Shula’s exit from the Dolphins was imperfect but dignified

This column was originally printed on January 5, 1996

This wasn’t as grotesque as Jerry Jones’ ham-handed firing of Tom Landry. It wasn’t even as messy as Jones’ buyout of Jimmy Johnson. But Don Shula’s exit as the Dolphins coach could not have been anything like Shula had envisioned.

The saving grace in this deal came from Wayne Huizenga, who gently moved an icon from the base it has occupied for more than a quarter-century.

And, as expert dealmakers do, Huizenga left the American hero named Donald Francis Shula feeling good about the deal, too.

It is fair to say, in one of Shula’s own favorite phrases, that he “didn’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about” quitting with a year left on his contract.

If he did think about it, it would have been in terms of the aftermath of another Super Bowl championship, the crown that he — incredibly to him and all those who knew him best — would never win again after 1974.

That resignation in Shula’s concept of a perfect world would have been superbly organized. He would make the announcement at a properly scheduled affair, with his family arrayed around him.

Instead, the first report of Shula’s resignation sprang out like a shot from Hank Goldberg of Miami radio station WQAM and the ESPN network.

Shula usually responds to rumors with a swift and vicious scrunch! Only Wednesday, Shula had issued a terse but forceful statement: “Nothing has changed.”

Something changed Thursday.

Shula’s mind.

At 10 p.m., he called this office to say, “I just wanted to confirm that I have made the decision not to continue as coach, and I will serve in another capacity next year.”

He said he was “happy with my decision, but I don’t want to get into any more than that” until a press conference this afternoon.

Shula didn’t have much to explain.

He quit coaching on his 66th birthday because he was devastated by a constantly rising tide and tone of public criticism, and because Huizenga made him an offer too good to refuse.

I don’t pretend to know how much money it involves. But it surely was at least as much as the $2 million that Jones gave Johnson when he booted the ex-Miami Hurricane coach from the Cowboys.

It probably was immensely more, especially considering that Shula already has shared in two profitable stock deals with Huizenga-controlled companies, Republic Waste Industries and Extended Stay America.

Still, the buyout wouldn’t have worked without Shula’s particular state of mind. He usually reacts to defeat with more belligerence than depression, but friends said he was abnormally “down” after last Saturday’s 37-22 playoff rout in Buffalo. Pro football’s winningest coach was increasingly being identified as the man who hadn’t won a Super Bowl in 22 seasons.

That did it. Shula’s towering talent was matched only by his towering ego, which is hardly unusual among public figures. You remember the renowned photographer, Karsh of Ottawa, talking about all the celebrities he had captured on film, from Marilyn Monroe to John F. Kennedy to Winston Churchill. Karsh said they all had one trait in common.

Ego.

Shula could laugh about his own ego, but it grew more and more difficult. I dropped by his office at Nova Southeastern University in Davie right after several newspapers, including this one, had asked readers to vote by telephone on whether Shula should stay.

I opposed the exercise, but it was all done by the time I visited him. He had his considerable say on the matter, which, unfortunately, did nothing to counteract the numerical results.

After a while, to my relief, we began chatting about life in general. I quickly ruined that by saying something unutterably stupid: “Seems like the whole world has changed just the last few years. All you have to do is drive a few blocks to find out how mean-spirited some people are.”

Shula leaped up, practically straddling his huge desk. “Big scoop!” he boomed. “People are mean-spirited! I can’t believe you’ve come all the way to Davie to give me that information! You’ve got a major story there! You’re telling me people are mean-spirited!”

By now he also was bellowing with laughter, half at me and half, I suppose, at himself, simply as a release from the daily pressure. I can’t remember him laughing that much since the 1974 Super Bowl.

I asked him again that day why he needed such grief. His response indicated that that was his own business, and if he was determined to be such a glutton for punishment, it was his funeral and nobody else’s.

He also knew that his owner, Huizenga, was solidly behind him.

That was then, and Thursday was Thursday.

I don’t subscribe to the belief that Huizenga fired Shula. Any study of Huizenga’s life and business methods shows that people who work for him or do deals with him almost invariably leave happy. He is too smart for it ever to come to firing Shula.

However, it became evident in the last part of the season that Huizenga’s enthusiasm for another Shula season was waning. Huizenga is enough of a football man to recognize the small likelihood that one more Shula season will produce a Super Bowl title. He communicated this anxiety to Shula and — again, prepared to go the last mile with him — offered him far more than an equable settlement for what would have been Shula’s last year of coaching.

I think Huizenga said something like, “Don, you know I think the world of you as the greatest coach of all time, and the greatest right now, too, but I don’t want you to feel you have to stay on as an obligation to me, when it might cost me an opportunity to get a coach I would want for a long term.”

If you have ever looked straight into Huizenga’s blue eyes, you can understand how he could make that come across as a compliment.

Plus a big severance package.

Real big.

Shula’s first reaction was to stick to his guns: He would “fulfill my contract,” which to him meant coaching in 1996.

Then he thought about the public discontent with his team, and how the highs have not been as high and the lows have gotten so much lower.

Always before he could think, “Well, there’s next week,” or “Well, there’s next season.”

Now, though, Shula was running out of next weeks, and there would be only one next season, and why not go out with at least a winning season at 9-8 and the good will and financial blessings of the man who had already so enriched Shula?

So Shula stepped down, and Huizenga avoided the “new Jerry Jones” label.

It wasn’t the way idealists wanted it to end. After this season, though, especially after that horrendous last trip to Buffalo, it was the only way it could end between a millionaire who deserves to stay both that and an American hero, and a billionaire owner who sure didn’t get that way being stupid.

This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 2:09 PM.