CANTON, Ohio — There are hundreds of reasons Luke Kuechly is being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame today.

He's big and strong and fast. He's smart. He worked harder and prepared more intently than perhaps anyone to play the game.

He knew how to lead, and how to teach, and how to grind, and how to laugh.

But if there's a through-line to every one of those factors, it might have been found in his parents' kitchen on the north side of Cincinnati, and when you hear the story, and square it with the Luke Kuechly you saw on the field for eight years and then beyond, it all starts to make a little more sense.

The key to Luke Kuechly's personality, and the key to his on-field success, might stem from the fact that at his core, Luke Kuechly is a connector of people.

When Tom and Eileen Kuechly designed their empty-nester/retirement house, about 10 minutes away from the across-the-street houses on Horncastle Drive which their three boys grew up in, there's a niche on one side of the kitchen island for an older wooden stool which obviously has some meaning. On the other side are four modern dining stools.

"So she can keep an eye on all her boys," Tom Kuechly laughed, referring to himself and his sons, John, Luke, and Henry.

And from her side, and from her stool in front of an expansive window, Eileen Kuechly began to talk about what her middle son Luke was like when he was a small child.

"Luke was somebody who, he always had to be touching you somehow," she said. "Bumping you, or when I was sitting in this little stool when we were eating dinner, he had to have his foot on you or something."

It's a little thing, but it lasted through the years, and has become a feature of his personality.

And it can look different depending on the setting, but Luke Kuechly is tactile, and those around him have learned that's just who he is.

His Panthers Radio Network partner, former quarterback Jake Delhomme, is used to it.

"I have bruises on my right arm sometimes from a game because he elbows me or hits me," Delhomme said. "And I do the same thing to him whether we're happy or sad, yeah, he's one of those. We're passionate people. We're not afraid to hug somebody or put our arm around somebody, and he's the same way."

And you better be ready for it, as he walks through the workplace. And it's not just teammates either. Some of Kuechly's closest friends in the building are on the support staff, like Greg Almond from the equipment room, or Mike Anderson in operations (who, along with Mike's brother Ryan, who used to work in PR, were the first three people Kuechly name-checked in his first Charlotte press conference after the Hall of Fame announcement). Kuechly once helped Mike push a Jugs machine off the field in the middle of practice because it needed to be done, and who is he to not help?

"I've seen him do it to Greg. I've seen him do it to myself. He keeps you on your toes too, right?" Anderson said with a laugh. "You never know. It might be a fist bump one time. It might be the middle-of-the-wrist handshake. It might be a hug another time, and then he might rough you up a little bit, to keep you on your toes.

"But that's Luke. He brings that energy every time you're around him, and I think he does it intentionally. Like if he doesn't feel that from you, he does that just to get you going a little bit. I mean he's one of a kind."

While Kuechly's constantly changing calls at the line of scrimmage, there's at least one rule that doesn't change. If you put out the left hand for a fist bump, he'll shake it off.

"Nope, can't do it," he said. "It can't be a left. That's bad news. Bad news is a lefty."

That is a somewhat adorable and personalizing anecdote, but it also is a window into Luke Kuechly's soul. Whether you work in the equipment room or the linebackers room, you're a teammate. And if you're a teammate, he is all-in with you, and considers you an equal.

"The beauty about Luke was Luke was a star who came down to the level of his teammates to communicate, meaning he didn't snub his nose or anything or like only talk to certain guys," said former assistant coach Sam Mills III. "Like he really met every teammate he could on their level to communicate and build a trust and a bond and a friendship with them. He is a football guy, and I think that attitude and mindset could attach to everybody on that team.

"So if you were a serious guy who was older and you were trying to win, you loved Luke cause you knew he was as committed as you were, right? If you were a knucklehead who wasn't there mentally yet, you could connect to Luke because Luke in the locker room would joke around with you and he'd extend his arm for friendship to these guys to let them know, 'Hey, we're in this together.'"

The Panthers had another guy like that one time, who also went by the last name Mills, and also has a bust in Canton, a few feet to Kuechly's left down the hall in the gallery.

"He really is so much like Sam," said former PR director Charlie Dayton, and that simple statement is a little about football but mostly about their personalities and what they meant to the franchise and the Carolinas.

