FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'
Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan
Above, Vince Lombardi Championship Trophiesfrom Miami Dolphin victories in Super Bowl VII and VIII, at Dolphins HQ, Davie, FL; April 2007 photo by Mario J. Bermudez
The Sport of the '60's
Green Bay Coach Vince Lombardi; December 21, 1962
"...He stood for everything that was solid and successful in American sports. He remains for many, the very heart of pro football, pumping hard right now. Every year the winner of the Super Bowl is awarded the Vincent Lombardi Trophy. His legacy is the greatest prize the game can offer."
-John Facenda for NFL Films
Seven years later to the date of this cover, Lombardi coached his last game, a losing effort for the Redskins. Nine months later he'd be dead of intestinal cancer at age 57. The Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University is named for him. See http://lombardi.georgetown.edu/
The first sports-related piece of clothing I ever had was a shirt that I wore in the Fall as a kid living in Memphis in the mid-sixties, age five or six, which my father had bought at a Dept. store. It was made with what I'd now call sweatshirt-quality cotton and was certainly far too heavy to wear in the oppressive summer heat that Memphis excelled in producing -with no sweat!
It was sort of an oatmeal/mustard combination of a color with green stripes on the shoulder, with a big green 5 on the front and back. Yes,The Golden Boy, Paul Hornung! http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/paul-hornung-5/ I wish I still had that shirt now!
Zonk! Miami Massacres Minnesota
Larry Csonka, January 21, 1974
Miami All The Way
Bob Griese, January 22, 1973
1972 Miami Dolphins team photo at The Orange Bowl
This is identical to the photo of the 17-0 Undefeated Team that for six happy years, rested in a frame on top of my bedroom dresser at my home in North Miami Beach. There it stayed 'till that fateful day in August of 1979, when I began packing for my new life in Bloomington. The photo made the trip to Bloomington intact, where it remained on my desk in my room, Briscoe Quad 427-A, for two very eventful years at IU, the latter being 1981, the year we beat North Carolina for the NCAA basketball title. I placed it right below my 8'' x 11'' b&w glossy of the Miami Herald'sAll-County Gymnastics team. That squad was a tremendous team that featured many talented friends of mine from all around Dade County, as well as my own talented friends and classmates at North Miami Beach HighSchool, where my senior year, under the leadership of our beloved head coach, Peter Saponaro, we won the Florida state championship. Even today, I can still name every player and coach on that amazing Dolphins team. Building For The Super Bowl
Miami Coach Don Shula, December 11, 1972As most of you regular readers to Hallandale Beach Blog know by now, the Dolphins' Perfect Season of 1972 was my first year as a Dolphins season ticket holder, and I was there for every single moment at the Orange Bowl: pre-season, regular season and playoff. The most scared I ever was of the team losing was the Cleveland Browns divisional playoff game the day before Christmas, a 20-14 win. The tension was palpable.
What does everyone pictured on the magazine above have in common? Correct, they're all inductees in the NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, located just 49 miles from my dad's hometown of Steubenville, Home of The Big Red, the part of Ohio where my paternal ancestors have lived for well over 200 years.
Happy Miami Dolphins Anniversary; For some, the Dolphins' glory is like faded photographs in an album, but to me, it is as fresh in my mind as anything else in my memory. I only wish the people running and coaching the team now cared as much as I and some others do, who know what it's like to see and appreciate a thing of beauty -perfection- up-close and personal; Sports Fan in Chief Obama Honors Champion 1972 Miami Dolphins at White House
PBS NewsHour YouTube Channel video: Sports Fan in Chief Honors Champion 1972 Miami Dolphins. "More than 40 years since the 1972 Miami Dolphins made NFL history with their perfect season, coach Don Shula and his undefeated team were honored by President Barack Obama with a visit to the White House. Kwame Holman reports on the presidential tradition of following sports and Mr. Obama's dedication to his home teams." Uploaded August 20, 2013 http://youtu.be/wAAXkutt7as
The following is an edited version of a August 16th email I received from my NPR-listening mother, who now lives up in Polk County in Central Florida, and my response to her shortly thereafter, on the occasion of the 48th anniversary of the Miami Dolphins being born in 1965. ------
August 16, 2013
On this day in history, 1965, August 16 Danny Thomas and Joe Robbie received the approval of the Dolphins Franchise. At least that's what I think the announcer said this morning...or something very similar to the beginning of the Dolphin Football team.....they don't repeat these things.
