Don Shula, N.F.L. Coach Who Won, and Won, and Won, Dies at 90

Don Shula, who received extra video games than another head coach in Nationwide Soccer League historical past and was the one one to guide a crew to an ideal season, all whereas serving to to usher professional soccer into its fashionable period underneath the banner of “America’s Sport,” died on Monday at his house in Indian Creek, Fla., a village close to Miami Seashore. He was 90.

His loss of life was introduced by the Miami Dolphins on Twitter.

Shula, who was enshrined within the Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame in 1997, was a steely tactician and taskmaster who constructed a number of the most fearsome defenses and explosive offenses in league historical past. He took his groups, the Baltimore Colts and the Dolphins, to 6 Tremendous Bowls, profitable two, capping the 1972 and 1973 seasons.

The 1972 marketing campaign was historic: The Dolphins received all 14 regular-season video games regardless of shedding Bob Griese, their beginning quarterback, to an harm within the fifth recreation. With the top-ranked offense and protection, they then received all three playoff video games and captured Tremendous Bowl VII, finishing what stays the league’s solely good season.

Coming simply three seasons after the merger of the outdated N.F.L. and the upstart A.F.L., the Tremendous Bowl victory signaled the beginning of the league’s transformation into America’s new nationwide pastime. With free company nonetheless years away, Shula’s groups, with secure rosters of battle-tested veterans, might be seen on nationwide tv on Sundays clashing with different hard-hitting defenses and high-flying offenses from Pittsburgh to Dallas to Oakland.

In finishing an ideal season, Shula vanquished the disgrace of shedding to Joe Namath and New York Jets in Tremendous Bowl III, one of many largest upsets in skilled sports activities. The sport gave the American Soccer League the legitimacy it craved whereas saddling Shula with the label of a coach unable to win on the largest stage.

Arriving in Miami two seasons later, he took to constructing an much more environment friendly soccer juggernaut. With a jutting jaw and stiff backbone, he had a fierce look, whether or not pacing the follow discipline, demanding that his gamers be ready, or exhorting his groups from the sidelines, driving them to victory after victory.

Few coaches in any sport might match his success.

In his 33 years as a head coach, seven with the Baltimore Colts (1963-69) and 26 with the Dolphins (1970-95), his groups received 328 regular-season video games — nonetheless an N.F.L. document — misplaced 156 and tied 6. He nonetheless holds the N.F.L. data for video games coached (526) and complete victories (347 — 23 greater than the legendary George Halas of the Chicago Bears).His groups received 10 or extra video games in a season 21 occasions and reached the playoffs 19 occasions.

Marv Levy, who coached the Buffalo Payments to 4 Tremendous Bowls, referred to as Shula “the best coach in skilled soccer historical past.”

Shula was a longtime member of the N.F.L.’s influential competitors committee, which, amongst different issues, pushed to tighten guidelines towards a protection’s holding extensive receivers; with receivers freer to maneuver, the rule change tilted the benefit to the offense, paving the best way for extra risk-taking, high-scoring contests dominated by the passing recreation.

Shula coached three Corridor of Fame quarterbacks: Johnny Unitas at Baltimore and Bob Griese and Dan Marino at Miami. He fathered two coaches: His son Dave was head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals for components of 5 seasons, and his son Mike was head coach on the College of Alabama and has been a place coach with a number of N.F.L. groups, presently the Denver Broncos.

Don Shula grew to become a head coach at 33, Dave at 32 and Mike at 37.

Shula was well-known for working gamers onerous throughout coaching camp, holding 4 exercises a day in South Florida’s steamy summers. Throughout his early years on the sideline, he was recognized to be short-tempered and fast responsible gamers when issues went badly.

“As a youthful coach, I used to be very intense,” he instructed the columnist Dave Anderson of The New York Instances in 1983. “Typically I used to be lower than understanding. I hope I’ve been capable of steadiness it out a little bit, however I additionally hope that I by no means hand over being intense.”

By the Dolphins’ unbeaten season in 1972, Shula’s gamers had discovered a option to ease the strain.

A few week earlier than the Tremendous Bowl, defensive linemen Invoice Stanfill and Manny Fernandez, each fun-loving characters, went fishing and caught and captured a three-foot alligator. After follow the subsequent day, working again Larry Csonka distracted Shula’s secretary in order that Fernandez might go away the alligator in Shula’s non-public bathe. When the coach stepped in, he discovered the alligator, screamed and bumped into the locker room to confront his gamers.

“I mentioned, ‘I don’t suppose that’s very humorous,’” Shula mentioned, recounting the story in an interview with The New York Instances in 2016. “They mentioned, ‘Coach, can’t you are taking a joke?,’ and I mentioned, ‘A joke? A stay alligator?’ They mentioned, ‘We took a vote and also you solely handed by one vote on whether or not we must always tape up the mouth of the alligator.’”

