Former Dolphins QB Dan Marino
(A lot of guys have talked about the first time they met Coach Don Shula or first memories of him. Obviously you came in and I’ve never asked – were you happy or did you understand not starting right away and did he talk you that much about it?) – “Yes. First of all, I just want to say it’s a sad day. My prayers and condolences go out to (his wife) Mary Anne, the Shula family, (his sons) Michael, David – they’re just really good people and it’s a sad day for Coach Shula; but a lot of great memories. He’s a beautiful man, a great person. Yes, my first memory was coming for minicamp. (It was the) first time I met him, I walked into his office and the funny part was before the draft, I never talked to Coach Shula, none of the scouts or anything because I didn’t think they thought I was going to be available for them to draft me; so the first time I really talked to Coach Shula besides on the phone draft day saying, ‘Hey, how’d you like to be a Dolphin?’ was in his office coming to minicamp. I remember it was a little intimidating because it was the first time you’re meeting a head coach – a guy that was so successful – but I do remember what he told me was, ‘I want you to come in in good shape, be prepared, prepare yourself this summer as if you had come in to be the starter,’ and he made an impact on me right away that way. He believed in me. He was like, ‘I believe in you. I want you work that way so you can come in and compete and actually feel like you’re going to be the starting quarterback.’ That just gave me a lot of confidence right off the bat. That was my first meeting actually with Coach Shula.”
(Coach Don Shula’s resume is so long. The list of achievements is so enormous. Of all of that material, what’s one or two things that most impresses you just as an observer of football?) – “That’s a good question. I think it would be the wins and his longevity and the players he coached; but the one thing I would think is the number of wins over the years and to coach for 33 years and do it at a high level like he did it and you see – coaches today and the way they are, they’re amazed by what Coach Shula was able to do for so long and do it at such a high level. To me, that’s probably the one thing that was so amazing – to build over such a long time at a high level.”
(I wanted to ask you about the type of coach and person that you saw in Don Shula because we’ve talked to guys from the 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s and they say that he had mellowed. He had developed this great sense of humor, so I’m wondering how he was during your playing career?) – “So this was after he was done coaching, you’re talking about the sense of humor? (laughter) When I came in, he was tough. (He was) tough and very demanding, and he led by example, so he expected you to come in and be the best you could be every day. He always had a winning attitude – that whole thing. It was always projected every day, always projected, but I would say with me and the fact that we had the group with (Mark) Duper and (Mark) Clayton and Nat Moore, he was willing to open up to other thoughts, other things in football that he wasn’t used to in football beforehand. One thing for me is he was very demanding, but he would also listen to your ideas and listen to your thoughts and maybe he wasn’t that way in the 60s and the 70s with the teams with the perfect season; but with me, he was great that way. Hopefully that’s answering your question.”
(Early on, like you mentioned those 60s and 70s teams, they were very run-heavy and then we get to you and you were throwing the ball all over the place. How did you see Coach Shula maybe evolve to your skillset and being able to achieve being the quarterback you were?) – “Yeah, and I think that is what a great coach – a coach like Coach Shula or any great coach – would do, is you just, you evolve to the talent that you have and their abilities and what they do best. I think he noticed that we two really special guys on the outside in Duper and Clayton and the fact that I was coming in – a quarterback that had a chance to be pretty darn good – and so you evolve to that. That’s what he was doing as a head coach, and that’s just being smart. I remember telling people how he told me to come in and learn the playbook in a way that he wanted me to call my own plays in practice and camp and minicamp and all of that, and I thought that was genius because he put a lot more pressure on me as a quarterback to learn quicker. I feel like I was able to start and play a lot quicker because of that reason, because of that pressure he put on me, and I always thought that was genius with him.”
