones still laughs — and a lot of elementary school teachers still sigh — about his version.

In 2020, during the COVID lockdown, Jones and his wife had another son. But with all the restrictions, neither of the Jones' parents could get to Charlotte in time to help with the normal running of the house.

"It was before my parents or my wife's parents could get here, and so we called Luke," Jones said, because if you're ever in a jam, calling Luke Kuechly is a good thing to do.

"So Luke took my oldest son to school for us," he continued. "And I think the teachers were quite impressed with that drop-off at carpool. They talked about that for years.

"He does it everywhere he goes. He's a special dude."

Of course, as a superhero, Kuechly has promised to use his powers for good, and he's applied that to some big causes.

When Kuechly was still playing, local PR executive Steve Luquire lost his wife to leukemia and became involved with the Project Life Movement, which began at Davidson College and goes to other college campuses to promote bone marrow matching tests and donations to fight blood cancers.

Through some connections with the Panthers, Luquire got in touch with the young linebacker, who by that time was already the NFL's defensive player of the year and on his way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

"He didn't have a place to hide, and there are a lot of people that were looking to get him," Luquire said. "And you know he was solidly in favor of spending time on football. I talked to him about it and being kind of our national ambassador, and he said, and I'll never forget, he said, 'Let me talk to my Mom and Dad, and I'll get right back to you.' He talked to them, and he came back, and he says, 'Let's do this.'

"And we were thrilled about it because he's such a role model."

As it turns out, if you want to take someone to a college campus to try to convince young people to do things to help other people, Luke Kuechly is a pretty good ambassador to have.

"Anytime you took Luke on campus, a lot of people knew him and liked him, especially young women," Luquire laughed. "He was an attraction; the guys loved him for his football, and the young women loved him for his good looks, so he was just a terrific individual to take on a college campus. When I say he hasn't met a stranger, it's not like he's out searching. Just a wonderful person."

The qualities that drew Luquire to Kuechly as a spokesman were the same things football coaches liked about him, as well.

"There's a consistency about him that is unusual," Luquire said. "You couldn't find a more likable individual, frankly. But number one is he's dependable, and you don't have to worry about Luke in any manner. He's going to do the right thing all the time. He has a respect for human nature that is unusual."

Of course, doing philanthropic work is one thing. Kuechly's not just out here doing things for show. People will tell you about his generosity with one string attached — anonymity — and that's fairly common.

But he spreads around his own Kuechly goodwill wherever he goes.

Often, these gestures involve food.

If he comes back from a hunting trip having bagged an elk, he'll bring a cooler of meat for Panthers Radio Network executive producer David Langton's wife Traci. She'll reciprocate by making homemade granola bars for him.

Equipment manager Don Toner remembers Kuechly's late nights watching film when he was playing for a lot of reasons. But said even when he was an All-Pro linebacker and he was locked in watching film, he was looking after others.

"We would be leaving, and he'd be walking back in at 8 o'clock at night," Toner said. "And he had Indian food or whatever his routine was at the time, and then of course he'd always say, 'Hey, do you want some? I got extra, you know.'"

Olsen said that this year at Christmas, Kuechly and his girlfriend had their daughter over to his house to make Christmas cookies.

"And my daughter comes home," Olsen said, "Talking about him and Hannah making cookies and, oh my God, Dad, we're going to do it every year, it's going to be a big tradition."

Kuechly does have, for lack of a better word, a soft spot for the kids.

Long snapper JJ Jansen still has the photograph from when he and Kuechly began to get much closer as friends after a year as teammates.

"The first picture I have with him is actually not me with him, but him holding my oldest son, Luke," Jansen said. "He's holding him, but it's terrible ball security, terrible kid security, kind of off the hip. "And he's talking about how he's holding a baby; he clearly hasn't held a baby in 20 years, as bad as this was.

"So we take a quick picture of Luke and Luke, and my wife pulled him right back. But before she grabbed him, he told me, 'This is so good. I haven't held a baby in a long time. I remember back when my little brother Henry was a baby, I used to push the soft spot on the top of his head all the time.' And our Luke instantly got swiped right back up by his mom.

"So that's my first vivid memory of Luke, but the random acts of kindness he's always offering for sure. He is always offering to do things. Now, in my particular case, I don't know that I've ever taken him up on all the things he has certainly offered, because you're afraid he's going to poke your kids in the soft spot. Thankfully they're all grown through those phases."

Other than putting them in pediatric danger (and relax, both Luke Jansen and Henry Kuechly, the second-year medical resident, turned out OK), Jansen said Kuechly was, as you might expect, great with kids.

"He is quick to gravitate to all of our children," Jansen said. "He's quick to play games with our kids; they're playing Monopoly, they're doing homework. He'd sit down, and I don't know if he was doing the math homework with them, but he was talking about it.

"Or if the kids are goofing off in the living room and, and maybe one of my kids gives a smart aleck remark back to my wife or me, he'll say 'Don't talk like that, Tom Kuechly would whoop my butt if I said that.' But he's like their big brother, he's like their uncle, but also like another parent in a non-parenting-your-children way."

Of course, he's also a pretty good wingman.

Jansen has future plans in the broadcasting world, made a lot of connections there the past few offseasons, and talked to a lot of people in the industry about things. So when Kuechly mentioned a recent conversation with Noah Eagle, he told Jansen that Eagle told him, "Everywhere I go in these broadcasting circles, we hear JJ Jansen."

Now, Jansen met Noah Eagle at broadcast boot camp a few years ago, and they're not strangers. But if Noah Eagle heard JJ Jansen's name a lot, it was likely from Kuechly, who will partner with Eagle on the new Netflix package this year.

This is a common occurrence for those in Kuechly's circle, as Jansen has been for years, which is why he was part of Kuechly's reverse-knock when he learned he was going to the Hall.

"For as big of a superstar as he is, when he walks into another room that I might be interested in, he elevates me in the room by how he speaks about me," Jansen said. "He's the superstar. Even at NFL Honors, every single time someone that I either knew or didn't know came into our presence, he would introduce me first and then start talking about me — my positive traits,  this is my teammate, he's my buddy, he's smart, he helps me with it. He elevated me in every single environment when that weekend was all about him.

"And I've seen him do this with everybody."