Alumnus Dan Marino – May 4, 2020
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Monday, May 4, 2020
Former Dolphins QB Dan Marino
(A lot of guys have talked about the first time they met Coach Don Shula or first memories of him. Obviously you came in and I’ve never asked – were you happy or did you understand not starting right away and did he talk you that much about it?) – “Yes. First of all, I just want to say it’s a sad day. My prayers and condolences go out to (his wife) Mary Anne, the Shula family, (his sons) Michael, David – they’re just really good people and it’s a sad day for Coach Shula; but a lot of great memories. He’s a beautiful man, a great person. Yes, my first memory was coming for minicamp. (It was the) first time I met him, I walked into his office and the funny part was before the draft, I never talked to Coach Shula, none of the scouts or anything because I didn’t think they thought I was going to be available for them to draft me; so the first time I really talked to Coach Shula besides on the phone draft day saying, ‘Hey, how’d you like to be a Dolphin?’ was in his office coming to minicamp. I remember it was a little intimidating because it was the first time you’re meeting a head coach – a guy that was so successful – but I do remember what he told me was, ‘I want you to come in in good shape, be prepared, prepare yourself this summer as if you had come in to be the starter,’ and he made an impact on me right away that way. He believed in me. He was like, ‘I believe in you. I want you work that way so you can come in and compete and actually feel like you’re going to be the starting quarterback.’ That just gave me a lot of confidence right off the bat. That was my first meeting actually with Coach Shula.”
(Coach Don Shula’s resume is so long. The list of achievements is so enormous. Of all of that material, what’s one or two things that most impresses you just as an observer of football?) – “That’s a good question. I think it would be the wins and his longevity and the players he coached; but the one thing I would think is the number of wins over the years and to coach for 33 years and do it at a high level like he did it and you see – coaches today and the way they are, they’re amazed by what Coach Shula was able to do for so long and do it at such a high level. To me, that’s probably the one thing that was so amazing – to build over such a long time at a high level.”
(I wanted to ask you about the type of coach and person that you saw in Don Shula because we’ve talked to guys from the 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s and they say that he had mellowed. He had developed this great sense of humor, so I’m wondering how he was during your playing career?) – “So this was after he was done coaching, you’re talking about the sense of humor? (laughter) When I came in, he was tough. (He was) tough and very demanding, and he led by example, so he expected you to come in and be the best you could be every day. He always had a winning attitude – that whole thing. It was always projected every day, always projected, but I would say with me and the fact that we had the group with (Mark) Duper and (Mark) Clayton and Nat Moore, he was willing to open up to other thoughts, other things in football that he wasn’t used to in football beforehand. One thing for me is he was very demanding, but he would also listen to your ideas and listen to your thoughts and maybe he wasn’t that way in the 60s and the 70s with the teams with the perfect season; but with me, he was great that way. Hopefully that’s answering your question.”
(Early on, like you mentioned those 60s and 70s teams, they were very run-heavy and then we get to you and you were throwing the ball all over the place. How did you see Coach Shula maybe evolve to your skillset and being able to achieve being the quarterback you were?) – “Yeah, and I think that is what a great coach – a coach like Coach Shula or any great coach – would do, is you just, you evolve to the talent that you have and their abilities and what they do best. I think he noticed that we two really special guys on the outside in Duper and Clayton and the fact that I was coming in – a quarterback that had a chance to be pretty darn good – and so you evolve to that. That’s what he was doing as a head coach, and that’s just being smart. I remember telling people how he told me to come in and learn the playbook in a way that he wanted me to call my own plays in practice and camp and minicamp and all of that, and I thought that was genius because he put a lot more pressure on me as a quarterback to learn quicker. I feel like I was able to start and play a lot quicker because of that reason, because of that pressure he put on me, and I always thought that was genius with him.”
(You just talked about that trust factor. I’m wondering how that might have furthered your personal relationship with Coach Shula because I always had this sense that it went beyond coach and quarterback, that it evolved into almost father and son.) – “There’s no doubt that – I had nothing but respect from Coach Shula and how he was as a person. You think about – I’ve talked about it before – he helped me as a player, but he also helped me (learn) how to develop as a human being. Coming to Miami, I was 21 years old and just to watch him and how he handled the press, how he handled his business, everything he did as a person in the community; all of those things you admired as a young guy and he taught me all that. From that standpoint, yes I’d say he is a mentor. As to I guess as a father-figure, he wasn’t – my father was the best, that’s for sure. He was a better coach than Coach Shula was; but as a mentor and all of that, yes, for sure, and I think I always had that relationship with him. He always was there to give me advice, to take care of me when I needed it and after he retired, he became a really good friend and someone that I enjoyed being around.”
(I always thought – and I’m going to ask you about a specific game – I always thought that the fake spike game was a really interesting example of how Don Shula coached and how he taught because the one thing I always thought about him was how he enabled his coaches to coach and how he enabled his players to play and if you saw something, go ahead and act on it. I just want to know if you feel that that game, that example, late in that game in 1994, was any sort of illustration about how Don Shula conducted business?) – “You’re talking about ‘illustration’ in his career and how he handled players and everything, and I think that was a typical example. He was a guy that understood that ‘let your players play the game’ (mentality) and an example of that is he let all of his quarterbacks call his own plays. I didn’t. I did a little bit at first and at times later on in my career – two-minute offense and all of that. He let his guys take care of their business on the field, and that was an example of that because it something that we had practiced and Bernie Kosar had brought the fake spike play with him from Cleveland. Coach Shula – we practiced it a lot. He always knew it was there and it was one of those things that (when) it was the perfect time, he let you do it, and in that game, he let me kind of take over the second half and do my thing to bring us back. That goes back to me saying that he evolved in a way from the whole running and pound the ball with the teams he had before, to letting his players play and understand the personnel he had. It’s just smart that way. There was a lot of examples of how he was able to do that as a coach and just the people we had and the coaches he had, and it was special.”