Mills was an undersized overachiever his entire life, a 5-foot-9 linebacker who was cut by the Browns and the CFL before taking a deep breath and giving football another chance in the USFL, even though it forced him to quit a stable job teaching shop at a New Jersey high school. But he was also known for his kindness and his spirit, reaching down to help others, long before cancer took him on and Mills gave the Carolinas the legend of Keep Pounding.

"Sam deserves the credit because he was the foundation and made so many big plays in big moments," Dayton said. "Same with Luke. He made big plays in big moments, the Seattle playoff game, the Dallas Thanksgiving Day game, the Arizona playoff game. His stats really belie the significance of the plays he made, and to me, that was his legacy. It's something you can hang your hat on.

"But if you did a chart with those names in the locker room, those guys had the common trait. They were accountable. Luke is as accountable as anybody I've ever met. And when it's the middle linebacker, that's got a carry-on effect for everybody, because those guys are the connectors; they are the signal callers. (Head coach) Ron (Rivera) talked about it; he was like, 'I never had to worry about messaging because I've got Luke in there doing it.'"

Luke Kuechly has a tendency to build followings, and gather followers.

When his mother Eileen — and if Luke Kuechly loves anything in the world more than football, it may only be his mom — was thinking about his younger years, his other tendency was to hold doors for people. This wasn't just about being polite, though his manners are impeccable.

"He was always aware of where everybody was," she said. "Like making sure if we were out as a family somewhere, he didn't want somebody to fall behind, or he was always just concerned about keeping everybody together.

"He was always aware of where we were at all times."

Drew Brees and many others can attest to this trait on the football field as well, but for Kuechly, having his people around him remains a priority. And again, the people he considers his people represent a ripple in a pond, a concentric circle that grows as it goes.

There's a tenderness in it too, as was evidenced this weekend at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Kuechly's new teammate Roger Craig is slowing down a bit, still able to enjoy the moment, but he needs an assist every now and then. This year's class has embraced him, and throughout the weekend, Kuechly, Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, and Adam Vinatieri have taken turns helping Craig and keeping him included.

Friday morning as all the returning Hall of Famers gathered for the team picture, Kuechly was there to guide Craig down the steps to the front row, one hand on his elbow and the other on the small of his back, gently steadying him as he descended the stairs.​

But he has these same tendencies no matter the situation, and seemingly has forever.

His St. Xavier High School coach, Steve Specht, gave Kuechly the keys to his office to watch film, and eventually had to go work somewhere else because the crowd of teammates he brought with him was too big to get to his desk.

"He's a Catcher in the Rye," Specht said, referring to the JD Salinger novel, whose protagonist dreams of protecting children from falling off a cliff (and metaphorically, becoming phony adults). There's an innocence Holden Caulfield's trying to protect. And with the manners, and the inclusion, and the focus on family, you can see it in so many ways from Luke Kuechly.

At St. X, an all-boys Catholic school in Cincinnati, they like to call themselves "Men For Others," and that's what Kuechly has seemingly always been.

"Here's what I'll tell you about Luke; one of the things that we hammer these young guys on is, we call it championing the little guy, and Luke Kuechly was the greatest champion of the little guy, one of the greatest that I've been around," Specht said. "And when we talk about kids can't eat alone, you see a member of a team that's eating alone, not just sit next to them, bring them into the fold, be a shepherd. So from when I start looking at it from that standpoint, yeah, there were guys as good, but there was nobody better than Luke at making guys feel wanted and feel a part of the group.

"When your best player is your best leader and the most coachable, you've got a chance to be special."

Examples of those kinds of consideration for and service to others are voluminous.

When the Panthers drafted running back Christian McCaffrey in the first round in 2017, he was caught off guard when he got to the airport. Instead of an anonymous staffer picking him up, it was Kuechly, who proceeded to give him a tour of Charlotte so he could get a good start in his new place.

