Alumnus Bob Griese – May 4, 2020
Download PDF version
Monday, May 4, 2020
Former Dolphins QB Bob Griese
(I know you and Coach Shula were friends for years and years after football. Did that allow you to see a different side of him after football?) – “Damn right. (laughter) When I first saw him, I remember my first occasion hearing about Coach Shula coming to the Dolphins. It was on Channel 4 or whatever back then, he was being interviewed and he was saying ‘I like a lot of what I’m seeing with this Dolphins team. They’ve got a good young quarterback – but Griese, I think he scrambles too much. I’d like to get him to stay in the pocket more.’ I couldn’t wait until I saw Coach Shula because evidentially he had been watching too much of (the wrong) film because there was not pocket for Griese to stay in. The first three years I was down here, I did a lot of scrambling. So, he and I had to have a discussion and sometimes I still have to remind him to this day. He was the boss back then, but as years go by, we became friends, and we’re kind of like equals. Not like he was the boss and I was the underling, and that’s the way it was back then. I lost a good friend; I lost a great friend. We spent a lot of time together at lunch, and his favorite place to have lunch was at Gulfstream Park. Some of the other buddies that would go – Hank Goldberg before he moved to Las Vegas was our handicapper. I always tell the story that Shula would be sitting at the end of the table like he didn’t know horses from a hole in the ground. So he’d look at Hank and say ‘Hank, who do you like in the second race?’ And Hank would say ‘I studied this from last night and I got up again this morning and I looked at it for another 25 minutes, and looked at it here, and I like the numbers 713.’ And Shula looked down at the bottom of his program and it was (number) 731 and he would look at Hank and say ‘Hell hank. That’s the chalk. I don’t want any chalk. Chalk, chalk, chalk, chalk.’ We had a great time having lunch at Gulfstream Park.”
(I want to ask you about how Coach Shula was able to adapt over the years. I remember in 1983 with Dan Marino coming in, and he has such a different style than what you were able to do. What did you see in him and his ability to match his system with the players he had rather than forcing one particular system on the team that he was putting together?) – ”He was smart. He played in the league. He was a defensive back and every time we talked about this and I’m sure he is around somewhere wanting me to tell you and get in the paper and get on TV, that he had 21 interceptions as a defensive back. Everybody knew that that would go with him to lunch. He looked at the players he had and he would decide what’s the offense we could play, and what’s the defense that we could play, and special teams. That’s the way it was. We had a good running team. The offensive line were good run blockers. We had (Larry) Csonka, (Jim) Kiick, and Mercury (Morris). We had good running backs. We were good at running the ball, so that’s what we did. Then you get Dan Marino comes in and why wouldn’t you throw? Everybody says that the offensive line that Marino had was a great offensive line. Some of those guys were great; but he never got sacked hardly and I smile when I talk to Marino about this. Marino just got rid of it. If there wasn’t anybody open and there was a guy coming at him right down the middle, Marino would get rid of that football. That was a great trait to have. That’s a great coaching point. If you don’t see anybody, don’t take the sack and get rid of the ball. That’s going to be one of the great things that the Dolphins are probably going to tell Tua (Tagovailoa) when he gets in here is look at Marino. Look at some films of Marino. If nobody is open, get rid of the ball and don’t take the sack.”
(I wanted to ask you about the business acumen of a lot of the players that were on the Don Shula teams. I had a few people tell me that they think it was the lessons that Shula taught on the field that translated to off the field. Do you agree with that? Did you see that?) – “Yeah, we had some guys that were very successful after football. Dick Anderson, (Nick) Buoniconti, we had Dr. Doug Swift. That could’ve been – that’s something I never thought about. But the three I mentioned and I’m sure there is a bunch more. Of course Shula was born in a small town in Ohio. We go back and forth. I gig him and he gigs me. I tell him the reason he had to play cornerback was because he was not smart enough to play offense, and the reason he got all of those interceptions was because he was calling the defensive signals and he would always call the defense to roll his way so he was free out there to kind of pick off the passes. He’d just look at me and smile. He might even raise his three fingers and he might say on occasion, ‘Read between the lines, Griese.’”
(Were you at the surprise party that they threw for Don Shula back in January, and if not, what do you recall from your last interaction with him?) – “I was at the party and I agree with whoever said it earlier today, that he was truly surprised. Normally he doesn’t. He usually likes to be the one in control and Mary Anne probably tells him what’s going on, who is going to be where and all; but I think he was truly surprised at that one. I was on the phone with him a few weeks ago and we were at Gulfstream maybe a month and a half ago for one of our lunches. That’s probably the last time I saw him. He looked good then. He was amazing. We’d sit right outside in public and people would be going by and some lady with her granddaughter would stop by and say ‘You’re coach Shula!’ He would smile and sign an autograph, and then she said, ‘Can I take a picture?’ And he’d say ‘Yeah, with your granddaughter. So she would take the picture, and then he’d say, ‘Now take one with me by yourself.’ And then other people would come by. He was at the end of the table and that’s where he wanted to be, where he could meet and greet and say hello. He was a social person. Back then maybe he wasn’t; but now he was.”