(You just talked about that trust factor. I’m wondering how that might have furthered your personal relationship with Coach Shula because I always had this sense that it went beyond coach and quarterback, that it evolved into almost father and son.) – “There’s no doubt that – I had nothing but respect from Coach Shula and how he was as a person. You think about – I’ve talked about it before – he helped me as a player, but he also helped me (learn) how to develop as a human being. Coming to Miami, I was 21 years old and just to watch him and how he handled the press, how he handled his business, everything he did as a person in the community; all of those things you admired as a young guy and he taught me all that. From that standpoint, yes I’d say he is a mentor. As to I guess as a father-figure, he wasn’t – my father was the best, that’s for sure. He was a better coach than Coach Shula was; but as a mentor and all of that, yes, for sure, and I think I always had that relationship with him. He always was there to give me advice, to take care of me when I needed it and after he retired, he became a really good friend and someone that I enjoyed being around.”
(I always thought – and I’m going to ask you about a specific game – I always thought that the fake spike game was a really interesting example of how Don Shula coached and how he taught because the one thing I always thought about him was how he enabled his coaches to coach and how he enabled his players to play and if you saw something, go ahead and act on it. I just want to know if you feel that that game, that example, late in that game in 1994, was any sort of illustration about how Don Shula conducted business?) – “You’re talking about ‘illustration’ in his career and how he handled players and everything, and I think that was a typical example. He was a guy that understood that ‘let your players play the game’ (mentality) and an example of that is he let all of his quarterbacks call his own plays. I didn’t. I did a little bit at first and at times later on in my career – two-minute offense and all of that. He let his guys take care of their business on the field, and that was an example of that because it something that we had practiced and Bernie Kosar had brought the fake spike play with him from Cleveland. Coach Shula – we practiced it a lot. He always knew it was there and it was one of those things that (when) it was the perfect time, he let you do it, and in that game, he let me kind of take over the second half and do my thing to bring us back. That goes back to me saying that he evolved in a way from the whole running and pound the ball with the teams he had before, to letting his players play and understand the personnel he had. It’s just smart that way. There was a lot of examples of how he was able to do that as a coach and just the people we had and the coaches he had, and it was special.”
Monday, May 4, 2020
Former Dolphins T Richmond Webb
(You must have some good Don Shula stories when people ask you ‘what was he like to play for?’ Anything for you?) – “It was already established when I got there. The thing that sticks out for me is that he was a very disciplined coach. (He was) very intelligent (and) always preached the mental aspect of the game – not making mental mistakes, not doing things to beat yourselves. I guess it just gave me an understanding of coming from college to the professional level of how much difference – there isn’t much difference between the talent level that is on the opposing team, so any little edge you could get and being mentally prepared and not making mental mistakes and penalties and stuff like that was a huge thing that he stressed from day one. Those were the little things that I think definitely stands out when you’re asking that question.”
(I had a couple of players really tell me that Don Shula really broke down the game to them and helped them understand the game because he would always go over things such as goal-line offense, and third-down stats, so if you could talk about that. Then the other thing, apparently he had this book that he used to carry fines and things like that. If you are familiar with that, can you talk about that also?) – “The thing is, I think when you talk about the statistics that he went over, we did that after every football game win or lose. I think it just drove home the point that he knew what he was talking about, rather than some guy saying ‘you don’t have to do that because it’s not that big of a deal.’ When you actually go through third-down efficiency or we had this many penalties and he would go over – if you had a penalty. Let’s say it was a third down and five and you get a holding penalty and it is third-and-15. Then you actually gained 12 yards; but if you didn’t have the penalty, you actually get the first down and you keep the chains moving. He was really particular and we would always go over that. That was one of the first things I noticed about when we would get on the buses, that Harvey Greene would have the stats sheets from each team – passing, rushing – and he would look at all of that. I can remember that (Dan) Marino would look at it and certain players would look at it, like Marino and the coaches and stuff like that. As far as fines, I remember weigh-in day. You did not want to be overweight because not only would he announce your name, but he would announce how many pounds you were actually overweight. I think it just put pressure on you that you wanted to make your weight because you didn’t want your named called out in that meeting, because not only did Coach Shula know, but everybody on the team knew who was overweight or whatever. Even though some guys struggled – because I was one of them sometimes. I could get in the hot tub to try to lose a pound or two to get it, because you wanted to do whatever possible to not have your name called out at those meetings.”