Hugs,
MOM
I replied as follows: But that's only half the story, of course.
Here's some of the rest...
You were fortunate enough to have a son who as a child loved to evangelize about the Dolphins and their players with perfect strangers -even while acknowledging the players shortcomings- and often talked what some thought was too much about the wonderful things that they could do so much better than other teams in American cities that were much-larger,
more-influential and more important than Miami in the larger scheme of things.
SUDDEN DEATH AT KANSAS CITY
Miami's Garo Yepremian Ends the Longest Game; (kneeling) placekick holder Karl Noonan, January 3, 1972
KIICK AND CSONKA, MIAMI'S DYNAMIC DUO
Larry Csonka & Jim Kiick, August 7, 1972
BUILDING FOR THE SUPER BOWL
Miami Coach Don Shula, December 11, 1972
IT'S MIAMI AND WASHINGTON
Mercury Morris Speeds Past The Steelers, January 8, 1973
MIAMI ALL THE WAY
Bob Griese, January 22, 1973
Wolfson Archive YouTube Channel video: Miami Dolphins Perfect 1972 Season Celebration and Superbowl Victory. Uploaded August 20, 2013.http://youtu.be/BxLG_exjIDQ
The Don Shula Show 17-0 Season January 15, 1973. Super Bowl VII Winners.
conkyjoe YouTube Channel video:The Don Shula Show 17-0 Season January 15, 1973. Super Bowl VII Winners. Uploaded December 1, 2012.
1970 Dolphins radio play-by-play announcer at WIOD and later Channel 10 sports director Joe Croghan was host until 1974 for what everyone simply called "the Shula show."
The guests the Monday night after the 14-7 Super Bowl victory over the Redskins were QB Bob Griese and DT Manny Fernandez.
But as usual, Coach Shula is the glue that holds it all together, which is why even today, he is still THE most-admired person in all of South Florida for most longtime South Florida residents, including me.
My family and I never missed the Don Shula Show and we could all mimic the show's intro voice-over by heart!
By the time this particular show aired, I think I'd been up since sometime Sunday morning! Just riding on adrenaline...
From the video uploader's comments, which are quite important for making sense of this for those of you who were NOT living here forty years ago, "From January 15, 1973. The Dolphins first Super Bowl win with an unbeaten 17-0 season. Perfection. This is the only footage of this show in existence. It was recorded on a Sony B&W reel to reel VTR in the newsroom. No quad color tape machines were available because of commercial playback. Unbelievable nobody but me recorded this historic event. Sorry for the marginal audio track. No highlights are shown due to NFL rights restrictions. The show was produced by The Sandy Tinsley Ad Agency, Miami. Rick Shaw, voice over announcer. Sponsored by Holsom Bread and Eastern Airlines."
When the Dolphins were undefeated in 1972 and won their first NFL Championship, your son was at every home game, his first year as a season-ticket holder, his eyes like a video-camera remembering everything around him, which he would detail years later to anyone who was interested.
Once Upon a Time.. there was perfection in aqua and orange and white.
Just like our whole family has talked so many times over the years since when we all drove down to the Eastern Airlines tarmac and terminal of Miami International Airport early in the morning hours 42 years ago to greet the team returning from Kansas City, after their extremely-emotional double-overtime playoff win over the Chiefs on Christmas Day in 1971. I was so exhausted and hoarse that I literally couldn't talk the next day. And eyes like a video-camera remembering everything around him the following season when they won their second Vince Lombardi NFL Championshiptrophy.
PRO FOOTBALL, MIAMI IS ROUGH AND READY
Larry Csonka & Bob Griese, September 17, 1973
Over at NBC, one of the perks of consistently winning -attention- came to a whole crew of Dolphins in their NFL intro package, featuring mostly Dolphins guard Bob Kuechenberg getting dressed, and, in between video of other great players of that era, Larry Little, Vern Den Herder, Larry Csonka, Bob Griese and at 0:57, the late Jim Mandich., whose warm personality and honesty is still so greatly missed in South Florida by so many, more than two years after his untimely passing.
beaverstuffers YouTube Channel: NFL on NBC, opening (1973). Uploaded August 20, 2009.http://youtu.be/nv-datkQYUU
Yes, 1973, the last year the Dolphins really WERE the best team. Forty years.
Zonk! Miami Massacres Minnesota
Larry Csonka, January 21, 1974
And for a while at least, when people around the country thought of Miami, they thought of the Dolphins, never the most-talented team, but always the hardest-working team and a team of winners who demanded a lot of themselves and of each other.
