Don Shula

Don Shula

Career history
Cleveland Browns Baltimore Colts Washington Redskins
Pro Football Hall of Fame

Donald Francis Shula (born January 4, 1930 in Grand River, Ohio) is a former professional football coach for the National Football League. He is best known as coach of the Miami Dolphins, the team he led to two Super Bowl victories, and to the NFL's only undefeated Perfect Season in 1972. He currently holds the NFL record for most career wins with 328, and is one of the most highly regarded and well respected coaches of all-time, although the latter portion of his career with the Miami Dolphins was considered something of a disappointment by more unreasonable people.

Personal life

Don Shula was born in the cradle of coaches that is northern Ohio in 1930. He grew up in suburban Cleveland graduating from Harvey High School in Painesville, and then John Carroll University. He played football at both schools. He earned an M.A. in Physical Education from Case Western Reserve University in 1954. As part of a government public awaremess campaign he was the first American to sign up for Medicare Part D prescription drug plan benefits, enrolling just after midnight on November 15, 2005.[1] Shula is the father of former Alabama coach Mike Shula and former Cincinnati Bengals coach Dave Shula.

Playing career

In 1951 Shula signed with the Cleveland Browns where he played defensive back under coach Paul Brown. On March 26, 1953, he was traded to the Baltimore Colts in what was at the time was the largest NFL player trade ever made, involving 15 players. The Colts traded T Mike McCormack, DT Don Colo, LB Tom Catlin, DB John Petitbon, and G Herschell Forester to the Browns for Shula, DB Bert Rechichar, DB Carl Taseff, LB Ed Sharkey, E Gern Nagler, QB Harry Agganis, T Dick Batten, T Stu Sheets, G Art Spinney, and G Elmer Willhoite. Shula and Taseff were teammates at John Carroll, with the Browns and with the Colts.

Shula played with Baltimore for four seasons before finishing his playing career with the Washington Redskins. Shula intercepted 21 passes in his seven NFL seasons, returning them for 267 yards, and also recovered four fumbles. He would find his true calling, however, on the sidelines as an assistant and then head coach.

Early coaching career

Shula took a position as an assistant coach at the University of Kentucky in 1959 coaching defensive backs under head coach Blanton Collier.

Shula played under both the aforementioned Paul Brown and Weeb Ewbank, a Brown disciple, who is also in the Hall of Fame. After Ewbank left the Baltimore Colts to coach the New York Jets in 1963, Shula was hired by Colts' owner Carroll Rosenbloom to coach Baltimore. Shula's hiring was controversial because he was thought to be too young at only age 33.

Shula took the controls and led the Colts to an 8-6 record in 1963. He was very successful, compiling a 71-23-4 record in seven seasons with Baltimore, but he was just 2-3 in the postseason, including two losses in championship games in which the Colts were heavy favorites, the 1964 NFL championship game won by the Browns 27-0 and Super Bowl III, the game in which Joe Namath of the New York Jets guaranteed a victory.

Miami Dolphins -- 1970-1973

File:SIRileyShula1995.jpg

Shula wasn't always popular in Miami.

After the 1969 season, Joe Robbie, owner of the Miami Dolphins, signed Shula to a contract to become Miami's second head coach. As a result of Shula's signing the team was charged with tampering by the NFL, which forced the Dolphins to give their first round pick to the Colts. The decision was a controversial because Shula and Robbie's negotiations and signing were conducted before and after the official NFL/AFL merger, respectively. Had the negotiations been concluded before the merger, while the NFL and AFL were rivals, the NFL's anti-tampering rules could not have been applied.

Shula had great success with Miami in the 1970s. His teams were known for a great offensive lines (led by Larry Little, Jim Langer and Bob Kuechenberg), strong running games (featuring Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Mercury Morris), solid quarterbacking (by Bob Griese and Earl Morrall), excellent receivers (in Paul Warfield, Howard Twilley and TE Jim Mandrich) and a defense that worked well as a cohesive unit. In an era when defenses were given fanciful nicknames (for instance, the Dallas Cowboys were known as the "Doomsday Defense", Pittsburgh was called "The Steel Curtain" and the L.A. Rams front line was known as "The Fearsome Foursome") the Dolphins were known as "The No-Name Defense" even though they had a number of great players, including DT Manny Fernandez and MLB Nick Buoniconti. Shula's teams were consistently among the least penalized in the NFL. Using what he learned from Brown and Ewbank, Shula led the Dolphins to three Super Bowl appearances, two Super Bowl wins and seven playoff appearances during the 1970s.

