CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Luke Kuechly moved into a new home last year. Everyone in his neighborhood knows him. Everybody in the Carolinas knows Kuechly, the retired Carolina Panthers linebacker who still retains a boy-next-door charm at 35.But when Kuechly takes his dog Ivy for her morning walk, neighbors are more interested in greeting the 6-year-old black Lab than bugging him about his football exploits.“Everybody knows the dog more than they know me. ‘Hey, Luke, good to see ya. Hey, Ivy!’” Kuechly said. “If you walk dogs and you have a dog, nobody cares about you. They just care about the dog.”That’s fine with Kuechly, who had a way of deflecting the attention even as he was going to Pro Bowls and earning All-Pro honors every year after the Panthers drafted him ninth overall in 2012.“I just want to be somebody, the same person who lives in the neighborhood just like everybody else,” he said.How Luke Kuechly's humble stardom paved the way to the Hall of FameJoseph PersonMaintaining a low profile might get a little tougher after Aug. 8, when Kuechly becomes the first player who spent his entire career with the Panthers to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. With a gold jacket — and a bronze bust on display a few hours from his Cincinnati hometown — there figures to be more demands on Kuechly’s time.“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess that’ll be a question for some of these guys up in Canton — what in your life do you feel has changed since you’ve been in the Hall of Fame?”Those who know him well wouldn’t expect much to change with Kuechly, an avid hunter and workout buff who — more than six years after retiring following a series of concussions — looks like he could still play.Within a couple weeks of the Hall of Fame announcement in February, Kuechly called Greg Olsen concerned about how the ceremony would impact their Charlotte Christian middle school team.“He’s like, ‘Dude, what are we gonna do? That’s the first week of training camp,’” Olsen said. “I’m like, ‘Luke, we’re gonna cancel a day or two of middle school training camp because you’re getting into the Hall of Fame.’ But that’s where his mind immediately went. ‘Because this is gonna be about me, it’s gonna alter everybody else.’”After the Canton activities conclude, Kuechly will return to Charlotte and continue in his analyst role with the Panthers radio network and serve as Olsen’s defensive coordinator for the middle-school Knights. Kuechly also will serve as Netflix’s lead analyst for five games this season.The Athletic spoke to 10 of Kuechly’s former teammates and coaches — as well as a longtime NFC South quarterback — about their favorite Kuechly moments, his ability to know what an offense was going to do before the ball was snapped and how a player with his abilities and stardom remained so humble.(Some answers have been edited for clarity or brevity.)How would you describe Luke Kuechly to someone who’s never met him?Jordan Gross, Panthers Hall of Honor, offensive lineman (2003-13): “Kind of a dork. Just an incredibly normal, nice, considerate person if I’m describing my friend Luke. And the football side, just whatever adjective you can come up with — outlandish, fantastic, generational — processor of information.”J.J. Jansen, Panthers long snapper (2009-present): “He’s the humble superstar. Everything about him is superstar. He’s a great athlete. He’s good looking. He’s smart. He could be the pitchman for anything. He’s got such a clean-cut image and yet he is the most humble person you can be around.”Sean McDermott, former Bills head coach and Panthers defensive coordinator (2011-16): “Inquisitively intelligent. Your next-door neighbor’s son and he’ll tear your head off at the same time.”Roman Harper, Panthers safety (2014-15): “He’s the nicest human being you’ll ever meet in your life, almost uncomfortably nice.”Luke Kuechly was Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2012, NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2013 and made the Pro Bowl in seven of his eight seasons. (Ron Chenoy / Imagn Images)Ryan Kalil, Panthers five-time Pro Bowl center (2007-18): “If you are someone who has daughters, Luke’s the kind of guy you hope that your daughter marries. We would joke he’s Captain America, and we would give him hell a lot in saying that, ‘One day we’re gonna find some skeletons in your closet. I don’t know when that’s gonna happen, but you can’t be this good of a guy, this amazing of an athlete and football player, this consistent of a good man.’ But he is. He was raised right and he’s somebody of incredible character, and I think that is a big part of why he is a Hall of Famer.”Harper: “A lot of players lived at the Vue (a luxury high-rise in uptown Charlotte). I’d be getting out of the car with my wife (after) getting groceries, with one or two of my kids. And he’d go out of his way to run across the parking lot to help me remove my groceries and take them up to my room, or try to help with a kid. It’s like those things. Football is (one) of the last things I bring up when it comes to Luke Kuechly, just because he’s that different as far as how nice he is.”Kuechly led the FBS in tackles in his final two seasons at Boston College and won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy in 2011 as the nation’s top defensive player. Still, when he arrived in Charlotte, he didn’t look as physically imposing to players and coaches as the team’s first-round pick from the previous season — Cam Newton, a 6-5, 245-pound quarterback.Mike Tolbert, Panthers fullback (2012-16): “I remember after we drafted him, we were out on the practice fields. He had his glasses on. He had that big, curly, black hair. And I’m like, ‘TD (Thomas Davis), who the f––– is that?’ He was like, ‘Boy, that’s our first-round draft pick.’ I was like, ‘Man, shut up.’ So he didn’t pass the eye test right away. He was really quiet in the beginning and then once he got it, boy did he get it.”Don Gregory, retired Panthers college scouting director: “He was like Clark Kent during the week, Superman on the weekends. Nicest guy. There wasn’t a bad bone in his body. But competitive, instinctive and an extremely hard worker.”McDermott: “When I first was around Luke at the rookie minicamp, I was like, ‘Hmm.’ He was doing some drills, I’m like, I’m not sure. How’s this gonna be, first-round pick? But boy oh boy, you start playing the game of football and the ball gets snapped, and that guy has incredible processing speed. It’s one of the first times I really learned about the importance of processing speed.”That unassuming demeanor off the field belied Kuechly’s natural athleticism and fierce competitiveness on it. During Kuechly’s first FanFest in 2012, he beat Gross with a double-move on a blitz, ironic because rushing the passer was one area Kuechly believed he was lacking. Man coverage was another.