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Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Shula scores with wealth of tales
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
“I coached him into the Hall of Fame,” Don Shula said, and he chuckled. Not that Joe Namath was a subject to chuckle about in Super Bowl III. Shula coached the then-Baltimore Colts, heavily favored against the New York Jets in the match between the champions of the old, established NFL and the upstart AFL, a residue of rags-and-tatters teams groping for recognition.
Safe to say that game was Namath’s ticket to Canton, for over the years he quarterbacked only three winning seasons. The wound has healed by this time, but Shula, like many thousands, can still see Jimmy Orr, a remarkable receiver, standing in the end zone waving frantically to Earl Morrall, Colts quarterback. Shula could explain.
“The bands were lining up to get ready for the halftime show, and they were dressed in white. So were the Colts, and Earl couldn’t find Jimmy in white against that white background. So you couldn’t blame him altogether.”
Now we know. Amazing, that for all the 347 games Shula won as a coach, this one defeat more often surfaces in the minds of Americans. Even above the perfect season he produced in 1972 after he had transferred to the Miami Dolphins. Even that Super Bowl game, played against Washington in Los Angeles, produced another pulse-beater.
“Our record was 17-0, and we were leading the Redskins, 14-0. There was about two minutes left to play, and I decided it would be fitting if we kicked a field goal and won the Super Bowl 17-0,” Shula said. So he sent in his Cypriot placekicker, Garo Yepremian, for the kick, but something went awry, and Yepremian was left standing there with the football in his hands, not on his foot.
“He tried to throw a pass, the weakest-looking thing you ever saw, the Redskins intercepted and ran it back for a touchdown,” Shula said. “So instead of 17-0, it was now 14-7 and we were faced with trying to save the game. You couldn’t blame Garo, I guess. Football was just a game of kicking to a guy who had grown up in Cyprus. I remember we were playing Detroit when he kicked his first field goal, and he came running off the field yelling, ‘I kick a touchdown, I kick a touchdown!’
“I said, ‘No, Garo, you kicked a field goal, not a touchdown.’ “
So you see how nerve-wracking it can be even for the man who won more games in the NFL than any coach. In these 11 years he has been out of the game, what has he missed the most? “I miss game day,” he said, “Nothing you can do to replace those three hours on the sideline. But I don’t miss practices, and I don’t miss cutting the roster.”
Coaching has run in the family, and not always to the pleasure of the sire. Both David and Mike have been head coaches, but it was when Mike was stripped of his job at Alabama that he felt the deepest displeasure. “I’m still upset about the way they handled Mike. He’d had a big season the year before, won the Cotton Bowl, had his contract renewed, then goes 6-and-6 and they fire him, after all those seasons while they were on probation. I guess they’re expecting Nick Saban to do there what he did at LSU. If they want to change where a change is due, they might start with the head of the department.”
Retirement for Shula has been a plunge into the business world — a golf club and resort, a chain of steakhouses, producing his own brand of steak sauce and support of a number of charitable organizations. Plus, what brings him to Atlanta this week. He is the coach in “BP Coach Approach,” spokesman for a pharmaceutical company that produces medicine to control hypertension, or high blood pressure, as you and I know it. And who better to understand hypertension than a football coach, who faced it every time he stood on the sideline.
He appears quite fit in those commercials he does with Dan Marino. “High blood pressure is something I have been aware of for 15 years,” he said. “What I’m trying to do is make other people aware of how to treat it and live with it.”
So you wonder what happens to these headliners of yore when the cheering stops and the lights go down, here’s the winningest pro football coach of all time whose mission is to help you keep your blood pressure in check.
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Wait, watch - and prepare to pounce.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
THE TUESDAY COUNTDOWN
(Or, I blog, therefore I am)
10: One MonstroBlob run by stockholders has purchased the Braves from another MonstroBlob run by stockholders. What does that mean to the Braves or you? Possibly nothing.
9: Anybody who paints this as either the worst or greatest thing in the world is throwing darts. Could Liberty Media be worse than Time Warner? Sure. But given budget constraints that have forced Schuerholz to slash payroll, how much worse can it get? Can Liberty be better than Time Warner? Sure, but not likely. This deal was about stock and taxes and all of those things that don’t have anything to do with, “Who’s hitting leadoff?”
8: So, in summation, this is what we do: Wait, watch - and prepare to pounce.
7: I’m no Marty Schottenheimer fan. But I would be OK with the Chargers going 2-14 next season.
6: San Diego general manager A.J. Smith said he begin the search for Schottenheimer’s replacement today when he scouts the Marionette Warehouse in Chula Vista.
5: Grammys in summation: Way too little Police; way too much Dixie Chicks.
4: My name is Jeff Schultz and I’m coming out of the closet today to say that I really don’t care that you were a homosexual when you played in the NBA and only decided to reveal yourself largely because ESPN gave you air time, magazine space — and, yes, a book deal.
3: Oh yeah, and this: I’ve never heard of John Amaechi.
2: I understand being a closeted gay pro athlete must be a great struggle. But my two cents: Negative feelings in the locker room will only begin to change when a current athlete in team sports at a relatively high level — almost star status - steps out of the shadows. Until then, the John Amaechis of the world will be viewed as sideshows that don’t affect the big picture.
1: OK, Tech fans, you only get one choice: The Jackets make the tournament or Duke misses it. What’s your preference?
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