I normally stick to sports here at FanStreamSports.com, but occasionally, when something that affects me personally happens in the world of pop culture, I’m inspired to cover it.

This is one of those times.

Ben Jones, the actor who became a television icon as Cooter Davenport on “The Dukes of Hazzard” before making the unlikely jump from Hazzard County to Capitol Hill, has died. He was 84.

Jones died Sunday, Aug. 9, after suffering what his wife, Alma Viator, described as a massive heart attack. Viator said Jones was at home in his favorite chair, waiting to watch his beloved Atlanta Braves take on the New York Yankees when he died.

It was an ending that somehow fit a man whose public life never seemed particularly conventional.

For millions of television viewers, Jones will forever be Cooter — the fast-talking, good-natured mechanic who helped keep the Duke boys and their famous orange Dodge Charger rolling on CBS’ “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

Jones appeared throughout the show’s seven-season run from 1979 to 1985, becoming one of the most recognizable members of a cast that included Tom Wopat, John Schneider and Catherine Bach. The series became a pop-culture phenomenon built around wild car chases, Southern humor and the General Lee.

Wopat, who played Luke Duke, remembered Jones after his death as a close friend and passionate supporter of the entertainment community.

Jones’ career, however, went well beyond Cooter’s garage.

Before “The Dukes of Hazzard,” he worked on stage and landed screen appearances, including “Moonrunners,” the 1975 movie that helped inspire the eventual television series. His later credits included projects such as “Primary Colors” and “Sliders.”

Then Jones pulled off a career change that would’ve sounded like a television plot itself.

Running as a Democrat in Georgia, he won the election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1988 and was reelected in 1990. Jones represented Georgia in Congress from January 1989 until January 1993, giving the former sitcom mechanic a very different stage in Washington.

He remained politically outspoken long after leaving elected office, appearing as a commentator and writing about national and Southern cultural issues. Jones also became a controversial defender of the Confederate battle flag associated with the General Lee. In 2015, amid renewed national debate over Confederate symbols, he argued that the flag represented Southern heritage rather than racism and vowed to continue displaying it at his “Dukes of Hazzard”-themed businesses.

That stance became part of a complicated legacy surrounding both Jones and the television series that made him famous.

But Jones never distanced himself from Hazzard County.

He and Viator operated Cooter’s Place attractions celebrating the show in Virginia and Tennessee, giving generations of fans a place to reconnect with the series and meet the man who turned a fictional mechanic into a lasting piece of television nostalgia.

Jones managed something few performers ever do: He created a character remembered decades after the final episode aired, then built an entirely different public life outside Hollywood.

Actor. Congressman. Political firebrand. Proud ambassador for Hazzard County.

Ben Jones was a lot more than Cooter.

But for generations of “Dukes of Hazzard” fans, including me, hearing that name will always bring them right back to the garage.