(A lot of players, especially from the 70s, 80s and I’m sure in the 90s, talk about some of the values that Don Shula instilled in them that helped them after football – whether in the business world or what have you. What do you know about that? What was it that he instilled in you to help you succeed even after football?) – “When you ask that question, it goes back to one incident with me. It was my second year in the league and I hurt my knee in Tokyo in the preseason game. I ended up missing the first two regular season games. When I got back, I wasn’t playing at the level that I was the previous year. I can remember different reporters and people in the media asking what percentage, are you 100 percent? I would say no. They would say, what percentage are you? I’d basically let them know that I wasn’t 100 percent, this and that. Well, I get the famous call to Coach Shula’s office. Everybody knows that if you play for Coach Shula, the media or whatever, that if you get called into his office, it’s not a good thing. He calls me in there and he was like ‘What are you doing? What are you putting in the paper?’ You’ve got to find a way to play. If you’re hurt, it’s different; but if you are injured, you have to find a way because everybody plays with some little nagging injury. Nobody goes through the season 100 percent. It pissed me off because I was trying; but then after I calmed down, I thought about it and he was telling me exactly what was true. He said that doesn’t matter, you have to find a way. It just caused me to really focus in. I’ve got to be more technically sound. Yeah, I know I’m not feeling 100 percent; but I can still go out here and be effective. That transitions not only in football but it transitions in life. When you learn something like that, when people are being brutally honest with you, it might piss you off at first; but if you really think about it and grasp what they are trying to say, and you know that person truly cares about you and wants to see you succeed, that was that moment for me with Coach Shula it’s carried on with me for years after I played football.”
Monday, May 4, 2020
Former Dolphins LB John Offerdahl
(It seems like a lot of Dolphins players have a story to tell on their first encounter with Don Shula. Whether it was over the phone, during the draft or in person, there was some sort of impact that it made. What do you remember about your first encounter with Don Shula?) – “Coach Shula was already a legend by the time I came around in 1986 to 1993. But in ’86, coming from Western Michigan, I got drafted in the second round. Flying down for training camp and having my first opportunity to meet Coach Shula, he was already the undefeated perfect season coach of the 1972 team. Also in the ‘80s, they went to the Super Bowl, they had Dan Marino. This was the team to be on. My first impression, it was overwhelming, quite honestly. He said hi to me and basically told me I better get nervous. That was kind of the way he geared a player up, was to expect excellence immediately, and he was looking for me to be the leader of the defense and gave me every opportunity to do that and expected the most out of us.”
(I remember you telling a story about Don Shula yelling at you on the sidelines and you said ‘I can’t take it anymore,’ and you demanded a meeting with him about cursing and everything and he had no idea. Do you remember that story and can you fill in if I’m missing the gap in my memory of it?) – “Coach Shula demanded so much from us and there was a game in Cleveland. That was his home state as you know. We were in a Monday Night Football game my rookie year. I was playing hurt all of the time and I had got through the whole game and right before the end, went to the X-ray room, got diagnosed and just had a terrible contusion on my arm. After the game, after our defeat, I went back to Coach Shula with the doctor and he just was so frustrated. He took out a little bit of that frustration on me, and coming from Wisconsin, I didn’t swear. I heard a lot of it in sports, and Coach Shula had a little bit of frustration in him that day and shared it with me. It bothered me. It not only motivated you, but it would also challenge you. Later on that week, Bob Baumhower was my locker mate and he would encourage me to just chill out, but I had to get it off my chest, and I went into Coach Shula’s office that week and shared with him that I never wanted to be sworn at again. The story goes beyond that, but needless to say, Coach Shula respected my wishes. He certainly had ways of communicating with you. It didn’t have to be in the form of a swear word. He would definitely rile you up and get you prepared. One of the things I will never forget, and we all have moments of this; but in my life, that moment lasted eight years. He demanded the most out of his players and many of his players couldn’t deal with that, including myself at times. But what happened is that we preformed beyond our wildest imagination. When a player can look in the mirror and say that wasn’t me, but someone else’s expectation of my performance that overcame my own limitations, that is an amazing aspect of a great coach. It’s not easy in the moment, but in retrospect, every player that played for Coach Shula looks back and says he got me to do more out of my body, out of my performance, than I could have ever done on my own. A mentor, a coach, a great leader can take a team of people like that and make them great. That’s what he did year in and year out for those years he coached for the Miami Dolphins, and beyond quite honestly. He lives in every one of our dreams and sometimes nightmares to this day and beyond. (laughter)”
