Goodbye, Kingfish

Sporting News, The, Jan 15, 1996 by Paul Attner, Steve Gietschier

As painful as last week's events were to him personally, at least it solidified his stature. The farewell news conference filled a huge team meeting room with television cameras and anxious reporters. He was surrounded by former players and even Raymond Floyd, a next-door neighbor. Bob Costas and Larry King requested one-on-one interviews. Shula was treated as if he were royalty.

And he put up a brave front. He smiled and joked, giving only the slightest indications that this was not a decision he favored ("Wayne came down and then made the final decisions as to what direction I wanted to go and what direction Wayne wanted to go"). Fire his staff, Huizenga told him. Shake up the front office, he was told. Coach a few more years, too, if you want, even though Shula knew he wanted to stay just one more season. Instead, Shula, who began the week insisting he would finish his contract, took a lucrative payment from Huizenga and became the Dolphins' vice chairman. Duties undefined, office off-campus. Shula had too much loyalty even to mediocre assistants to become a grim reaper this deep into his career.

Maybe he should have been allowed to finish up next season and bow out on his own terms. Maybe he was owed that much, but this is not a fantasy sports world anymore. Huizenga saw a roster filled with 19 first-round draft choices, that had been assembled with the help of $18 million in signing bonuses, tumble backward, finally falling apart in an astonishingly inept performance against Buffalo in the playoffs. Shula needed to be 33 again, when he took over the Colts in his first head-coaching assignment and had the audacity to tell 30-year-old Johnny Unitas a thing or two about playing quarterback Instead, the perception in south Florida was that he no longer was capable of guiding a championship team, that a coach named Jimmy could do better. His friends say no, but Shula would be the first to admit a coach is ultimately responsible for a team's results--and the south Florida and for the Dolphins." But the Now Generation only sees Jimmy Johnson's cemented locks.

Dave Shula, Mike Shula, Mary Anne Shula ...

A day after he turned 66, Don Shula said he was starting the first day of the rest of his life. He said he now would have more time to get to know his children and grandchildren. It was a sad commentary on what it takes to be a successful coach, at least in his mind. Family came second, football first. But in sons Mike (Bears assistant) and Dave (Bengals head coach), the Shula football line will continue. And Shula is more content than he would have been in the past to handle the uncharted area of retirement.

After losing his first wife, Dorothy, to cancer in 1991, Shula was deeply unhappy. But his marriage to Mary Anne in 1993 has transformed him off the field into sort of a teenage lovebird. They wink at each other and kiss in public. And he goes places and tries hobbies that he would never have even thought about 15 years ago. The rest of the Shula clan remains extremely bitter about what has happened to its patriarch; his wife is convinced the time had come for him to move on.