‘HELLUVA COACH, HELLUVA GUY’
Tributes pour in after death of NFL legend Don Shula
In a Texas drawl so thick as to match his signature Stetson and barn-scuffed cowboy boots, Bum Phillips in the ’60s and ’70s alternately offered the same, unequalled homage to the two of the best dadblamed coaches who ever ambled onto a football sideline, Bear Bryant and Don Shula:
“He can take his’n and beat your’n — and take your’n and beat his’n.”
Shula, who died peacefully at home on Monday at age 90, never got to prove that maxim. Through much of his nearly four-decade turn in coaching football he probably indeed could have taken your players on your team and beaten his own.
That might be the only substantial pro-football coaching accomplishment Shula won’t take to the grave.
After three years as an NFL assistant coach with the Detroit Lions from 1960-62, Shula became the NFL’s winningest head coach and the only one in 100 seasons ever to lead his team to a perfect record including playoffs (17-0 in 1972).
Shula also is the only man ever to be an NFL head coach in 33 consecutive seasons — from 1962-69 with the Baltimore Colts and, more memorably, from 197095 with the Miami Dolphins.
Just look at the list of legendary head coaches Shula faced over his long career, with the number of head-tohead wins he had against each in parentheses: George Halas (five), Vince Lombardi (four), Paul Brown (three), Tom Landry (five), Chuck Noll (nine), John Madden (three), Bill Walsh (two), Joe Gibbs (three), Bill Parcells (four), Marv Levy (six), Jimmy Johnson (two) and, yes, even Bill Belichick (two).
From Halas to Belichick. No other head coach in league history faced both those legends. Shula had winning records against both, as well as against Brown, Landry, Noll, Gibbs, Parcells and Johnson. He and Walsh split four games, while only Lombardi (4-7), Madden (3-4) and Levy (6-17) got the better of him.
Similarly, Shula coached three Hall of Fame quarterbacks in the prime of their careers: Johnny Unitas, Bob Griese and Dan Marino.
Bottom line, he won more games than any other NFL coach (347, playoffs included) and still possesses the third-best win percentage ever (.677).
What’s more, Shula took six teams to the Super Bowl (with five different quarterbacks), winning twice. He actually won a third NFL championship in 1968 with Baltimore, before the league’s merger with the AFL.
The last Super Bowl that Shula was alive for, and watched, took place just three months ago. In Miami.
Of course, as arguably the NFL’s most accomplished coach, plaudits poured in for Shula all day Monday. And deservedly so. The web is chock full of those fond tributes and remembrances, and you should seek them out.
I got hold of Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Joe Schmidt on Monday afternoon. He’s one of the last living star players from the first three pro teams Shula helped coach, in Detroit from 196062, as defensive backs coach (1961) and defensive coordinator (1961-62).
Shula had just turned 30, after having played in the NFL as a defensive back in Cleveland, Baltimore and Washington from 1951-57.
“It was his first job in the NFL. He came right out of the box, and he was a helluva coach and a helluva guy,” said Schmidt, an eight-time all-pro with the Lions from 1953-65, and Lions head coach from 1967-72. “I knew him previously, from being a player and so forth. I always said, and always believed, he would have been a great head coach for Detroit. Lions history would have been different.
“Don was a guy who had a rare ability to bring players together, and make his knowledge of the game easy for them to understand, so he could get them to do what he wanted to accomplish.”
Few remember anymore that those Lions defences of the early ’60s were spectacular. Behind Schmidt, three defensive backs eventually were voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Dick (Night Train) Lane, Yale Lary and Dick LeBeau. In front of Schmidt, Alex Karras — who should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame — anchored pro football’s first defensive line to be called the “Fearsome Foursome,” before the Los Angeles Rams’ more famous unit.
Schmidt said in a phone call from his Florida home that while his memory, at age 88, is now admittedly foggy, he does remember that Shula didn’t try to reinvent the wheel, schematically.
“He realized he didn’t have to go in there and fool people. We just went out there and played football — good football. That was sufficient.”
Shula wasn’t a grandstander and kept his cool most of the time, even at so young an age, Schmidt said.
“He had occasion to get a little hot, but never to the point where he was irate. He didn’t have to really scream and holler with us.
“He was just a good coach and all the players had great respect for him. That’s a very important part of being a coach, is that players have respect for you, understand what you’re talking about, what your philosophy is about winning. And Don was very good at all that.”