Monday, May 4, 2020
Former Dolphins FB Larry Csonka
(I wanted to ask you the question about the alligator in the shower with Don Shula – tell me that story please.) – “(laughter) Well, Manny Fernandez and I decided to go fishing the day after a game – an exhibition game. We went out and Manny Fernandez, while we were fishing – Manny was a defensive tackle for us – and he said, ‘Csonk, there’s a gator over on the shore with babies,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I don’t want any part of it.’ And he said, ‘You know, I can catch one of those,’ and I said, ‘Manny, I don’t think you can catch a baby alligator. You’re going to lose fingers or a leg or the mama’s going to get you. That’s going to be a bad situation.’ He said, ‘No, I’m telling you. I could do it.’ And with that, Manny jumped over out of the boat, went up on the bank, went into the bushes – it was like something in a movie. There was tumbling and screaming and growling and pretty soon Manny Fernandez came walking out of the bushes with a baby alligator about, I don’t know, two-and-a-half, three feet long. (Manny) walked over, threw it in the boat and I jumped out of the boat. To make a long story short, we took it back to camp. We were going to put it in the pond out front. On the way back to camp, we got the idea that we thought it’d be pretty funny to put it in Shula’s shower. He had a separate shower than the team, devoted to coaches, of course. We thought that would be kind of humorous so we took a vote and (putting it in the shower) Coach Shula won by one vote that we would tape the Gator’s mouth shut just in case it got ahold of him in the shower. We didn’t want to lose him entirely. So we taped its nose shut and put it in the shower, and he came out and saw it and came into the locker room and was raising Cain and headed straight for me, but I saw him coming so I jumped out the side door and Jim Kiick took the brunt of the abuse for the alligator in the shower. (laughter) But the good thing about Shula – the great thing about Shula – was his intensity with anything connected with football; but on a thing like the alligator, he had a great sense of humor, he appreciated that and he had a good laugh about it. So it was kind of a pressure relief, if you will.”
(Please, if you would, put in words what Don Shula’s legacy should be. How should people both in South Florida and around the country who are football fans, how should they remember Don Shula?) – “I think his great marks come in the world of football with the integrity that he showed for the game. Not just the fact that he was a driven coach and concentrated on winning and was willing to make the sacrifices and pay the price to win and take you along with him, but he also had a sense of humor about things, so it was a balance. He was driven and his legacy comes down to the fact that he proved that by being the winningest coach in the history of the league. Now during that time, the pinnacle of his career – if you ask me about the one moment that perhaps most personifies that great career that he had, I would say it was the undefeated season. I would say that the perfect season was the diamond, if you will, in the rough that he honed out as an exemplary moment, where everything that he had learned how to sacrifice and work and put together and orchestrate came together and worked; and we went undefeated, and the game that led to that was the loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl VI. After that game, we were all in the locker room and he threw everyone else out but the coaches and the players, and he said, ‘This moment is a moment we’re going to learn from. You’ve got to remember how you feel right now after just getting your ass kicked in the Super Bowl. You’ve got to remember that because next year, we’re going to open up. In five or six months, we’re going to get together back at camp and we’re going to open up, and we are going to re-dedicate ourselves every week to the task at hand – not look forward to the playoffs or look forward to a winning season or look forward to any of that. We’re going to concentrate one week at a time, one game at a time and we’re going to go every game with the intent of winning every game.’ He said that moments after losing a Super Bowl. He dictated what was going to happen the next year with an undefeated season, and I think that was the pinnacle of his career. If there was one point that he would pull out to judge the entire career by, that would be the high point – that undefeated season. Because what happened was the very essence of what he had alluded to. We went one game at a time and it was close, and any one play could have changed things. I don’t argue the point that it’s just a hair that separates perfection from losing one game. Different people and different times stepped forward and made the difference, but that’s what a team is all about. The essence of that ’72 team is what the entire world of sports is about, that incorporates teamwork and effort. It was all of the people pulling together and playing better than what any individual could play on their own. That’s what it’s about and it takes a great coach to bring that out of players, and I think that was the pinnacle of his success.”