Vince Lombardi Championship Trophies from Dolphin victories in Super Bowl VII and VIII.
April 2007 photo by Mario J. Bermudez taken at Miami Dolphins Headquarters, Davie, Florida.
It's why you play the game.
For more on this longstanding wistfulness, see my Super Bowl blog post of February 6, 2011,
"Lombardi. A certain magic still lingers in the very name. It speaks of duels in the snow and cold November mud..."; Packers will win by at least 8!
Warfield, Csonka and Kiick of Memphis, July 28, 1975
THE DAY OF THE DOLPHINS
Andra Franklin Plows Through The Chargers, January 24, 1983
ROOKIES ON THE RISE
Dan Marino: Miami's Hot Quarterback, November 14, 1983
AIR RAID! MIAMI BOMBS WASHINGTON
Mark Clayton (burning Darryl Green) September 10, 1984
SUPER DUPER!
Wide Receiver Mark Duper Of The Undefeated Dolphins, November 19, 1984
DANGEROUS DAN
Dan Marino Passes Miami Into The Super Bowl, January 14, 1985
In mid-January of 1985, when your son was 24, he watched the Dolphins play the 49ers in the Super Bowl at your apt. near The Falls, their second Super Bowl appearance in four years, and in only Dan Marino's 2nd-year.
Like all of South Florida, we were all quite confident that with Marino as our QB and with Don Shula as head coach, there would be many more such Super Bowl appearances in the next ten years, and the Dolphins would likely win their share of them.
But though we didn't know it at the time, after the game the Dolphins were, to be fair, largely toyed with by the 49ers in the second half, something fundamental was taking place.
A shift that for Dolphin fans like us, would NOT be a change for the better, not even a valuable learning experience.
We thought the team was getting better and building towards the future, but the reality was that we were actually falling like quicksand into a particular ring of football hell reserved for very entertaining NFL teams that never win in the clutch, no matter how big a lead they have.
Teams that score a lot of TDs quickly, but then promptly give them up even more quickly.
Teams that never make that one trade that they need to make to keep the door open and then knock the door down.
After Marino retired, theDolphins got older, more boring and more irrelevant than ever, and changed coaches and QBs with great regularity until they were no longer considered one of the best-run sports teams in the country, they were no longer even the best-run team in Miami, having long ago lost that title to the University of Miami that played exciting AND winning football.
And now, today, 48 years to the day they became a team, the same day that Babe Ruth and Elvis died on years apart, 99% of anyone you see or speak to who is under the age of 27 has NEVER BEEN ALIVE when the Dolphins were playing in a Super Bowl game.
Now that's some perspective that really says something profound.
Still, your son, ever the Dolphins evangelist, albeit in-spite of the team rather than because of any success or enjoyment from watching the team, keeps the spirit of a once-upon-a-time tradition of hard work, commitment to attention to details and a winning culture alive, however he can, even when he travels overseas.
Above, at Panera Bread, Hallandale Beach, FL in December of 2012
Which is why when a certain son of yours found himself in Sweden in January, it was only natural that he had extra Dolphins caps with him to help spread the word.
And thus, when a certain very talented and moxie-filled Swedish singer named Anni Bernhard came to record her new Full of Keys album in April for at least part of the recording session that week in a Swedish city that you've never heard of -Visby- she wore the Dolphins aqua cap proudly when smiling for the camera, and even put that photo out on the Internet for all to see.
Pictured above, left-to-right, are Anni Bernhard (Full of Keys), sound engineer and co-producer Linus Larsson and Mats Jönsson, April 12, 2013, Sandvie Studios, Visby, Gotland, Sweden.
No, Anni was not ashamed to be seen wearing the aqua and orange.
Thanks to your son, the persuasive Dolphins evangelist.
