Why Winningest Coach is Forgotten?

On November fourteenth, nineteen ninety three, Don Shula took his Miami Dolphins up to Philadelphia for a chance to cebmit his immortality and become the all time winning hist head coach. Going from his second stream to third string quarterback, he was able to use his strategic know how to pull out a win to give him three hundred and twenty five wins on his career, passing the legend George Hollis and becoming the all time winnings head coach who's often forgot about on the list of greatest head coaches of all time because he always struggled to win the big one, but his longevity shows how his ability to adapt that he learned from an early childhood allowed him to become one of the greatest head coaches of all time. Joined us today as we dive into the history of Don Shula and how he became the winningest head coach of all time today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide because I once coached a little league team to a win. So Don Shula was an Ohio kid and was the son of Hungarian immigrants, and he was born during the Great Depression, and he was a skinny kid that loved sports. Him by the age of fourteen, he actually forged his signature just to play football on his high school team because he loved the game that much. Although he wasn't a great athlete, he wasn't big, he didn't really stand out, but he used something that really makes great players his head. He used his brain to have great success and that got him into college at John Carroll University, where he actually became a standout half back and he had some standout performances. He ran for one hundred and seventy five yards and two touchdowns versus Youngtown State and also ran for over one hundred and twenty five yards over Syracuse University, and this was enough to get him drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the ninth round, So today he wouldn't have even been drafted. And working under legendary coach Paul Brown, who was the coach of the Browns at the time, it really helped him see what a great coach was. He played two years there, then go play three years for the Baltimore Colts, and then finished his career with the Washington Redskins and after he got done playing, he did what a lot of former players do. He looked for a chance to coach. And one way to do that is to be an assistant anywhere you can go, and there are lots of colleges looking for young assistants, and that's what happened when he joined the University of Virginia as an assistant in nineteen fifty eight as a defensive backs coach. Then he would move to Kentucky in the same role, and then the Detroit Lions in the same role, and then would be promoted to the Lions defensive coordinator in nineteen sixty one, and then he got the break of a lifetime. Luckily, he had some class with the Baltimore Colts who were looking for a new coach, and he was able to wold them with his defensive prowess, becoming the youngest head coach in NFL history at thirty three years old in nineteen sixty three. And this is the true reason why he holds the record for the most wins in NFL history. He got started early. With many of these career achievements, like the most games played, the most points, the most touchdowns, the most fields. They all revolve around having a long lasting career and starting early is usually the best way to achieve this. And it wasn't just that he started early, because there's a lot of coaches that are first time head coaches that struggle, but he did the opposite, and he got the Colts really good, really fast, getting them all the way to Super Bowl number three. But unfortunately there is another guy named jump Ooh kind of stole the game and the headlines for this. But even after this, he still had a lot of success with the Baltimore Colts. Over seven years that he was the head coach there, he had seventy three wins and twenty six losses in four ties, a great record. It also helped that he adapted his team around a great quarterback in Johnny Unitas, and he made Johnny into one of the best weapons in the NFL, changing the position of quarterback, making the passing game more than just a gimmick. It was now a weapon, and he was having a lot of success, so much so that in nineteen seventy the owner of the Miami Dolphins, Joe Robbie, decided to make a bold move and after Shula, who had just lost another Super Bowl in nineteen sixty nine, offering him a seventy thousand dollars contract as well as ten percent stake ownership in the AFL team. This contract was unheard of and still is unheard of to this day, and it was something that Don could not pass up. So he went down to South Beach and took over the Miami Dolphins, and it didn't look good at first. That first year they went three and ten with one tie, and the next year is when he made his mark, they would go ten to four and make it to the Super Bowl and fall again. So now it looks like John is just a loser for the Super Bowls. He can get you wins and he can get you to the game, but he can't win it. Then nineteen seventy two came and he had his team in place. As he had team control, he could get everyone he wanted and after three seasons there in Miami, his team was ready to go next level despite the fact losing early Bob Greasy, their