Tony Sparano remembered

Death hits home, says columnist Dave Hyde.

Even now, as Tony Sparano stories get told, weaving family and football to show a good and genuine man, there’s one moment that captures him completely that nobody knew. That, in itself, isn’t surprising.

Sparano, the former Dolphins coach who died of heart attack Sunday, was a thoughtful man who kept most thoughts to himself. His was direct in speech and humble in manner, as fitting an offensive-line coach who worked his way up from the bottom to his dream job.

The dream became real on the day most stories remembering Sparano reference, the one in New England, the one that unleashed The Wildcat, baffled the Patriots and laid the course for the most surprising Dolphins season of this millennium.

“We’ve got to do something,’’ Sparano had told his coaching staff on the flight home the previous week after a lop-sided loss to Arizona.

That dropped them to 0-2. He’d inherited a 1-17 team that 2008 season. So they’d lost 18 of 19 games heading into Foxboro. Of course, Sparano sprung the Wildcat formation on New England, like Burgess Meredith telling Rocky to switch to his left hand — “Now!”

The resulting 38-13 win remains Belichick’s biggest margin of defeat at home and the third-biggest of his Patriots era. That’s a good way to remember Sparano, the coach, even for all the questions to come later.

But the way to remember Sparano, the

man, came in the moments after that win. This is the story no one knew. Dolphins media relations director Harvey Greene went to collect him for the postgame news conference.

Sparano’s head was down. He looked on the verge of tears. Here, in private, he said what the hard coach who took a long road to this job could never say publicly that day.

“I’ve waited my whole life for this,” he told Greene.

That was Sparano, right there. He understood the moment. His work was important to him.

Sure, Sparano’s Dolphins fate became every AFC East coach’s fate against Belichick. He went to the playoffs in 2008 and couldn’t repeat the magic. There’s no shame in that, though it all got messy in the coming years.

It’s part of the curse of covering the Dolphins in the past couple of decades to meet good coaches at the low point of their careers when they’re fired. Sparano could have won here. The coaches he bracketed, Cam Cameron and Joe Philbin, never would have.

But Sparano was a smart and capable coach whose problem was Chad Pennington couldn’t stay healthy at quarterback and Chad Henne wasn’t the guy. You can’t coach around a bad quarterback in the NFL.

Sparano always found good work, because good coaches are needed around the league. And he was a good, dedicated coach. When he was in Oakland a few years ago, I got a text from him the morning after a Raiders’ Monday night game: “Hey Dave, where’s the game?”

Confused, I messaged back where the Dolphins played next.

“No, our game,’’ he wrote.

“Tony, this is Dave Hyde,’’ I wrote.

“I know – where’s tape of our game?”

What followed in the next several texts was a confusing “Who’s on first?” exchange until, after a pause, he finally wrote how my name was beside the Oakland video coordinator on his phone. He then wrote something I could understand: “Working on an hour sleep and it’s only October.”

That was him. That’s how he rose in the NFL. Maybe it’s how he fell on Sunday, far too soon. And so sadly. His daughter was just married two weeks before. He had four grandchildren. He was just 56.

He gave so much to football in a manner so many coaches do. Some, you’re allowed to wonder in times like this, possibly can give too much.