Retiring Shula 'ay peace,' but much fire remains
Editor’s note: This column originally appeared in the Post on Jan. 6, 1996.
Don Shula
DAVIE — entered the room with a broad smile, setting the agenda as always for his final news conference as coach of the Miami Dolphins. Tom Landry never got the chance to compose and recite the final chapter of his NFL career. Shula did it Friday with dignity, good humor and a few flashes of the old firepower that always made reporters consider the consequences of their questions.
“I’m putting up a helluva front,” Shula said,
and in that he was pleased. He never broke down in public in 1991 over the loss of his first wife Dorothy to cancer,
nor did he ever acknowledge the ability of talk radio’s call-in cranks to alter his blood pressure. To betray that stony image at his retirement announcement, with hundreds of cameras prepared to make him pay, was completely out of the question.
For Shula, the secret of control always has been in mastering the details. He took on Friday’s task with the same organizational zeal he always committed to game plans. He had opening comments, obviously rehearsed but straight from the heart, and an unshakable concept of which issues would be appropriate to discuss and which would be off-limits. In 50 minutes, it was all over. The
NFL’s legendary leader in career victories walked off with his second wife, Mary Anne, on his elbow
and his life in order. Don
Shula, a head coach for half of his 66 years, saved his best pep talk for himself.
“We’re going to make this a happy time,” Shula said, his family and friends gathered around him. “It’s hard to leave the things I have done all these years. I’ll get up in the morning and my car is going to automatically head up this way (to the Dolphins’ Nova Southeastern University train
ing facility). But this is the decision, and when you make a decision, you do everything in your power to make that decision work.”
As difficult as that may have been Friday, with reporters already asking about Shula’s reaction to
Jimmy Johnson as a possible replacement, it will only get tougher. People will question Shula’s version of what happened, assuming that Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga forced him out rather than offering a contract extension. There won’t always
be fans standing at the street and cheering him on, as dozens did Friday on the street in front of the Dolphins complex. Worst of all, the 1996 NFL season will begin without him, shattering proof that not even a Hall of Fame coach is indispensable.
“I don’t know where we’re going to be in September when they kick off the season again, but Mary Anne had better be careful,” Shula said. “I don’t
know what I’ll do.”
Shula also expressed
confusion about what he’ll do as the Dolphins’ Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors.
“I’m not sure exactly what that means,” he said. Tension-breaking com
ments like those were Shula’s going-away present to the South Florida media, assembled to document this historic occasion with uncommon
solemnity. The fire marshal’s instruction for use of the Dolphins’ auditorium-style team meeting room indicates that it is unsafe and unlawful for more than 160 people to be there. Twice that num
ber were present Friday, their television cables tan
gling across the carpet like warring snakes. Outside, two dozen satellite trucks raised their antenna to the sky in salute to Shula’s
honored status in South Florida.
“This is the day you never think is going to happen,” said Shula, and here his voice wavered just a bit. “Now it has happened.” Dan Marino, who hugged his coach at the
end of the news conference, felt the sting. He was the first of Shula’s current and former players to slip out the back door, his eyes misty and the keys to his truck already pulled from the pocket for a quick getaway. Bob Griese, quarterback of the perfect 1972
Dolphins and one of Shula’s closest friends, stayed around to chide the media for under-appreciating his old boss. John Offer
dahl stood by Shula, as did Jim Kiick, Bernie Kosar, Irving Fryar, Keith Byars
and even Ray Floyd, the golf pro whose wife introduced Shula to Mary
Anne.
They represented Shula’s booster club, proud that the coach will be given part-ownership of the team rather than a gold watch, but there were also questions during the conference about fans who voted against Shula in newspaper polls and started calling for his retirement long before this disappointing 9-8 season.
“You make it sound like all the fans are the same
and I won’t let you get away with that,” Shula told a CNN reporter who dropped in for the drama. “I know there are disgruntled fans. I’m aware of them and I’m certainly deserving of some of the criticism, as long as it’s not mean and dirty, which some of it was.”
Later the same reporter interrupted Shula with a follow-up question.
“What, do you want to take the microphone?” Shula asked, stepping back from the lectern with a sneer.
Someday soon a new coach will. Shula did his
best Friday to show that’s all right with him, for the good of the Dolphins, for the good of the grandchildren he wants to get to
know better.
“I’m at peace with myself and looking forward to spending time with my lovely wife, Mary Anne,” he said.
The smile they exchanged was no front. The decision has been made, but not alone. “Classic Shula style,” Huizenga said of the way it all ended, with the confidence of good things to come. If only the 1995 Dolphins had adopted it, Don Shula would be reloading rather than retiring.