In 1972 the Dolphins became the only team in the modern NFL to go undefeated (14-0) in the regular season. They swept the playoffs and finished 17-0 in what is known as the Perfect Season, a mark still unequalled in the league. Including the Dolphins' 12-2 mark in 1973 the club also set a record with a 32-2 record over two seasons.

Post-1973

Shula was smart enough to change his coaching strategy as his personnel changed. His Super Bowl teams in 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1982 were keyed by a run-first offensive strategy and a dominating defense. In 1983, shortly after losing Super Bowl XVII to the Washington Redskins, the Dolphins drafted quarterback Dan Marino out of the University of Pittsburgh. Marino won the starting job halfway through the 1983 regular season, and by 1984 the Dolphins were back in the Super Bowl thanks largely to Marino's record 5,084 yards through the air and 48 touchdown passes. Shula's offensive strategies helped Marino rewrite the NFL record book for quarterbacks.

For all his success, the Dolphins' January, 1974 Super Bowl win over the Minnesota Vikings proved to be Shula's last championship. Despite consistent success in the regular season, Shula was unable to capture another title, failing in 12 trips to the playoffs – including two more Super Bowl appearances – before retiring after the 1995 season.

Toward the end of Shula's career, despite continued regular season success, some fans and members of the local media began to speculate that "the game has passed him by." With the change of ownership from Joe Robbie to Wayne Huizenga the pressure to get back to the Super Bowl led to the addition of many high-priced free agents who did not necessarily fit into Shula's systems.

Former Dallas Cowboys and Miami Hurricanes coach Jimmy Johnson wrote in his weekly syndicated newspaper column that the 1995 Dolphins had the talent to be favorites for the Super Bowl. However, this team finished a disappointing 9-7 and lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Buffalo Bills. The press and local radio urged Huizinga to make a move for the available Jimmy Johnson, including banners flown by airplane during home games. Shula's retirement was followed soon after by the hiring of Johnson. (Writing about the Dolphins proved easier for Johnson than coaching them, as the team finished with an 8-8 record in his first season--and his overall record in Miami was a mediocre 26-21.)

Legacy

Shula set numerous records in his 33 seasons as a head coach. He holds NFL records for regular season wins (328), total victories (347), single season win percentage (1.000 in 1972), most games coached (526), most consecutive seasons coached (33), Super Bowl appearances (6) and Super Bowl losses (4) (tied with Bud Grant, Dan Reeves and Marv Levy). His teams' won 7 NFL conference titles: 1964, 1968, 1971-73, 1982 and 1984.

Shula left quite a legacy. He is honored at the Don Shula Stadium at John Carroll University, and the Don Shula Expressway in Miami. Additionally, an annual college football game between South Florida schools Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University is named the Shula Bowl in his honor. The game's winner receives a traveling trophy named the Don Shula Award. His sons, David and Mike, have become head coaches. On October 2, 1994, Don and David Shula became the first father and son to coach against each other. David's Cincinnati Bengals fell at home 23-7. Mike Shula was the former head coach at his alma mater, the University of Alabama, where he played quarterback from 1983-86.

He has co-authored three books: "The Winning Edge" (1973) with Lou Sahadi, "Everyone's a Coach" (1995) and "The Little Book of Coaching: Motivating People to be Winners" (2001), both with Ken Blanchard.

Post-coaching activities

In retirement, Shula has lent his name to a chain of popular steakhouses Shula's Steakhouse and a line of condiments. He also appears in Nutrisystem commercials with Dan Marino and other former NFL players telling viewers how much weight they lost.

Coach Shula's first wife, Dorothy Shula, fought breast cancer for six years. Just before her death in 1991, Coach Shula formed the Don Shula Foundation for the purpose of finding a cure for breast cancer .

Don Shula remarried on October 16, 1993, to Mary Ann Stephens. In 2007 ads for NutriSystem geared for people age 60 and older featured the 77 year-old Shula and his 61 yea-old wife Mary Ann.

In 2007 in Miami at Super Bowl XLI, Shula took part in the Vince Lombardi Trophy presentation.

He appeared in a Budweiser Super Bowl XLI ad with rapper Jay-Z, in which they played a futuristic football board game.

External links

• Pro Football Hall of Fame: Member profile
• Databasefootball.com: player profile
• Don Shula at IMDb
• Superbowl XLI commercial featuring Shula & Jay-Z on YouTube