Dolphins great Jim Kiick, star on perfect team, dies at 73
Running back scored the winning TD in each of the 1972 Dolphins’ playoff victories.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Jim Kiick, one-third of what NFL Network called “The Perfect Backfield” and onehalf of the Dolphins’ legendary “Butch and Sundance” tandem with Larry Csonka, has died at 73.
The Dolphins on Saturday evening announced the death of Kiick, who in recent years battled memory issues and resided in an assisted living facility.
His daughter, Allie, an accomplished tennis player, on Thursday wrote a post on social media saying she’d been informed her father was “declining rapidly.” For months, she was not permitted to visit because of the coronavirus pandemic, although it’s unclear if he was tested for it. “I miss my dad,” she wrote. “Every time I see him, he says, ‘I miss you.’ ... He’s lost the spark in his eyes as would anyone in his situation.”
Although Kiick was overshadowed by his best friend Csonka, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, and Mercury Morris, a dynamic 1,000-yard rusher, he will forever be ingrained in Dolphins history. Without him, the 1972 perfect season and 17-0 record might never have happened. Kiick scored the winning TD in all three postseason victories.
The Dolphins were trailing 14-13 with five minutes remaining in their first playoff game, against the visiting Browns. After driving to the Cleveland 8-yard line, the Dolphins would have been expected to turn to Csonka or Morris but instead ran a trap up the middle that Kiick converted into a touchdown and a 20-14 victory.
It was a moment of pride for the three members of the backfield, who contended that the celebration of the TD, with Morris running off the bench to Kiick, personified the selflessness of the entire team. Before that season, coach Don Shula had made a calculated gamble by giving more playing time to Morris despite knowing how close (and effective) the Csonka-Kiick tandem had been. “He’s the first person that jumped on me, congratulated me,” Kiick told The Palm Beach Post in a 2017 interview. “It just showed we were about the team and not about individual statistics or who scored the winning touchdown or who didn’t.”
Kiick scored the winning TD on a 3yard run in the AFC championship game, a 21-17 victory over Pittsburgh, and on a 1-yard run in the 14-7 victory over Washington in Super Bowl VII.
Miami drafted Kiick in the fifth round in 1968 out of Wyoming. His seven-year rushing total of 997 carries fails to do justice to his value as a versatile complement to the bullish fullback Csonka, who both rode horseback along South Beach, playing to their “Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid” personas. Kiick also caught 221 passes for 2,210 yards and totaled 31 TDs from scrimmage.