(At a couple birthday parties you’ve said it, ‘I fully expect if I’m lucky enough to still be around to be at his 100th birthday, because can you picture a world without Don Shula in it?’ Not to ask something melodramatic, but what does the world to you look like without Shula in it?) – “To make a statement like that was a little bit prophetic in a sense that I thought I could handle someone telling me that Coach (Don Shula) had passed. I was out cutting brush in a field, and my wife Audrey called me and said Coach had passed. I never really knew until that moment how close that rascal had really got to me, until he was gone. Unfortunately through the course of my life, losing parents and different loved ones, you realize after they’re gone, how much more they meant to you than what you realized when they were here. I hope I can be better at that in the future because I felt a terrible loss. I felt like someone very close to me and my family had passed. Coach Shula was such a rock. He was such a – so exact in his feelings, so totally 100 percent, ‘this is the way it is.’ You drew off that strength when you were around him without even realizing it. Sometimes I resented him for it. More often than not, I resented him for it. I muttered with the rest of the players. ‘This is too much, too long, too hot, too everything,’ but the result was perfection. One time. One time in the course of 100 years, one team made every play it had to make during the course of a season to attain perfection. One time. And we were lucky enough to be with that. Now that doesn’t reflect the entirety of his career obviously, but it is a little microcosm of what he was about – that kind of dedication – and once we learned that in ’72, then I never questioned him again. And to answer your question, I miss him terribly already. Now let me tell you, I don’t know where old NFL players go. I don’t know – Lombardi, coaches, great players … all the great ones – where are they? Where do they go after they die? Well I’d like to believe they go to heaven. But I’ll tell you, if they ship the football players off and the coaches off to a certain place, wherever that place is, tonight there is going to be one hell of a lightning bolt hit it because Shula is going to arrive and things are going to change.”
Monday, May 4, 2020
Former Dolphins QB Bob Griese
(I know you and Coach Shula were friends for years and years after football. Did that allow you to see a different side of him after football?) – “Damn right. (laughter) When I first saw him, I remember my first occasion hearing about Coach Shula coming to the Dolphins. It was on Channel 4 or whatever back then, he was being interviewed and he was saying ‘I like a lot of what I’m seeing with this Dolphins team. They’ve got a good young quarterback – but Griese, I think he scrambles too much. I’d like to get him to stay in the pocket more.’ I couldn’t wait until I saw Coach Shula because evidentially he had been watching too much of (the wrong) film because there was not pocket for Griese to stay in. The first three years I was down here, I did a lot of scrambling. So, he and I had to have a discussion and sometimes I still have to remind him to this day. He was the boss back then, but as years go by, we became friends, and we’re kind of like equals. Not like he was the boss and I was the underling, and that’s the way it was back then. I lost a good friend; I lost a great friend. We spent a lot of time together at lunch, and his favorite place to have lunch was at Gulfstream Park. Some of the other buddies that would go – Hank Goldberg before he moved to Las Vegas was our handicapper. I always tell the story that Shula would be sitting at the end of the table like he didn’t know horses from a hole in the ground. So he’d look at Hank and say ‘Hank, who do you like in the second race?’ And Hank would say ‘I studied this from last night and I got up again this morning and I looked at it for another 25 minutes, and looked at it here, and I like the numbers 713.’ And Shula looked down at the bottom of his program and it was (number) 731 and he would look at Hank and say ‘Hell hank. That’s the chalk. I don’t want any chalk. Chalk, chalk, chalk, chalk.’ We had a great time having lunch at Gulfstream Park.”