"And he gave me three of the best pieces of advice that anyone's ever given me," McCaffrey said. "And again, this isn't some words of wisdom that you would read in a Socrates novel, but he just said, 'Look, man, at the end of the day, work as hard as you can, be nice to everyone, and have fun.' And he lived by that, and he was a perfect example of that, and I just remember thinking, 'Here's the best player in the NFL picking up the first-round draft pick for their team, and showing him around the city and introducing him to everyone and making me feel welcomed.' It shows you that that's how, if you want to be a pro in this league, that's the perfect example of how to do it."

Of course, you don't get elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame just by being a great guy, but McCaffrey also noted the practical applications of those traits on the field.

"What I loved about Luke in practice is, he could make every play whenever he wanted to, but he wouldn't ruin the flow of the practice," he said. "So, if he was in the backfield when the ball was snapped, he would let the play go on. He wasn't going to embarrass anyone; he wasn't going to try to kill his own teammate, or anything like that.

"But then every once in a while, there would be a flip of a switch, and he would do whatever he wanted, and he could flat-back somebody, he could stick his face into an offensive guard pulling and wreck the whole play, but he was a great practice player, and then we would get to the sideline after a drive, and we would just watch Luke, we'd just zone in on Luke on the big screen when we were taking a break while the defense was up in games, and it was so fun.

"I'll never forget my rookie year, and we were on the bench and Greg Olsen saying, 'Luke Kuechly is my favorite player to watch in the NFL.' And that's when I started watching and really realizing how special it was."

Asked for a specific example, McCaffrey said there were too many to list.

"This is what happens with a lot of great players in the NFL, they're great all the time," he said. "So I never took it for granted, but a lot of people I felt might have, and they get used to seeing these incredible plays, they get used to seeing him fill gaps, literally when the ball was snapped, knowing where the play is going, they get used to seeing these interceptions, and these long returns, and these sacks, and these incredible tackles and plays, and, and it becomes monotonous and mundane. And I think that's one of the best signs of a great player, and that defines who Luke was.

"He was great for so long that it became the ordinary, and that is, to me, I always think that's like the biggest compliment is when people stop being in awe of you because it just becomes so routine."

Luke Kuechly was named All-Pro seven times in eight seasons. The only players to attain that standard of excellence at a higher percentage of their careers in the history of the league were Barry Sanders and Jim Brown.

Former NFL general manager Terry Bradway is a consultant for the Panthers scouting department, and not the kind of guy to casually over-praise. That's the scout in him.

But when asked about Kuechly recently, Bradway immediately replied.

"He's the most instinctive linebacker I've ever scouted in my entire career," Bradway said. "No question."

Bradway has only been doing this for 44 years, so maybe someone else might have been better. But you're going back to Mike Singletary or earlier if you want to try.

"Instinctive" is a word that gets thrown around too casually sometimes, because if everyone on the field is instinctive, no one is. But stories about Kuechly sniffing out plays, and the hours opposing coaches spent trying to prevent it, are legion.

But what does that mean, to be instinctive? Let's go to the best explainer of football we know, to get a definition.

"I think the simplest way I could frame it is, just an anticipation of what's going to happen before it actually plays out," former Kuechly teammate and FOX analyst Greg Olsen said. "And what that does is it makes him, ..."

At this point, Olsen pauses because while clairvoyance is a power that is useful for a football player, this characterization of Kuechly can undersell his talent.

"I feel like it does him almost a little bit of a disservice," Olsen continued. "We spend so much time talking about how smart he was in anticipation, and he knew the plays before they started, and that's all obviously true. But when you factor in that he could play fast, he could play with anticipation, he could play with that kind of leg up, but also marry it with being really fast and being explosive, and super strong.

"Like, when you, when you put all that together, there's not a lot of guys who can do that. There's a lot of guys that hang their hat on the physicality angle, and then there's a lot of guys who hang their hat on more of the cerebral approach. Luke is in the Hall of Fame, and Luke is an all-time great because he was a rare combination of both. He knew all the little tricks, but then when he got there, he was incredibly physical; he got there with great speed and angle.

"And that's why he's just different than anybody else, because there's a lot of people that were really smart. There's a lot of people that could easily diagnose plays, and then on the other side of the coin, there were a lot of people who were incredibly physical and fast and strong and hard to block. Him being both, he's one of a handful of guys that I've probably ever been around that was like that."

Olsen is among Kuechly's closest friends.

