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LAS VEGAS � When Andy Reid and Tom Melvin united on the Northern Arizona University football coaching staff for one season in the 1980s, they hardly imagined they would be preparing for Super Bowl 58 together nearly four decades later.

Reid was hired as the Lumberjacks offensive line coach for the 1986 season and immediately encouraged Melvin to join him in Flagstaff as a graduate assistant tight ends coach.

Since then, they’ve coached in six Super Bowls together, winning three. They added another ring Sunday as the Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in overtime, 25-22.

Both look back on that one special season in Flagstaff as an important stepping stone to future success.

“It was a phenomenal year,� Reid said. “I loved every minute of it. We had an awesome staff up there, and it kind of came down to us and Reno [Nevada] for the championship, and it was really a neat experience.�

Reid and Melvin met at San Francisco State in 1983, where Melvin was a player when Reid arrived as an assistant coach.

Three years later they linked up again in Flagstaff under Lumberjacks head coach Larry Kentera. The 1986 Northern Arizona team went 7-4, suffering a heartbreaking loss at Nevada on the final day of the season with the Big Sky Conference title on the line.

Several players on that 1986 roster went on to the NFL, most notably eventual first-round draft pick Shawn Collins, Michael Haynes and Frank Pollack, all of whom had lengthy careers in the NFL.

The talent on the coaching staff was even more impressive. During a three-year span in the mid-1980s, four future NFL head coaches served as Northern Arizona assistants -- Reid (Eagles, Chiefs), Brad Childress (Vikings), Bill Callahan (Raiders) and Marty Mornhinweg (Lions).

Reid credits Kentera, Northern Arizona's head coach from 1985 to 1989, for creating a positive culture among the coaching staff.

“Coach Kentera had a unique way about him,� said Reid, who hosted the 98-year-old former coach at a Chiefs practice before last year’s Super Bowl in Arizona. “We’d be right in the middle of a staff meeting and he had this little school bus, and he would tell [assistant coach] Rick Smith, ‘Go get some sodas, we’re going to go camping,� and we’d go out in the woods, build a fire and roast marshmallows.�

Melvin said the 1986 Lumberjacks coaching staff also bonded during regular outings at Mormon Lake Lodge.

“That was kind of our highlight there,� Melvin said. “At times you might bring a recruit down there if he was one of the top recruits we had.�

Reid said during last year’s Super Bowl Opening Night event that his favorite thing to do in Flagstaff was “going out to the Mormon Lake steakhouse for a big steak. Love that place.�

This year during Super Bowl Opening Night in Las Vegas, Reid said his fondest memory of Flagstaff is the surrounding forest.

“The smell of the pine trees,� he said. “People don’t realize that you’re in Arizona, and it’s the largest population of ponderosa pines in the world.�

As a graduate assistant, Melvin said one of his duties was to show potential football recruits the sights around Flagstaff.

One of his stops was Arizona Snowbowl.

“I learned to ski specifically because I had to take the recruits up there,� he said. “I had never skied in my life.�

Although their time at Northern Arizona was brief, their Lumberjack ties remain strong.

Melvin said he still stays in touch with former Lumberjacks players, specifically mentioning Vince Beemiller, Dan Moran and Pollack, now the Cincinnati Bengals offensive line coach.

“There’s a core of guys who were there, and when you get those guys who are really good and really tight, they stay together and stay in touch,� said Melvin, whose cousin Bob played Major League Baseball and now manages the San Francisco Giants.

Reid left after just one season at Northern Arizona to take a job at UTEP, but the pair stayed connected through the years. When Reid landed his first NFL head coaching job with the Philadelphia Eagles, one of the first calls he made was to Melvin.

“I stayed in touch with him and I would always go visit him for a week every year, and when he put his staff together, he fortunately asked me to come with him,� Melvin said.

The pair has been together ever since -- 14 seasons in Philadelphia and 11 in Kansas City.

Melvin said the traits he saw in Reid at Northern Arizona were still evident now as he pursued his third Super Bowl title with the Chiefs.

“He’s going to be straightforward with you, very personable,� Melvin said. “That’s a big draw for the players. He’s honest with them, and that’s the best thing in life � it makes it to where these guys are really in tune with him, and it helps with the team atmosphere.�

Ironically, Reid’s Super Bowl coaching counterpart this year was Kyle Shanahan, whose father Mike served as an assistant at Northern Arizona from 1977 to '78 and later won two Super Bowls as head coach of the Denver Broncos.