starting quarterback, Earl Morle took over the team and did something the NFL has not seen since. They had a perfect season seventeen and zero and that includes a victory over the Washington Redskins, giving Dantu his first Super Bowl championship and the last team to go undefeated in history. And guess what would happen the next year? They would come back and win again, beating the Minnesota Vikings. The following year after going twelve and two, they may not been undefeated, but they again had a great season, and over ten seasons with Miami, he would rack up nine double digit win seasons, really skyrocketing him up the leader board. Then, after the seventies came and allowed that undefeated team sort of retire and to leave to go other places, the team started to have a little bit of a downside after in nineteen eighty they would go five hundred, finishing third in the AFC East. But they would bounce up a little bit with eleven wins in eighty one, seven, and eighty two in a shortened season where they actually made it to the Super Bowl again but lost to the Washington Redskins. And then in nineteen eighty three, he made another decision that would likely why he was able to get the record for the most wins of all time, selecting Dan Marino with the twenty seventh pick in the draft, changing the quarterback game again, just like he did with Johnny Unitis, but even more so would Dan Marino. Da Marino played quarterback like we see today, passing the ball all over the field, setting records for the most touchdowns, the most passing yards, and records that would stand for years and years until other Hall of Fame quarterbacks came to break them down. The only problem was in nineteen eighty four, after Marino's historic five thousand yards forty eight touchdown season, they made it to the Super Bowl and Don Trudeau lost again. Yes, he was two and four in Super Bowls and this would be his last Super Bowl appearance, but he was consistent continuously. Him and de Marino created a bond that likes we would not see again till Belichick and Brady. They were joined at the hip and created one of the most dynamic duos in NFL history. And if day Marino had stayed healthy throughout his whole career, it's likely he would have had another Super Bowl and many minute more wins. But he didn't get that chance. But on November fourteenth, nineteen ninety three, Miami Dolphins were playing the Philadelphia Eagles for the record of six and two. They came into a game missing their star quarterback who had just torn his achilles and his backup, Scott Mitchell, was only able to play in the first half. Their third spring quarterback, a guy named Doug Peterson, who would later win a Super Bowl as a coach as well, would lead them to victory, winning his three hundred and twenty fifth game, passing George hallis one of the creators and legends in the NFL for coaching. They would win the game nineteen to fourteen as the Dolphins defense shut down the Eagles the last two minute drive, forcing a fumble and sealing the win, making Don Shula the all time winning its head coach in NFL history, being carried off on the field in an iconic moment. Now Shula wasn't done. He would coach another two more years, making the playoffs in the last two years of his career, finishing with three hundred and forty seven wins, a number that will likely never be broken because it requires consistency in a game that has become completely different from when he first started coaching. Now, super Bowl winning coaches are fired within a couple of years. You're fired for any misconduct that might happen or even things you might say in an email, it's a different world of coaching. Despite the fact that Bill Belichick is only twelve wins behind him, it looks like he is settled in coaching college and no one wanted to hire him after he got let go by the Patriots, So it seems that Don Shula's record is safe, as no one will ever be able to put together a career like his. It's a legendary career and he should always be mentioned in the best coaches of all time because what made him great was his ability to adapt. He adapted his team to win around Johnny Unitis, and then when you went to Miami, he adapted his team into a run heavy, grinded team that would go perfect in nineteen seventy two, and then in the nineteen eighties he would adapt his team again to one of the craziest air raid offenses that we had ever seen at the time, making Dan Marino a Hall of Famer and getting him even more wins to end his career. Don Shula is a legend, and unfortunately he passed away on May fourth, twenty twenty at the age of ninety, but he will never be forgotten for what he meant for the league and coaches forever. My question to you is who is the best coach to ever grace the sidelines of the NFL. I want to thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please share it on your social media's. There's a little share button, a little square thingy wherever you're listening. Press that button and share it to wherever you like to go, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, wherever we're on there. We would love to see it. Tag us if you want, and just send it out and say, hey, check out this great sports history podcast and we'll see you on the next one.