“Without a doubt, he’s the hardest worker I’ve ever seen,” said Ken Trahan, who met Daniels at age 15 and became his best friend. “He’s just unmatched when it comes to hard work. There’s no substitute for that. He gives it everything he’s got; he’s like an NFL coach, staying up late at night and early in the morning getting things done, and that’s just the way he is. He took pride in what he did and tried to do it right and do it well. He challenged me and pushed me in that regard as well, and I really embraced that and appreciated that.”

But that is far from enough to capture Daniels’ entire profile, who graduated from Archbishop Rummel School in 1975 and, after stints as sports director in Lake Charles (1980-1981) and as a sports reporter and weekend anchor at WDSU in New Orleans, found his permanent professional home at WGNO-TV, where he became sports director in 1992.

He displayed a sense of humor and sensitivity, but this was masked by a stern look that gave the impression of constant seriousness and tunnel vision.

“He always pretended to be brusque and humorless,” said Ro Brown, who worked with Daniels in Lake Charles and in New Orleans at WDSU. “But he was just funny; my God, he was funny. He made us laugh all the time. He was brusque, and then five minutes later he would take me into a corner and come up to me whispering because he was worried about someone he had just been brusque to or acted brusquely.

“When my mother died in 2010, I called him to tell him. He and Robin were on vacation. The funeral came and they were at the funeral. It wasn’t like it happened the next day, but I thought to myself and asked him, ‘Did you cut your vacation short to come back for my mother’s funeral?’ He said, ‘No, no, we were back.’

“To this day, and I told him this, he lied. He came back. And even if he didn’t lie, that says something about the fact that I believe he lied. But I really believe he cut his vacation short to come back. I really believe that.”

This side of Daniels, who sang in the church choir and regularly attended mass, was another side that not everyone knew exactly, but of which he often got a glimpse.