The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Former NE Ohio sports writer steered Shula to Dolphins
Bill Braucher, a sportswriter at The News-Herald in the late 1950s and early in the 1960s, played a major role in Don Shula becoming head coach of the Miami Dolphins in 1970.
Braucher, who passed away in 2004 at age 77, attended John Carroll University before Shula did.
He became friends with Shula through John Braucher, Bill’s younger brother and another John Carroll alum.
Bill Braucher would have no way of knowing how that friendship would factor into National Football League history when he left Willoughby in 1963 to cover sports for The Miami Herald.
The Dolphins were an expansion team in 1966. Braucher was named beat writer by The Miami Herald.
As is often the case with expansion teams, the early days were a struggle for the Dolphins and their first coach, George Wilson. The Dolphins were 3-11 in 1966, 4-10 the next season and 5-8-1 in 1968.
The Dolphins’ first owner, Joe Robbie, actually showed more patience with Wilson than other owners might have. Former Browns owner Al Lerner fired Chris Palmer after just two seasons for going 5-27 in 1999 and 2000. But as the 1969 Dolphins started the season 0-5-1 on their way to 3-101, Robbie had had enough.
Edwin Pope, a columnist for The Miami Herald and very influential in Miami sports, privately told Robbie he should hire Shula, who in 1969 was in his seventh year as head coach of the Baltimore Colts. The Colts played in the 1968 Super Bowl. They missed the playoffs in 1969, but finished 8-5-1, so Shula’s job status in Baltimore was secure.
Pope knew of Braucher’s friendship and ties with Shula just through casual conversations with Braucher.
Robbie could not contact Shula directly. He would have been guilty of tampering, so Pope suggested Robbie use Braucher as an intermediary.
The connection was made. The Dolphins were penalized a first-round draft pick for pirating Shula from the Colts, but Robbie would have taken the punishment with a smile if he could see into the future.
Shula, 40 years old when he coached his first game for Miami, won two Super Bowls, was 17-0 in the perfect 1972 season and posted a stellar record of 274-147-2 in 26 years as Dolphins head coach.
“He was instrumental in me coming here, and that’s something that changed my life,” Shula said in an Associated Press story that appeared in Braucher’s obituary in The Los Angeles Times. “It was a special relationship. I admired and respected him very much.
“He’s a very proud man and he was very private. It was always the type of relationship based on mutual respect, which was pretty unique.”
Braucher covered the Dolphins until 1974 when he left Miami for a job with the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Michael Braucher, Bill Braucher’s son, said his father always downplayed his role in Dolphins’ history. This puts Shula’s success in perspective, however. Shula coached the Dolphins 26 years. Twenty-six years later, they are on their 10th full-time head coach, Brian Flores, since Shula retired after the 1995 season.
“I don’t think he ever felt his importance,” Michael Braucher, 36 at the time, was quoted saying in a Bill Braucher obituary that appeared on Facebook in 2004. “We all knew what he did, but he was pretty humble about it. It was not in his nature to want the attention. He did his best and did it because he enjoyed his work, not because of what it meant to others.”
Braucher returned to The Miami Herald in the 1980s and then retired in 1991 to Davie, Florida. EDITOR’S NOTE » Steve Lyttle, who worked at The News-Herald from 1970 to 1978 before taking a job at The Charlotte Observer, made us aware of Braucher’s involvement in the Dolphins hiring Don Shula.