------------------------------------------------------------ As some of you know, from the time I went to my first Dolphins home game at the Orange Bowl in December of 1970, with my Dad, a 45-3 win over Buffalo that clinched a playoff position for the first time in team history, I missed less than a handful of home games -preseason, regular season and playoff- some because of my own sports games, until I left for Bloomington and college at IU in August of 1979. And I have every Pro! game program from every game I went to, as well as the ticket stub. I didn't see much losing because after a tough loss to the Jets in 1971, the Dolphins won a record 31 straight home games, regular season and post-season games, not losing until the opening season game in 1975 against the Raiders on a Monday Night Football classic that was back-and-forth with that great Raider team of so many future Hall-of-Famers. That was the famous game within our family's history where after doing it for years, I somehow got on the wrong Metro Dade Orange Bowl Express bus to the Golden Glades stop in the Levitz Furniture showroom parking lot, because there was a back-up of buses along the street outside the Orange Bowl. (I think it was a small accident or something, so all the busses were slight out of queue.) I always checked what the destination said on the front of the bus before boarding, even though the buses were always in the same place so that people would remember where to go. But that night, something happened and... within ten minutes or so, I realized I was headed somewhere towards Kendall -the complete opposite direction. In those pre-cell phone days, I had to call my Dad on a pay phone around 1:30 am. and have him drive from North Miami Beach to pick me up, after the bus finally dropped me off on the way at a well-lit area. Talk about panicked, my dad had to go to work in a few hours and I had school in a few hours. Only one of my biggest mistakes ever!
Building For The Super Bowl - Miami Coach Don Shula
Forty-years ago, Miami Dolphins football in December had genuine significance and gave South Florida a real sense of identity, excitement and togetherness that it had never before enjoyed. I know -I was there. But now...
Some, including many who should know better, foolishly say that South Florida has become "a basketball town." That's NOT true, of course, since real basketball towns support both professional AND college basketball with equal affection. I ought to know, because I've lived in two of them: Chicago and Washington, D.C. Miami is nothing like them. Still, given the anemic showing the Dolphins have made on the field the past 15 years, and the equally amateurish, dog-chasing-its-tail sense of ineptitude and stupidity shown by the two most-recent ownership groups off-the-field, it's not easy to rebut those foolish claims with a straight face, especially when the Miami Heat have won two NBA championships in the past 6 years. What's happened is that the Dolphins have slowly bled the heart and evaporated the soul out of many of their most loyal fans and sent them into hiding underground. They watch the games on TV, but going to see them in-person, with the current crew in charge, is too painful. When you know what real professionals look like and act like, because you've seen them with your own eyes, and in fact, have grown up with them, it's very hard to accept second-rate and lackluster effort. Accept such a consistent lack of fundamentals in basic aspects of the game, or the lack of knowledge of the rules, or lack of personal accountability on the field. And then to be asked to applaud that? I know I can't, and I'm far from alone.
nitroradio99 YouTube Channel: Highlights of Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins. December 20, 1970. Uploaded April 27, 2011. http://youtu.be/3wtp94Ffg3w This 1970 game was the first Dolphins game I ever attended in-person at the Orange Bowl, with my Dad. I was nine-years old, the Dolphins but five.
Jean0987654321YouTube Channel: Intro of 1973 AFC Championship: Oakland Raiders at Miami Dolphins, December 30, 1973. Uploaded May 26, 2012. http://youtu.be/Z-PjSiKm1-M monteroed YouTube Channel. Uploaded October 27, 2010 http://youtu.be/ErvySdmZqWY
sluggotv YouTube Channel: Chicago Bears at Miami Dolphins. December 2, 1985. Uploaded May 22, 2011. http://youtu.be/_m0SzNtY9WI
The day of this game I was wearing the same trademark aqua-colored Dolphins cap I'd worn all week around Evanston in predicting that Don Shula was not going to allow the undefeated Bears to come into the Orange Bowl and emerge unscathed. It was weird how confident I was, but having seen all the '72 Perfect Season home games in- person, perhaps it was the the fight-or-flight kicking in! And my intuition has always been my strongest trait.
I watched the Dolphins-Bears game from the Norris Student Union at Northwestern University in Evanston, where I had moved that summer, and planted myself at a table underneath one of the large TVs they had on the side of the columns. I'd often watch the network evening newscasts there and grab a bite to eat while waiting to meet my friend, ace lifeguard, boater, guitarist and very talented singer Susan Smentek, who worked in the art gallery there, and whom I even watched sing a few times in their bar. Susan was also my creative arts/film friend muse with whom I finally saw "Back to the Future" with when it premiered back then!
