Don Shula, the NFL’s all-time coaching wins leader, dies at 90

Legendary head coach Don Shula died on Monday, but the impact he had on the Miami Dolphins will live on forever.

Don Shula, the NFL’s all-time leader in coaching victories and a two-time Super Bowl champion, died on Monday at his home in Florida, his family announced. He was 90 years old.

Shula coached for 33 years in the NFL, the last 26 with the Miami Dolphins, winning 328 games and four NFL Head Coach of the Year awards. He was involved in the NFL as either a player or a coach for five decades. But his football career almost never happened.

Born in 1930 in a small town in Ohio, Shula’s working-class, Hungarian-immigrant parents forbade him from playing football. Only by forging his parents’ signature was he able to play for his high school team in Painesville. Shula then accepted a scholarship to John Carroll University, a Jesuit school just outside Cleveland. He briefly considered becoming a Catholic priest but decided he loved the game too much to give it up.

On Nov. 10, 1950, Shula’s career changed forever. John Carroll was hosting heavily-favored Syracuse and upset the Orange 21-16. Shula rushed for 125 yards in the game. In a stroke of fortune, Paul Brown happened to be at the game scouting Syracuse players but instead came away impressed by the 5-foot-11, 190-pound back. He drafted Shula to the Browns the following year.

Shula played seven seasons in the NFL for Cleveland, the Baltimore Colts, and the Washington Redskins as a defensive back. In 1963, at the age of 33, he was hired by the Colts to be the team’s new head coach and led them to a 12-2 record in just his second season. But the season ended with what became a familiar theme for Shula, a 27-0 shutout loss to the Browns in the NFL Championship.

Shula has become so synonymous with winning it’s easy to forget he had the reputation of being a coach who couldn’t win the big one early in his career.

In 1968, he coached what was considered one of the best teams in league history. His Colts went 13-1 and were favored by 18 in the Super Bowl against the New York Jets. Joe Namath, though, guaranteed victory and backed it up by leading the Jets to a 16-7 win. “That loss, that’s been my biggest disappointment,” Shula told the NFL Network years later. “You never live that one down.”

He lasted one more season in Baltimore before being coaxed into joining the Miami Dolphins by team owner Joe Robbie, who had to give up a first-round pick for tampering. The lowly Dolphins were in their fifth year of existence and had never even flirted with a winning record.

Shula was determined to change the culture of the team, running demanding practices, often four times a day and without water on the field. The Dolphins would only have one more losing season in the next 18 years.

In his second year in Miami, behind the “No-Name Defense” and the triple-threat running attack of Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Mercury Morris, Shula took the Dolphins to the Super Bowl only to come up short once again. It would be the last game he would lose for almost two years.

The next season, 1972, Shula’s Dolphins went 14-0 with backup quarterback Earl Morrall replacing an injured Bob Griese for most of the year. But in the AFC Championship game in Pittsburgh, Shula decided to bench a struggling Morrall and go back to Griese. The Dolphins won the game, then defeated the Washington Redskins in the Super Bowl 14-7 to complete the NFL’s only undefeated season.

And while he didn’t go undefeated the following year, Shula’s Dolphins did win their second straight Lombardi Trophy against the Minnesota Vikings.

Shula got back to the Super Bowl in 1982 but watched as his team blew a fourth-quarter lead against the Redskins. His young quarterback, David Woodley, didn’t complete a pass the entire second half. So with his first-round pick in the 1983 Draft, Shula drafted Dan Marino. Under Shula’s guidance, Marino would go on to set career records for yards, completions, and touchdowns.

In his second year, he became the first quarterback in history to pass for more than 5,000 yards and 40 touchdowns in a season, winning NFL MVP honors. Shula and Marino went all the way to the Super Bowl but lost to the 49ers. A bright future appeared to be in front of them, but neither would ever get back.

Shula and Marino went on to win 116 games together, a mark exceeded only by Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. Shula broke George Halas’ coaching wins record in 1993. He finished with a losing record in only two of his 33 seasons as a head coach. Shula’s record seems unassailable. A modern coach can win 10 games for 30 consecutive seasons and still be short; Belichick, despite six Super Bowl titles with New England, is still 55 wins away.

Shula is survived by his wife Mary Anne and five children, including coaches David and Mike Shula. “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. Our deepest thoughts and prayers go out to Marry Anne along with his children Dave, Donna, Sharon, Anne and Mike.”

Shula last coached the Dolphins 25 years ago, but his memory will continue to live on with the team.