(I want to ask you about how Coach Shula was able to adapt over the years. I remember in 1983 with Dan Marino coming in, and he has such a different style than what you were able to do. What did you see in him and his ability to match his system with the players he had rather than forcing one particular system on the team that he was putting together?) – ”He was smart. He played in the league. He was a defensive back and every time we talked about this and I’m sure he is around somewhere wanting me to tell you and get in the paper and get on TV, that he had 21 interceptions as a defensive back. Everybody knew that that would go with him to lunch. He looked at the players he had and he would decide what’s the offense we could play, and what’s the defense that we could play, and special teams. That’s the way it was. We had a good running team. The offensive line were good run blockers. We had (Larry) Csonka, (Jim) Kiick, and Mercury (Morris). We had good running backs. We were good at running the ball, so that’s what we did. Then you get Dan Marino comes in and why wouldn’t you throw? Everybody says that the offensive line that Marino had was a great offensive line. Some of those guys were great; but he never got sacked hardly and I smile when I talk to Marino about this. Marino just got rid of it. If there wasn’t anybody open and there was a guy coming at him right down the middle, Marino would get rid of that football. That was a great trait to have. That’s a great coaching point. If you don’t see anybody, don’t take the sack and get rid of the ball. That’s going to be one of the great things that the Dolphins are probably going to tell Tua (Tagovailoa) when he gets in here is look at Marino. Look at some films of Marino. If nobody is open, get rid of the ball and don’t take the sack.”
(I wanted to ask you about the business acumen of a lot of the players that were on the Don Shula teams. I had a few people tell me that they think it was the lessons that Shula taught on the field that translated to off the field. Do you agree with that? Did you see that?) – “Yeah, we had some guys that were very successful after football. Dick Anderson, (Nick) Buoniconti, we had Dr. Doug Swift. That could’ve been – that’s something I never thought about. But the three I mentioned and I’m sure there is a bunch more. Of course Shula was born in a small town in Ohio. We go back and forth. I gig him and he gigs me. I tell him the reason he had to play cornerback was because he was not smart enough to play offense, and the reason he got all of those interceptions was because he was calling the defensive signals and he would always call the defense to roll his way so he was free out there to kind of pick off the passes. He’d just look at me and smile. He might even raise his three fingers and he might say on occasion, ‘Read between the lines, Griese.’”
(Were you at the surprise party that they threw for Don Shula back in January, and if not, what do you recall from your last interaction with him?) – “I was at the party and I agree with whoever said it earlier today, that he was truly surprised. Normally he doesn’t. He usually likes to be the one in control and Mary Anne probably tells him what’s going on, who is going to be where and all; but I think he was truly surprised at that one. I was on the phone with him a few weeks ago and we were at Gulfstream maybe a month and a half ago for one of our lunches. That’s probably the last time I saw him. He looked good then. He was amazing. We’d sit right outside in public and people would be going by and some lady with her granddaughter would stop by and say ‘You’re coach Shula!’ He would smile and sign an autograph, and then she said, ‘Can I take a picture?’ And he’d say ‘Yeah, with your granddaughter. So she would take the picture, and then he’d say, ‘Now take one with me by yourself.’ And then other people would come by. He was at the end of the table and that’s where he wanted to be, where he could meet and greet and say hello. He was a social person. Back then maybe he wasn’t; but now he was.”
Monday, May 4, 2020
Former Dolphins WR and Senior Vice President of Special Projects, Alumni Relations and Advisor to the CEO Nat Moore
(Could you just talk about if you remember when you first met Coach Don Shula? What was it like? You were a rookie – obviously a little younger than he was at the time at his height as a coach. What was that like?) – “When I first met Coach Shula, it was right after the draft. Of course I got the phone call, but then I got the chance – I used an attorney rather than an agent. We actually went to Coach Shula’s house and we sat down and we started talking contract. He talked to me about the changes he wanted to make and what I did, because I had been a running back my entire life and how he felt that as a wide receiver, it would extend my career and I could be a tremendous threat because of my breakaway and scoring ability. And it was one of those things when you sat down and here’s this icon and his vision of what you can be, and he made me a promise. He promised me that if I gave it everything I had, he’d give me a year to learn how to be a wide receiver, and believe it or not, the strike happened that year and all of a sudden I got a chance to play a whole lot more during the preseason, and by the fifth game of the year, I ended up becoming a starter. The thing that I remember most about Coach Shula was that he had plans always of how he wanted to use you and how he could get the most out of you.”
