The tall tales of Don Shula: Got things done. Focused on football. Always prepared. A legend
About nine hours after playing in front of 70,535 budding NFL fans in London in July of 1988, a weary and jet-lagged Miami Dolphins travel party landed at Miami International Airport the following steamy morning and headed to baggage claim to pick up everyone’s belongings.
And as a training camp roster of players milled about, waiting for their luggage, it soon became clear something was wrong. It had already been some time and, well, no bags.
So Stuart Weinstein, the club’s director of security, had the gumption to climb behind the baggage carousel’s curtains. And he asked the nearest handler how soon before the Miami Dolphins’ bags would come out.
And the baggage guy told Weinstein, “you picked a bad time, buddy,” because the midnight shift was just getting done and the morning shift was just reporting to work and it could be maybe-30, maybe-45 minutes before someone would send the team’s first bags through the conveyor belt.
Weinstein was relatively new to the job back then but he already knew he was holding a trump card in his deck. So he returned to the traveling party and asked coach Don Shula to come back there behind those curtains with him to address the baggage handlers.
“Eddie Jones went back there with us but not to do anything other than watch,” Weinstein said. “And Shula goes back there and talks to one guy and pretty soon the guys on the night shift are offloading bags, and the guys from the day shift are offloading bags, and everybody’s sending the bags through.
“In maybe five minutes we had all our bags because Don Shula asked them.”
This is one story Weinstein shared Monday when he heard Shula had passed away at 90 years old.
And this is, in part, who Don Shula was to Weinstein and to all of us ...
...A man who got things done.
In the mid 1980s, the Dolphins were perhaps the NFL’s most interesting franchise. They won a lot. And that was evidenced by the fact they went to the Super Bowl following the 1982 season and went back following the 1984 season.
And, oh-by-the-way, the team made those trips by running the ball in ‘82 and passing it in ‘84 -- starting a seismic shift that would sweep across the entire NFL and come to dominate how the game is played today.
Shula was the coach of this fascinating team from a technicolor city. And local columnist and national author Dave Barry wanted to interview Shula to put it all in perspective. Except Dave Barry wanted to do this in his own wacky Dave Barry way, which meant no football questions.
Dolphins director of publicity Chip Namias got Shula to agree to a 15-minute interview with Barry.
“It turned out to be the longest 15 minutes of my life,” Namias recalled Monday. “Dave kept asking coach non-football questions and, as we all know, coach had no real interests outside of football besides his family.”
At one point, Barry asks Shula, “What kind of music do you listen to? Whose music do you enjoy?”
Namias says Shula shouted out his office door to his secretary, Anne Rodriguez, “Anne, who’s that group I like?”
Rodriguez shouted back in her heavy Brooklyn accent, “The Carpenters, coach!”
A frustrated Barry ended the interview by asking Shula who he respected and admired out of football?
“Coach Shula seemed to take forever mulling over his answer,” Namias recalls. “Finally, his face brightened as if the light bulb had just gone on. He blurted out ‘Tex (Schramm)!! Tex is out of football now!’ ”
That is, in part, who Don Shula was to Namias and all of us ...
A man with a laser focus on football.
Namias was eventually succeeded by Harvey Greene, who came to the Dolphins after working for George Steinbrenner at the New York Yankees. Part of Greene’s responsibility back in the early 1990s was to advance for the team on road-game weeks.
Greene would travel to the away city to set up the right ramp for the Dolphins’ charter plane, hotel accommodations, transportation, walk-through times, and other logistics.
“Shula was very meticulous in how we planned all that to make things as smooth as possible for when the team got there,” Greene recalled Monday.
Meticulous is one thing. Shula meticulous was quite another.
Shula had Greene carry pictures for hotel chefs and food service staff of what a rare steak for the Miami Dolphins should look like, what a medium steak for the Miami Dolphins should look like, what a well-done steak for the Miami Dolphins should look like.
“That’s the amount of detail he expected,” Greene said.
Well, on one trip to Seattle, the Dolphins landed on a Friday and Greene was ready with the team buses for the ride to the Kingdome for a walk-through. Shula always rode on the first bus in the first aisle. Greene always rode across the aisle from the coach in case there was an issue.
“Right before we got to the Kingdome, there was a railroad crossing,” Greene said. “And just as we got up to the tracks, the arms came down. And a freight train came across the tracks. So we’re waiting for the train to pass.
“And I look over and Shula is glaring at me. The train was taking forever to pass and I could see steam coming out of his ears.”
Shula turns to Greene and asks, “Why didn’t you plan for this? How come you didn’t know a train would be coming by at this hour?”
Greene stumbled as he admitted he never thought of checking the train schedules.
“What were you doing here the whole week?” Shula asked incredulously.
That is, in part, who Don Shula was to Greene and all of us ...
So meticulous, he had photos of what steaks for his coaches and players should look like. And so well-prepared, he couldn’t believe someone didn’t think of studying the train schedule.
“That is the winning edge,” Greene said. “I never forgot that. He fully expected me to know when that train was passing the Kingdome so the team wouldn’t get stuck behind it.”
I got an email from former ESPN NFL reporter Pat McManamon Monday afternoon after the Shula news broke. We marveled together at how Shula went undefeated even when he lost his starting QB for nine games.
McManamon is an accomplished reporter who did great work covering the Florida Gators and the Dolphins for the Palm Beach Post. He later covered the Cleveland Browns for both ESPN and The Athletic. The guy is a heavyweight.
And yet in the mid 1990s he was in the presence of this, this legend.
“When I started I was so terrified of him I didn’t ask a question for, like, six weeks,” McManamon said.
I relate. Because when I started covering the Miami Dolphins in 1990, I didn’t pose Shula a question for, like, six weeks for fear of asking something stupid.
(Now I ask stupid questions with no fear!)
Seriously, I eventually started to do my job. And sometimes I did ask stupid questions. And Shula showed mercy and grace to this cub reporter.
That is in part who Don Shula was to Pat, and me, and all of us ...
He was intimidating. He was forgiving.
He was a legend.
This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 12:00 AM.