They coach middle school football together. They share stories and laughter and tears. Olsen was with Kuechly in the weight room late in 2019, when Kuechly admitted he was retiring at the end of the season. Olsen was supposed to be in Kuechly's kitchen in January when Julius Peppers gave the news he was inducted to the Hall of Fame, but was at his dying brother's bedside instead.

So a few weeks later, they went out to celebrate Kuechly's pending enshrinement and talk about what Canton was going to be like, and Kuechly seemed worried, and not about his speech.

"That's the week we start practice," Kuechly said to him of Charlotte Christian Middle School's camp, which was months away, and coincided with enshrinement week. "What are we going to do?"

"They're middle-schoolers, Luke," Olsen said. "We'll take two days off, and they'll be fine."

"It's like one of those things, you know it when you see it," Olsen said. "But it's hard to put into words, but he's just a unique personality, a unique person, and there's very few people that I've been around that have the true heart and soul and kindness that Luke embodies, and that's genuine."

There's a humility about Luke Kuechly, the thing that allows him to slide in with the equipment guys like it's a thing every Hall of Famer does.

"He's very in tune with every little element," safety and hunting buddy Colin Jones said. "I think what football has taught us all is just like the details, the little things, how important the little things are. So, I think from an organizational standpoint, Luke prioritized every little element of that building and just had such good relationships with everybody and just spent the time to really craft and grow those relationships. And he's just so good at making everybody feel a part of things, and because they are.

"I mean, who, who plays a bigger role in certain games than the equipment staff? Making things fun in the training room, having dinners brought in late when everybody's staying there. Just being just the ultimate, ultimate team player."

That's why one of those equipment guys, Danny O'Toole, is making the long trip back to Canton after returning to Charlotte on the team plane at 3 a.m. Friday to unpack, because he wouldn't be anywhere else.

And when he thinks about Kuechly, he doesn't think first about tackles or sacks or interceptions. He thinks about Kuechly hazing himself during his rookie year.

"It was Panther tradition, or at least that year, where guys would get taped up and dunked into the ice baths outside at Wofford, in those large plastic tubs," O'Toole said. "And you know, I'd watch rookies try to run around and hide, and it would take six guys to pull people down, pull them up, tape them, and get them to the ice bin.

"And it was the last day of training camp, I'm standing outside collecting laundry, and Luke walks up, stands by the ice bins, looks around, puts his hands behind his back, and he says, 'OK, I'm ready,' and just basically waits for his turn.

"The guys are like, 'Luke, like you're not really supposed to like agree to it. It kind of ruins the fun.'  And sure enough, they taped his wrists, dunked him, they pulled him out, and he said, 'OK, well that was fun.'"

Peppers, who stood in Kuechly's kitchen in January and left him speechless for a few moments, called him "a great teammate; one of my favorite teammates" for the two years he was back in his second stint with the Panthers. And that was based first and foremost on his ability on the field.

Getting the football right is the first requirement, and the reason they let you in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and Peppers never had to worry about that part.

"To be a teammate with him is just very calming and very relaxing," Peppers said. "Because the people that you're out with, that you're out on the field with, are going to do their job. They're going to be accountable. You can rely on them, and they know what they're doing, so I felt very comfortable with being here as a first-year player with those guys when I came back, getting a chance to be his teammate.

"I felt very comfortable on the field because I knew that I was in good hands as far as the communication."

That kind of trust among the elders was another key to Kuechly's time with the Panthers.

Head coach Ron Rivera said that during Kuechly's rookie season, the way the veterans vouched for him told him all he needed to know.

"The thing that really kind of tells you what a guy's about is when certain guys begin to show him respect," Rivera said. "Jordan Gross, Ryan Kalil, Steve Smith, DeAngelo Williams, veteran guys, big-name guys start showing him respect. Then you start hearing the opponents talk about it, you know, and this is one of the reasons I felt that he was truly going to be a Hall of Famer. When people start talking about, 'We had to rethink how we were going to attack you guys because of Luke.' When a team starts preparing for just one guy, you know he's special.

"Early on, the veterans showing him respect, that really was impactful because, and there's a saying, 'Players know players.' So when Jordan Gross comes to you and tells you, 'This guy's a special guy, coach, he's going to really help us,' that was good to know."

