Don Shula was a fucking football legend.
The only coach ever to have a perfect season, he put an end to that dream for the ’85 Bears … doing what no other team could that season.
347 victories in 33 years in a league where NFL stands for Not For Long. That’s the most ever wins, by some margin. He was the kind of man this game is all about. The Papa Bears, the Paul Browns, the Vince Lombardis. He won two Superbowls without cheating. Y’see, Don didn’t cheat.
Famously, his staff walked into the pre-game locker room in Oakland two hours before kickoff in 1973. There, in a stall, was a Raiders playbook, audibles to boot. Dutifully handed to the Dolphins’ head-coach, Shula threw the playbook into a trash-can.
“We’ll win the right way,” said Shula .
They lost the game that day. It ended an 18 game win streak.
But that’s not why I’ll remember the coach.
Back in the summer of 1988 – ten years before I would see the Steelers play the Bears in Croke Park, Dublin … the Dolphins were playing the Niners in London. The American Bowl they called it back then. I can imagine the surprise on their faces when the defensive coaches were told by Shula to take a detour and travel over to Dublin to spend a day with the Dublin Celts senior team – there were only about 3 or 4 teams in the Republic of Ireland back then, with more in Northern Ireland.
They would have wondering WTF they were doing on a bleak Rugby pitch that Saturday morning … but would really have been scratching their heads when they found themselves on an even bleaker Fairview park the following morning. A sixteen year-old Irish turned up as he did every Sunday morning to practice with the junior team, a young Safety with big dreams of playing for the Seniors in a few years.
We were stunned. The Miami Dolphins defensive coaches were standing there ready to coach us up …. with not a cheerleader in sight and only the occasional dog-walker looking on. And coach us they did. With names like ‘Studley’, every single one of them chewed tobacco and would turn their heads and spew yards of the stuff out as they told us never to stand there with our hands on our thighs waiting for a play to start. One more move you have to make when the ball is snapped, a half-step slower to the ball you’ll be.
I still shake my head when I see pro-linebackers standing there on Sunday with their hands on their thighs waiting for the ball to be snapped. Tsk Tsk.
Dan Marino and the boys were living it up in London, but there they were across the Irish sea on a Saturday with a bunch of nobodies … and there they were on a Sunday with the junior nobodies … playing American Football at the lowest organized level on Earth … with nobody around to watch them do it.
One man had to tell them to do that, and one man had to tell them not to forget the kids either. I’ll bet he wishes he could have been there too.
Thanks, Coach. Rest in peace.
Irish Sweetness - Bears Talk 