Legendary Miami Dolphins Coach Don Shula Dies At 90

MIAMI, FL — Legendary Miami Dolphins Coach Don Shula, the architect of the NFL's only perfect season, has died, according to the Dolphins.

"Don Shula was the patriarch of the Miami Dolphins for 50 years," the team said in a statement. "He brought the winning edge to our franchise and put the Dolphins and the city of Miami in the national sports scene."

Shula led the 1972 Miami Dolphins to become the only football team to this day that has gone undefeated for an entire season and still won the Super Bowl against the Washington Redskins. The team repeated with a Super Bowl victory against the Minneapolis Vikings a year later.

"Today is a sad day. Coach Shula was the rare man who exemplified true greatness in every aspect of his life," said Miami Dolphins President Tom Garfinkel. "He will be so missed by so many, but his legacy of character and excellence will endure."

Current Dolphins owner Stephen Ross compared Shula to the football equivalent of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.

"If there was a Mt. Rushmore for the NFL, Don Shula certainly would be chiseled into the granite," Ross said.

Shula is survived by his second wife, Mary Anne, and five children: Dave, Donna, Sharon, Anne and Mike. Both boys went on to become football coaches. Shula's first wife, Dorothy, died of breast cancer.

"Coach Shula — you will truly be missed," penned retired Dolphins great Dan Marino on social media."You embody the definition of 'greatness.' You brought that winning attitude with you every day and made everyone around you better."

The Dolphins said Shula "passed away peacefully at his home" Monday morning.

Shula's legacy extended beyond Florida as the winningest coach in National Football League history with a regular-season record of 328-156-6 and an overall record of 347-173-6.

“The Game has lost one of the greats today, but we have all lost a truly incredible man," observed NFL Hall of Fame President and CEO David Baker Hall. "Coach Don Shula served as an ambassador for this great game for more than half a century."

Shula coached in six Super Bowls and won two of them: Super Bowl VII and Super Bowl VIII. His 1972 team went 17-0.

"Coach Shula was a man who truly loved the game and I have often been moved by the deep respect and affection he was always afforded by the men who played for him," Baker Hall added.

Coach Shula was honored on the field prior to Super Bowl LIV in Miami on Feb. 2. The Kansas City Chiefs went on to win the game at Hard Rock Stadium over the San Francisco 49ers.

Born on Jan. 4, 1930 in Grand River, Ohio, Shula played college football at John Carroll University in Cleveland before earning a spot on the 1951 Cleveland Browns.

He was traded to the Baltimore Colts two years later and went on to play for the Washington Redskins in 1957 before turning to coaching as a college assistant.

Shula's true legacy in football was on the sidelines. He joined the Detroit Lions in 1960 as defensive coordinator before becoming the then youngest head coach in NFL history at 33 when he took the field with the then Baltimore Colts.

Under his leadership for seven years, the Colts went to the playoffs three times. Shula left Baltimore in 1970 to take over the fledgling Miami Dolphins in only the team's fifth season.

Thus began Shula's decades-long love affair with the people of Miami, where he is remembered daily by a chain of restaurants that bear his name, a major expressway named in his honor and a statue outside Hard Rock Stadium that remembers his coaching legacy with a likeness of Shula being hoisted on the shoulders of two of his players.

"It could be argued that this community came together for the first time when the Dolphins were winning Super Bowl championships," Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez told reporters. "He's much more than just a sports figure in our town. He's a legend in our town. We named streets and we named expressways after him."

Shula was a devout Catholic, who attended mass regularly over the years at Our Lady of the Lakes not far from the coach's then home on the 16th hole of what would become Shula's Hotel & Golf Club.

The team spent many a Saturday night sequestered at the hotel before game day.

"He always had people watching to make sure these guys didn't sneak out to get a drink when it was game days," recalled Delvis Fernandez, who has worked at Shula's Steak House in Miami Lakes for 25 years.

Fernandez told Patch the coach recently celebrated his 90th birthday in the Dolphin Room of the restaurant, the same room where Shula held countless team meetings and dinners over the years. The coach moved to Indian Creek near Miami Beach when he remarried.

The birthday celebration brought together 40 to 60 former players, including Dolphin greats Bob Griese, Mercury Morris, Larry Little, Dwight Stevenson, John Offerdahl, Doug Betters and Nat Moore, according to Fernandez.

"When he was about to leave, he had gone to the men's bathroom and there were a lot of people that knew he was there," Fernandez said. "When he came out of the bathroom, I said 'hey coach there's a lot of guests.' He goes 'bring em.' He talked to everybody, let everybody take a picture. He was just very kind, like who he was."

In 1997, Shula was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which on Monday lowered its flags to half mast in his honor.

"What's life been after the National Football League," Shula said at the time, praising his wife, Mary Anne, for making his retirement interesting and enjoyable. "I've missed the action, there's no question on a Sunday afternoon. Nothing can replace that."