Susan was the sort of wonderfully kind and well-grounded friend you always hope you have on your side when you need to sort your head out and make some difficult choices. For me, at that time, Susan was the friend and confidant whose opinion I cared about so much that I'd rather have disappointed my own parents and sisters than her, because she's the one who actually listened intensely, and the one person who helped me and cheered me up more than anyone else did the two years I lived in the Chicago area. Frankly, much as I'd like to write otherwise, those two years along the shores of Lake Michigan were not the happiest of times for me, as I had to deal with a lot more personal anguish and professional disappointment in a short period of time than I'd ever had on my plate at one time before, despite what I thought at the time had been more than enough planning and preparation on my part before heading up to Chicago. I leaned on Susan a lot, and though I tried not to over-do it, I know that sometimes it was too much, so those times when I knew I'd really disappointed her, I was really racked by intense pangs of guilt. I deeply regret that I fell out of touch with Susan not long after after she visited the Washington, D.C. area around 1994 while touring in support of her CD, Siren Song, and I got a chance to see perform yet again, that magnetic voice of hers as strong and impressive as ever. Which made Siren Song such a perfect name for her! And how's this for irony, she now lives in Elmhurst, the very town that I was originally slated to live in when I first moved-up there in 1985. But if I had, I'd never have met Susan, which proves the wisdom of the saying, "Friends Are God’s Way of Taking Care of Us" Dziękuję, Susan!
That table at Norris where I watched the Dolphins beat the Bears was the same exact table where seven weeks later, I watched the Space Shuttle Challenger launch and subsequent explosion as it happened, which not that many people there were watching a mere five minutes beforehand. Yet within 15 minutes, seemed to have half of the Northwestern campus there, much of it consumed in tears and sobs, the rest in varying looks of astonishment and bewilderment.
Above, capturing THE moment of one of the most amazing NFL games ever played, the moment the Miami Dolphins beat the Kansas City Chiefs 27-24 in double-overtime at Municipal Stadium, December 25, 1971, as "Miami's Garo Yepremian Ends the Longest Game"; the placekick holder is Karl Noonan. Sports Illustrated of January 3, 1972. And only one of the most joyous days of my life!
Must-see TV! Today on the 40th Anniversary of NFL's "Longest Game" between the Dolphins and Chiefs, a divisional playoff game I remember like it was yesterday, the NFL Network will air a special commemorative program at 6 pm tonight, with old NBC-TV footage from the ballgame, and, apparently, sideline conversations, which I can only imagine will be augmented by NFL Films footage.
Teaser alert: watch out for Marv Fleming, #80, in the end zone on this next play. Just saying...
As of today, Sunday morning at 1 a.m., according to DirecTV's on-screen schedule, there is no scheduled encore of this program scheduled, so make sure you have your DVR/VCR's at the ready. But if you know how many times they will run a special program over-and-over, they'll do it -eventually.
Two short sneak peeks of the one-hour program are here; sorry, no embedding possible because that's how the NFL rolls. You have to go to their sites so that way you have to see the advertising of their partners. Sort of makes you wonder if they've never heard of blogs, since they can load the ads into the video if they want.
(Code Red head's-up to Google and Blogger: Blogger is NOT one of the NFL Network's listed "SHARE" partners. Why?)
In that afternoon game on Christmas Day 40-years ago today -the Christmas where my family finally got into the 20th Century and bought more than just a half-way decent stereo system- the pressure from the game got to be so much for my father. He had to walk out of our apt. in North Miami Beach and pace out in the hallway, refusing to watch with me and my mother and two sisters as Garo attempted his winning 37-yard field-goal.
Less than an hour after the game, my family and I and tens of thousands of other Dolfans from all over South Florida had driven out to Miami International Airport to greet the team on their Eastern Airlines charter. We had lived in South Florida for three years by then and I heard South Florida yell that day like I'd never heard it before.
One of the most joyous times of my life!!!
Chiefs running back and return man Ed Podolak's performance that day was one of the greatest individual football performances that I ever saw in my life, ranking at the top with there with watching a very sick Bob Griese go from Mercy Hospital to throwing some long bombs to Paul Warfield, in-person at the Orange Bowl, in a 1971 MNF comeback win against Pittsburgh; watching O.J. Simpson make one amazing move after another against the Dolphins, in-person at the Orange Bowlin the mid-'70's; Bert Jones, Roger Carr and the Baltimore Colts throttle a good Dolphins team at the Orange Bowl, showing amazing athletic ability and speed at the ballgame in 1975 where the stadium was used as footage for the film, Black Sunday that had a story-line involving Middle East terrorism and the Goodyear blimp possibly crashing into a stadium during the Super Bowl; and finally, in 1981 up in Bloomington at Memorial Stadium, seeing Marcus Allen personally destroyIU with 274 yards rushing, the year he won -and earned!- the Heisman Trophy.
