Don Shula: building a winner

South Florida CEO, Oct, 2005 by Jaime Hernandez

Spend an hour talking with Don Shula, and one thing becomes clear: whether it is the X's and O's of a professional football game or vying for the best hand during a poker game, the man is obsessed with winning.

"I'm a natural-born competitor," says the 75-year-old former Miami Dolphins head coach. "Whether it was in pick-up games or card games or whatever the game was, I always wanted to win. It was just an inherent trait of being a competitor. I just hated to lose."

Shula brought that intensity and winning attitude to South Florida in 1970 when he took over as coach of the Dolphins. At the time, the 4-year-old professional football franchise had never had a winning season. Under Shula, the Dolphins became a perennial championship contender, winning two Super Bowls and posting the only undefeated season in National Football League history. In the process, the team's success helped unite an often fractious community mostly comprised of retirees or transplants from other parts of the country. South Floridians embraced the Dolphins and Shula, and their winning seasons helped keep the national spotlight on the region.

"Before I got here, the fans ... had never had anything common to root for," Shula says. "We gave them that identity. We brought the South Florida area together. I'm more proud of that than anything else that's happened in my career here in South Florida--bringing the region together, giving them something that they're all proud of: to be Dolphin fans."

Shula's contributions to the region transcend the football field. Known simply as "Coach" to close friends and fans alike, Shula has also made numerous public appearances at charitable events and fundraisers, especially those organized by his own non-profit group, Don Shula Foundation Inc. The Miamibased organization, which raises money for charities and helps fund breast cancer research projects, was launched in 1990 by Shula and wife Dorothy, who died in 1991 of breast cancer. Since its inception, the Shula Foundation has donated more than $1 million to fund more than 35 grants to breast cancer research centers nationwide, says longtime Shula confidant and foundation executive director Charles O. Morgan Jr.

"Coach Shula's work with various charities will last long after his football records," Morgan says. "He is very unselfish with his time. He has very difficult decisions knowing where to spend his time, but in the midst of all the time demands, he does not neglect an opportunity to speak at charitable group events."

Since his retirement from coaching in 1996, Shula has also focused on expanding the restaurant chain that bears his name, Shula's Steakhouses LC, with the help of his son and former Cincinnati Bengals head coach, David Shula. The chain opened its first steakhouse in 1989 in Miami Lakes, and the restaurant's growing popularity helped that middle-class northwest Miami-Dade area gain exposure and attract other businesses. Miami Lakes has since incorporated, and Shula's footprint on the town is noticeable with his 205-room hotel, two restaurants and athletic club. Meanwhile, the steakhouse chain has grown to 26 restaurants around the United States and Panama.

Leader With a Modest Start

Shula's drive for success can be traced to his childhood, when he took charge of sporting games at a playground across the street from his home in Grand River, Ohio. Donald Francis Shula was born Jan. 4, 1930 in his grandparents' Grand River home and was the fourth of seven children. His father, a Hungarian fisherman, moved to the US when he was 8; Shula's mother, whose parents were also Hungarian, was born in the US and "was the boss in the family," Shula says. She was very precise, neat and clean, and everything had to be done on schedule, he recalls.

"My dad was very quiet and laid back, and my mom was the one who ran everything," Shula says. "I grew up a momma's boy."

As the Great Depression crippled many US families, the Shula family was fortunate to have his grandparents' market nearby, so the children always had clean clothes to wear and food on the table. Shula spent much of his childhood on his father's fishing boat, helping lift nets full of fish out of Lake Erie. Shula says he never developed sea legs, constantly getting seasick and swearing each day on the boat would be his last. But his father always assured him the seasickness would pass and asked the boy to keep helping him, so Shula obliged.

"The ironic part is when I came here [to South Florida] in 1970 to coach, everybody wanted to take me deep sea fishing," Shula quips. "I'd say, 'I've done all the fishing that I want to be around.'"

When he was not hauling nets aboard his father's boat, Shula was on the playground organizing baseball, football and basketball games. He says he set up the teams and rules so that the games were fair, even though he was usually the youngest kid on the field. Shula says that, unbeknownst to him at the time, it was his first experience at teaching and coaching.

But momma's rules always took precedent over whatever was going on at the playground, and one of her protocols mandated that young Shula be home by 7 p.m. When the streetlights turned on, he says, he knew it was time to go home.