SMU and Navy will be playing for more than bragging rights this weekend, as the winner will also gain possession of the Gansz Trophy, in memory of SMU’s former special teams coach, Frank Gansz.

SMU Athletic Director Steve Orsini, in conjunction with the Naval Academy’s athletic department, agreed last week to create the traveling trophy in honor of Gansz, a coaching legend with ties to SMU and Navy.

Gansz, also a special teams coach in the NFL, played center and linebacker for the Naval Academy from 1957-59, graduating in 1960. He returned to his alma mater in 1969 as the team’s assistant coach until 1972.

Joining head coach June Jones’ staff in 2008, Gansz passed away on April 27, 2009, after complications from surgery.

“The Frank Gansz Trophy is being established to honor Frank for his contributions to the game of football and to remember all the lives he touched along the way,” Jones said in a press release on smumustangs.com. “We are excited that we are able to establish this trophy between the two schools he loved the most, Navy and SMU. We will play this 2009 game and all future ones between our two great schools in his honor.”

During his 24 years with the NFL, Gansz helped lead the St. Louis Rams to a win in Super Bowl XXXIV before moving to Florida to becomes the special teams coordinator for the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2000-01. In 1987-88, Gansz served at the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, following a record-breaking year as the team’s assistant coach.

After more than two decades in the NFL and 14 years spent coaching college football, Gansz was inducted into the Western Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.

SMU has a contract with Navy to finish a four-game series, ending in 2011. The series will resume in 2015 with a second four-game series, with the trophy traveling to Annapolis in 2015 and 2017 and Dallas in 2016 and 2018.