Linebacker Nick Buoniconti mentioned Shula began laughing and the crew quickly joined in. “It actually loosened everyone up,” Buoniconti mentioned.

The Dolphins went on to beat the Washington Redskins, 14-7, to win their first Tremendous Bowl and end the season 17-0.

“You had been now the coach that received the large one, and that modified every part in my teaching profession,” Shula mentioned.

The success appeared inconceivable in February 1970, when the Dolphins lured Shula away from the Colts, the place he had been voted N.F.L. coach of the 12 months thrice. Shula was underneath contract when the Dolphins’ proprietor, Joe Robbie, signed him, so the Colts filed a tampering cost with the N.F.L. The Dolphins had been compelled to surrender their first-round draft decide in 1971 as compensation. (The Colts picked the College of North Carolina working again Don McCauley, who performed 11 seasons with them.)

After coming into the outdated American Soccer League in 1966, the Dolphins had received simply 15 video games of their first 4 seasons, and simply three video games the 12 months earlier than Shula arrived.

“Then issues modified drastically for the higher,” Csonka as soon as instructed an interviewer.

In his first 12 months in Miami, Shula used an offensive line stocked with future Corridor of Fame gamers like Larry Little and Jim Langer to dam for Csonka and his fellow working backs Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris. Vast receiver Paul Warfield and tight finish Marv Fleming, who had received league championships elsewhere, additionally arrived, giving Griese recent targets. The core of what grew to become generally known as the “No Identify Protection” started to close down opposing offenses.

The crew’s success turned Shula right into a hero in Miami. Within the early 1980s, an indication within the Orange Bowl, then the Dolphins’ house discipline, learn: “Shula is god.” The Instances sportswriter Larry Dorman wrote “About the one argument it ever generated round city involved whether or not the letter ‘g’ needs to be higher or lowercase.”

A highway in Miami is called Don Shula Expressway. At John Carroll College close to Cleveland, his alma mater, soccer is performed within the Don Shula Stadium, and different sports activities occasions are held on the Don Shula Sports activities Heart.

Donald Francis Shula was born on Jan. 4, 1930, in Grand River, Ohio, about 40 miles east of Cleveland. He was a working again at John Carroll and earned a bachelor’s diploma in sociology there with a minor in arithmetic in 1951. He obtained a grasp’s in bodily training at Western Reserve (now Case Western Reserve) in 1954.

In 1951, the Cleveland Browns drafted him within the ninth spherical and gave him a $5,000 wage. From 1951 to 1957 he performed defensive again for the Browns, underneath the longtime coach Paul Brown, in addition to the Colts and the Redskins. He ended his profession with 21 interceptions.

Shula was an assistant coach at Virginia in 1958, an assistant at Kentucky in 1959 and defensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions from 1960 to 1962 earlier than taking on in Baltimore. Regardless of their success underneath Shula, the Colts misplaced Tremendous Bowl III to the New York Jets, who had been heavy underdogs, 16-7.

His transfer to Miami was sweetened by a 10 p.c share of possession, which he bought again to the crew a number of years later.

Shula’s run of three straight Tremendous Bowls led to 1974, when Csonka, Kiick and Warfield left for the upstart World Soccer League. The Dolphins returned to playoffs often afterward, and appeared in two Tremendous Bowls within the 1980s, though they misplaced each. Regardless of Marino and one of many league’s most prolific offenses, the dynamic success of these early years by no means returned.

By 1995 Shula’s Dolphins had a leaky protection and barely made the playoffs that 12 months, with a 9-7 document; they had been eradicated within the first spherical once they misplaced a wild-card recreation. Gamers overtly criticized coaches. One professional coach, Mike Ditka, referred to as the Dolphins “a crew with out coronary heart”; one other, Ron Meyer, mentioned, “Shula has misplaced management of his crew.”

Shula resigned after that season, the day after he turned 66.

“I’m unhappy that he was pushed out by all of the criticism, quite a lot of it completely uncalled-for,” Fernandez, his former defensive sort out, instructed The Instances. “However I’m completely happy for him that it’s over. He doesn’t must put up with all this anymore.”

After soccer, Shula performed golf, owned a resort and golf membership, ran a series of steakhouses bearing his title and made talking and charity appearances.

His first spouse, the previous Dorothy Bartish, died in 1991 after 32 years of marriage. He married Mary Anne Stephens in 1993, and she or he survives him together with together with eight youngsters, 16 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren.

Shula was not completely happy to cease teaching. “The hardest half will probably be in September,” he mentioned after retiring, “when that ball is kicked off, and for the primary time in 43 years I received’t be on the sidelines. That’s what I’ll miss most.”