Luckily, Kleinschmidt would get that opportunity as his mentor at Indiana University, Warren Ariail, joined the Saints for the franchise’s second season in 1968 as their athletic trainer. Kleinschmidt would get an opportunity to join him for the following season in 1969 as the assistant and said he was “beyond excited” to join an NFL team.

“I was a graduating senior, skipped graduation, got in my car and drove from Bloomington, Indiana to Metairie, and went to work for the Saints the next morning,” he said.

Kleinschmidt would take over the head role for the 1971 season at the age of 23 becoming the NFL’s youngest head athletic trainer in history. He would stay with the team until 2000 working under 13 head coaches throughout his time with Saints, including several iconic NFL coaches.

“Tom Fears was a NFL Hall of Famer, played for the Rams, and a great guy,” Kleinschmidt said. “And he hired me, gave me a lot of respect as a new young rookie assistant trainer. Going on to Dick Nolan, just characters, and Bum Phillips for crying out loud, Mike Ditka. I had Jim Mora for 10 and a half years. Ten and a half years, which were probably my toughest, the hardest 10 and a half years, but I overlook that because we won. That’s when we started winning, as a franchise.”

Kleinschmidt also said he learned a lot working alongside team executives like Jim Finks, Jim Miller and Bill Kuharich among others.

Kleinschmidt also got a chance to work with countless Saints Legends.

“It was the relationships that was more important to me and some of those players and certainly the guy that was my first first-round draft choice, Archie Manning in 1971 when I became the head trainer would have been my premier friend and confidant and just the ultimate professional. Guys like Stan Brock then, and Rickey Jackson, Sam Mills, were just terrific guys that that I’ve maintained friendships with.”

Kleinschmidt could tell countless stories from his time with the team. He got a welcome to the NFL moment when he saw former Saints kicker Tom Dempsey in training camp, awestruck as Dempsey overcame his lack of toes on his right foot and no fingers on his right hand to make the team.

“He was at Palomar Junior College and he came in for a tryout and shocked everybody,” Kleinschmidt said. “I mean he was a near 300-pound nose tackle at Palomar Junior College, but he also kicked and what Tom overcame with his handicap, birth defects. It would rate right at the top of the amazing things that I was able to witness.”

Dempsey would go on to set the NFL field goal record by kicking a 63-yard field goal to secure a 19-17 victory for the Saints over the Detroit Lions in 1970, another moment in history Kleinschmidt was a part of.

Kleinschmidt was there for the little moments like weighing players every Friday. One player in particular, Craig “Ironhead” Heyward had a rough time with those weigh-ins and was a player who stood out as one of the biggest personalities he encountered during his career.

“This was in the Jim Mora era, and Jim was very, very strict about players weight, but they weigh and I was the weigh master. I had to weigh every Friday morning and, and they’d get fined. Back in those days, it was $50 per pound per day for every pound you were overweight.

“Well, I think that Mora had assigned him, like a weight of 250 pounds. Now again, he’s a ball-carrier, right. He’s a running back, but he came to training camp at 301 pounds. That would have been a hefty fine. And so, the deal was that he had to show progress toward that 250, and I had to weigh him every day, not every Friday, but every day and then put that note on the head coach’s desk before the 9 a.m. meetings. And Craig didn’t want to get weighed. He would hide. He would hide in the restroom .. but a great character and a great guy played a long time in the league.”