(Do you have any favorite stories that really hammer home the kind of person, the kind of man that Coach Shula was? And also as a secondary thing I’d like to ask you, if you could put into words what Coach Shula meant not just to the Miami Dolphins but to South Florida?) – “I’ll give you an indication of Coach Shula and why I feel he always got the most out of his players. He was a guy that drove you, but wouldn’t allow you to quit on yourself. I remember one ball game alone where I was having some shoulder issues. I had a pinched nerve in my neck and pretty soon I ended up starting to wear a neck brace; but I remember a game where we had to have that victory and I land on my shoulder and I’m in such pain. I make the catch, I come off to the sideline and he looks at me like, ‘And where are you going?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m in so much pain.’ I can’t believe what he’s saying to me. I just got the first down. I got hit and my shoulder hurt, and the pain subsides. I go back in the ball game and once again we need a third down. I make the play and I come off and I am in so much pain, I don’t know what to do; and he is riding me. He is ripping me. Long story short, the game ends, we win. The first guy to come to my locker and pat me on the back and tell me what a great job I did and way to hang in there, he knew it was tough, he knew I could do it, was Don Shula. I always think about things like that where he didn’t allow players to quit on themselves or the team. He always found a way to motivate you to give a little bit more than you thought you had, to become a little bit better player than you thought you could be; and I think that was his key to success. He got the most out of all of his players, and guys that didn’t want to be a part of that and didn’t fit in, he didn’t have a problem with getting rid of them, and I think that’s why we were much better teams in the 70s and 80s and even 90s under his leadership. When I think about what Coach Shula meant to South Florida – and I’ve been telling this story all day – a lot of men come here to play for the Miami Dolphins. Under Coach Shula, most of them never left. Most of them eventually decided to stay here or reside here, build their homes and their second businesses here in South Florida, and it was because Coach Shula always had us out in the community and always had us being a part of South Florida. In the 70s and 80s, United Way used to come in and they had a great partnership with the NFL. They used to come in and pitch to donate to the different organizations that a lot of us came from – the Boys and Girls Club and all of the charities – and Coach Shula was always that guy that wrote the first check. He never asked you to do anything that he didn’t do himself. We ran those gassers and we all hated those dadgum gassers, but he ran them with us. He would run two out of three. When you think of Coach Shula and you think of how he drove us, but he also made sure we were an intricate part of the South Florida community’s fabric; and because of that, you see so many guys here today that are still here, that are still doing well, that are still thriving in business and being a part of the South Florida community to make it better and it’s all because of Don Shula.”
(I know as the alumni group you guys have had Zoom meetings. Have you had anything today or do you have anything imminent that you will talk with other players about Shula’s passing?) – “No, we have not been on Zoom today. I think because so many guys have our cell numbers and phone numbers, and there are a lot of TV stations and radio stations that are reaching out to us individually. We sent out an email and texts to all of the guys to let them know that Coach (Don Shula) had passed and as we get more information, they’ll get more information. (It is) a very sad day in Dolphins history (and) a very sad day in South Florida when you lose an icon like Don Shula.”
(This is a really hard thing to think about, but not only have we lost Don Shula, but it’s happening in the current climate that we’re all facing with this pandemic. At least one of the players that we talked to earlier today was lamenting about that and concerned about how are we going to be able to pay our respects, how are we going to be able to honor Don Shula? What can you say to the fans about their being able to say thank you to Don Shula at some point?) – “I think once we understand and have some idea of what the family wishes are, we will communicate not only to the fans, but using the media and et cetera about how we will celebrate his legacy. I know we will do something; we’re just not sure what. Remember, Coach Shula just passed this morning, and we live in a world where everybody wants everything right now; but I’m pretty sure at some point the family will get together. You’ve got (his son) David up in Dartmouth. I think (his son) Mike is in New York. Half the family is all over the country and you’ve got to give them a little time to grieve and then for them to come up with a plan of what they would like to see. I think in the end, it’s really about how we make the family feel good about the way we worship their loved one – their dad and their husband – versus us trying to just decide, ‘we’re going to do this, this and this.’ I think without a doubt, the legacy of Don Shula will last forever, and we – and when I say ‘we’ I’m speaking not only of the alumni but also the Miami Dolphins – will figure out the best way to honor him.”
