Don Shula Has Died

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Wasn't going to post about it but then Bubba Smith (DL, poet) happened.

“If a nuclear bomb were to be dropped,” the great Bubba Smith once said, “the only two things I’d bet would survive would be Astroturf and Don Shula.”

https://theathletic.com/1794220/2020/05/04/posnanski-a-full-picture-of-don-shula-unyielding-inspiring-hard-to-describe/?article_source=search&search_query=Posnanski

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here we go:

There probably isn’t a sportswriter who crossed into Shula’s world and walked away without at least one story of getting chewed out. I never even covered Shula, but I have my story. It was when I went to interview him about coaching a game against his son, David, who was coaching the Cincinnati Bengals. I worked for a paper called The Cincinnati Post.

“The papers haven’t been fair to Dave,” Shula grumped at me right at the start, and he continued on the subject for several minutes before we even got the interview going.

And yet … I liked him. A lot of us liked him. There was something likable about him, even if it wasn’t always easy to place. He was fair and driven and always stood up for what he believed right. He was utterly dedicated to football, and yet he did not let it consume him the way it consumed just about every other coach of his day. He outlasted them all — John Madden, Chuck Noll, Tom Landry, Bill Walsh, Dick Vermeil, everybody. When somebody asked him about burnout, he shook his head furiously.
“I give ulcers,” he said. “I don’t get them.”

But I think there was something else, too. Bill Curry played for Shula and Vince Lombardi, and he makes a point that I find fascinating. He said that Shula’s practices were always much, much tougher than Lombardi’s … but they were also much, much more enjoyable.

How was that possible?

“Because Coach Shula inspired you,” Curry says.

[mraynrand]

“I give ulcers. I don’t get them.”

That’s priceless

[George Cumby]

Started my football watching days as a Dolphins fan.

Always liked the Don.