Jack Oatey was all of those things in South Australian football during a career spanning more than 40 years.

The 10-time premiership coach and former state captain now has another title bestowed upon him: Australian Football Hall of Fame legend.

On Tuesday night, Oatey became the third South Australian to receive the honour, joining North Adelaide champion Barrie Robran (elevated in 2001) and Woodville, North Melbourne and Crows great Malcolm Blight (2017).

Oatey’s first premiership captain at Sturt, John Halbert, says no one is more deserving.

He describes Oatey’s achievements, which includes coaching 521 wins from a whopping 786 games at Norwood, West Adelaide and the Double Blues between 1945-82, as incredible.

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“When you look at the group of legends who are currently named, Jack’s record stands very well against any of those former coaches in terms of number of games he coached, number of premierships he achieved, the fact he was able to do it moving to different clubs,” says Halbert, himself a 2017 inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

“When you’re looking at CVs that include playing at all levels, coaching at the top levels and being player/coach … there isn’t anything that’s better than Jack’s.

“I knew the AFL was looking to recognise more South Australians as legends and I wondered whether Jack might come up as one of those to be in that group.

“When I found out he was going to be elevated, I was absolutely delighted.”

Oatey is the 31st legend in the Australian Football Hall of Fame.

He was an inaugural inductee in 1996 — two years after his death at the age of 73 — when the Hall was formed to celebrate the VFL/AFL centenary.

Legend status is awarded only to select individuals considered to have changed the game significantly for the better.

Oatey began making his mark on SA football at Norwood, where he played 162 matches, kicked 218 goals and won five premierships — two as a player and three as captain-coach — from 1940-52.

As a non-playing coach at Sturt, he revolutionised the game while lifting the club from the doldrums to become a powerhouse that prevailed in five successive grand finals from 1966-70, then another two in 1974 and 1976.

Oatey came to the Double Blues after the 1961 campaign, when they finished bottom with a 3-16 record.

Taking over a young side, he helped Sturt dethrone SANFL juggernaut Port Adelaide, which had captured nine premierships in 12 years, by adopting an attacking game style centred on run-on handball and skilful players.

The Double Blues ended their 26-year flag drought with a 56-point victory over the Magpies in the 1966 grand final — a match they recorded 55 handballs to their opponent’s 11.

Oatey’s game style was in stark contrast to Port’s long-kicking approach under his great rival Fos Williams and his brother, Glynn Williams, who had been Sturt’s mentor before Oatey.

“Jack thought the way to counter Port Adelaide, which had been the dominant force in South Australian football, was by the effective use of handball and good development of skill,” Halbert says.

“Jack emphasised a need to use the ball quickly with handball, the old edict of give and take, give it first time, don’t hesitate, and, of course, we developed that game wonderfully well, and it was a very big factor of Sturt’s success.

“It changed the nature of the game dramatically.

“It was not just a revolution for Sturt, it was a revolution for the SANFL.”

Oatey helped to kickstart a national revolution by teaching his players the art of the checkside.

The Double Blues would spend close to half an hour to start most training sessions under Oatey taking shots from the pockets, near the boundary lines.

“Jack would demonstrate with his little kick — he’d only kick the ball 15 or 20 metres — then would ask you to continually practise it,” Halbert says.

“He was quite emphatic that the checkside should be used when you were in that predicament.

“Gradually it just took off and started to become more popular in SANFL and then, of course, Victoria peeked across the border and saw it was being used in South Australia effectively.

“Now, in AFL football, people don’t think twice about using it — it’s an automatic response when you get in those positions.”

Oatey expected every Sturt player bar one to use the checkside when kicking from tight angles.

Full-forward Malcolm “Emmy” Jones was the exception.

“Emmy Jones was an absolutely marvellous kicker of the ball and on one particular night we were in the right forward pocket practising the checkside and he immediately started doing drop punts,” Halbert recalls.

“Jack was watching from the side and said ‘Emmy, why aren’t you trying the checkside?’ And he’d say ‘I prefer the drop punt’.

“So Jack said ‘show me’ and Emmy executed a couple very successfully, then he did the same from the left forward pocket.

“Jack was a bit taken aback by it and told the group ‘when you get in games, I want you to do the checkside from that pocket and the boomerang kick from that one, but Emmy Jones can please him bloody self’.”

Halbert, Sturt’s captain from 1962-68, says the players bought into Oatey’s tactics and teachings because he was a brilliant amateur psychologist.

“I don’t think he ever studied anything in that field but he had a wonderful knack of being able to work with young men … and got a very positive response from them,” he says.

“He was a great thinker about the game, of what worked in the game and what didn’t.

“I loved sitting in selection meetings with him, listening to his ideas and theories and thoughts about players.”

Along with Halbert, Sturt also produced champions such as Paul Bagshaw, Rick Davies, Brenton Adcock, Rick Schoff and Michael Graham under Oatey.

“By ‘66 there was a confidence we were the best side in the competition and we were going to win the grand final, and if we could keep the group together we’d have a pretty good future in front of us because many were still young men,” Halbert says.

“It was a wonderful time for Sturt.”

Former Norwood player Peter Oatey says his father, who also played five VFL games for South Melbourne in 1944 while in Victoria with the army in World War II, believed strongly in discipline, emphasising teamwork and honing skills.

“Everything was about the unit, your role in that unit and what you could do to be part of helping the team to win,” Peter tells the AFL.

“Maybe from his experiences in the war, but he always talked of ‘the unit’, and what ‘the unit’ could achieve.”

Peter says football was the central part of his father’s life outside of his family.

“He loved everything about it — the players he played with, the young men he coached in life and in football, the work it took to achieve something as a team, and just watching games and trying to always learn and be a bit better,” Peter says.

“In the house, when we would talk about how Sturt went that day and how we went that day for Norwood if we weren’t playing against each other, he would speak about teamwork, and use his photographic memory to recall each player’s exploits, good and bad.

“Paul and Rick would get a regular mention.”

Peter calls his dad’s honour “a fitting tribute for someone who dedicated his life to the game and people in football”.

Raised in Maitland on the Yorke Peninsula, Oatey’s SANFL career began after one of SA football’s significant sliding-doors moments.

As a 17-year-old, he trialled with the Magpies – the club that would become his and Sturt’s fierce rival – but they told him he was not required, so he went back to the country.

Eventually Oatey returned to Adelaide and signed with Norwood after impressing a Redlegs official in a country curtain-raiser at Adelaide Oval.

“I think Sturt are very thankful that (joining Port) didn’t happen and Norwood would be too, and also West Adelaide look back of Jack’s time with a great deal of affection,” Halbert says.

Oatey’s elevation to legend status is the latest in his long list of accolades, which also include being captain-coach of Norwood’s Team of the Century, coach of Sturt’s, being a member of the SA Football Hall of Fame, captaining SA and receiving an Order of Australia for services to football.

His son Robert is also in the SA Football Hall of Fame and Norwood Team of the Century after a distinguished coaching and playing career with the Redlegs.

Halbert says Oatey would be tickled pink if he learnt of being formally classed as a legend.

“But he wouldn’t tell you that or wouldn’t show that,” he says.

“He’d say ‘there should be other people getting this, not me’.

“It’s a pity he’s not alive to actually enjoy it.”