As one of the many Dolphin fans who purchased the record albums that WIOD put out after the 1971 season and the 1972 Perfect Season, I have listened to that call by Rick Weaver about a thousand times. "Noonan to hold..."
They were stolen from my apt. while I was attending IU, along with my high school ring, my beautiful blue satin NMB Soccer Florida State Champs jacket, my NMB letterman patch for gymnastics for being the manager of the Women's team that won the 1979 State championships at a meet I ran and coordinated at NMB, easily one of the lowest days in my life, to say nothing of the money that got stolen. It was like I was having my identity stolen before it was the thing to do on the Internet...
And who would steal THOSE two Dolphin albums? That's what made me think it was personal -the items stolen versus what was left behind.
By the way, I still have all my Dolphin PRO game programs, starting from the first game I went to in December of 1970 against Buffalo, a 45-3 win that clinched a playoff spot, their first ever, to the last Dolphin game I saw before leaving for college at IU in August of 1979. Plus, I also have the various pro football annuals like Street & Smith and Athlon, great for reading on car trips to North Carolina seven months after this ballgame, still smarting from the Super Bowl loss to the Cowboys and seeing Roger Staubach on the face of every guide cover. I probably have about 100 of the programs and guides in total.
And to think, about 25-years ago, I almost sold them -my precious memories! Thank goodness I didn't!
"...He stood for everything that was solid and successful in American sports. He remains for many, the very heart of pro football, pumping hard right now. Every year the winner of the Super Bowl is awarded the Vincent Lombardi Trophy. His legacy is the greatest prize the game can offer." -John Facenda for NFL Films The Sport of the '60's
Green Bay Coach Vince Lombardi; December 21, 1962
Seven years later to the date of this cover, Lombardi coached his last game, a losing effort for the Redskins. Nine months later he'd be dead of intestinal cancer at age 57. The Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University is named for him. See http://lombardi.georgetown.edu/
The first sports-related piece of clothing I ever had was a shirt that I wore in the Fall as a kid living in Memphis in the mid-sixties, age five or six, which my father had bought at a Dept. store. It was made with what I'd now call sweatshirt-quality cotton and was certainly far too heavy to wear in the oppressive summer heat that Memphis excelled in producing -with no sweat!
It was sort of an oatmeal/mustard combination of a color with green stripes on the shoulder, with a big green 5 on the front and back. Yes,The Golden Boy, Paul Hornung! http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/paul-hornung-5/ I wish I still had that shirt now!
Vince Lombardi Championship Trophies
"It's why you play the game!" -Herm Edwards Vince Lombardi Championship Trophiesfrom Miami Dolphin victories in Super Bowl VII and VIII, at Dolphins HQ, Davie, FL; April 2007 photo by Mario J. Bermudez
Zonk! Miami Massacres Minnesota
Larry Csonka, January 21, 1974
Miami All The Way
Bob Griese, January 22, 1973
1972 Miami Dolphins team photo at The Orange Bowl
This is identical to the photo of the 17-0 Undefeated Team that for six years, rested in a frame on top of my bedroom dresser at my home in North Miami Beach. There it stayed 'till that fateful day in August of 1979, when I began packing for my new life in Bloomington. The photo made the trip to Bloomington intact, where it remained on my desk in my room, Briscoe Quad 427-A, for two very eventful years at IU, the latter being 1981, the year we beat North Carolina for the NCAA basketball title. I placed it right below my 8'' x 11'' b&w glossy of the Miami Herald'sAll-County Gymnastics team. That squad was a tremendous team that featured many talented friends of mine from all around Dade County, as well as my own talented friends and classmates at North Miami Beach HighSchool, where my senior year, under the leadership of our beloved head coach, Peter Saponaro, we won the Florida state championship. Even today, I can still name every player and coach on that amazing Dolphins team.
Building For The Super Bowl
Miami Coach Don Shula, December 11, 1972As most of you regular readers to Hallandale Beach Blog know by now, the Dolphins' Perfect Season of 1972 was my first year as a Dolphins season ticket holder, and I was there for every single moment at the Orange Bowl: pre-season, regular season and playoff. The most scared I ever was of the team losing was the Cleveland Browns divisional playoff game the day before Christmas, a 20-14 win. The tension was palpable. What does everyone pictured above have in common? Correct, they're all inductees in the NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, located just 49 miles from my dad's hometown of Steubenville, Home of The Big Red, the part of Ohio where my paternal ancestors have lived for over 200 years.
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