Rivera also noted the patterns of behavior, the way he studied, the way he took notes, the way he watched film, the way he kept his body right; those things impressed Rivera from Kuechly's first day to his last.

"Discipline, because the word is all encompassing," Rivera replied when asked to think of one word to describe a player who is hours away from joining the most select club in the sport. "It's not just rigidity, but it's the discipline to do this, the discipline to think about the things that I need to get done and do them. The discipline to be here on time, discipline to work with your guys that you're playing with. I mean, that to me is really him. Because he did these things over and over and over, not because he had to, but because he wanted to, it was part of his discipline.

"And I think his enthusiasm and the way he practiced was what really helped the guys around him and the guys that he was competing against, and I think that's why we played at such a high level because that carried over.

"Even in times when he wasn't on the practice field, they competed to be perfect. And when you can get the guys to do that consistently, things are going to go to another level."

That sweet spot, the balance between on-field brilliance and interpersonal relationships, is at the heart of Kuechly's brilliance.

Plenty of people are good at ball. Kuechly also excelled at the soft skills that created his tribe, this group of people that keeps growing, and he keeps track of. His party Saturday night will be full of teammates and coaches, but also equipment guys and athletic trainers and support staff.

And they'll all feel fully seen when Kuechly comes by.

"He's a great listener," quarterback Cam Newton said. "Like he's asking an intentional question as you're talking. He's giving you Larry King-like attention, and it's almost like I didn't realize it until later. When you talk to Luke like he's just so welcoming with conversation, you know what I'm saying?"

Long snapper JJ Jansen was his teammate all eight years of Kuechly's career, and they're close enough that when they were at McCaffrey's wedding, and Jansen found himself separated from his wife at the celebrity-studded event, Kuechly was there to help her out.

"Laura was so mad at me because at one point, like I lost track of her," Jansen laughed. "And Luke's opening the door for her and he was just so sweet, and she looks at me, and she goes, 'Why can't you be more like Luke?'"​

Why can't everyone? As he was going on stage to get his gold jacket Friday night, the highest achievement in the thing he loves more than anything other than his mom, he stopped to help his grandmother up on the stage to join him.

There were plenty of people there who could have done it, while he stood alone in the spotlight. He did it alongside his brother John. That's yet another story about Luke Kuechly making it about everyone else.

And Jansen's seen it time and again.

Despite the depth of their relationship, that rainy February day in 2020 still surprised Jansen when Kuechly came out in the pouring rain to tell his friend he was retiring before the news got out the next day. Because as much as Jansen's an institution around here, he's still the long snapper.

"He is a unique player in history in the sense that he is so dominant, so athletically gifted, so smart. And yet when he walks off the field, he is the most normal person you will ever meet, almost to the point of it's uncomfortable how unselfish he is," Jansen said. "And it's, and it's not a show, it's not a facade. That's who he is. His heart, good times and bad times, his character never changes. You know, people don't have that kind of character.

"I've reflected on this since people have asked me about him, but our friendship took a whole new turn that day when 'The Man in the Jacket' showed up in the rain, because there was some part of it where he was the superstar, I was the role player. We were friends, we got along, we spent time, we ate, we did all those things. But he thought enough of me and my wife and my family to come tell me in person something he did not need to do."

Again, they all have that version of that story. He does this a lot.

Claire Stokes, the manager of football operations who helped Kuechly when he transitioned from playing to scouting, said the secret to Luke Kuechly is that it's all on purpose.

The lifting and the film study, but also checking on friends and helping with their kids' carpool drop-off when Dad can't make it that day.

"It takes a really cool person to just fit seamlessly into a lot of people's lives," Stokes said. "And it's seamlessly; he's friendly, he's confident, he's a normal guy. I mean, he's got the Superman armor on, but he's a normal guy to all of us, and that's in the best way.

"He just, . . . he's intentional with the people that he enjoys, and he makes sure to ask each of those people about their specific lives."

And all of those people, the teammates and the relatives, the coaches and the guys who fold the towels, the Hall of Famers and fans who never met him, have one thing in common.

They're grateful they got to experience Luke Kuechly.