Shula remains beacon of consistency

Don Shula sits at the wooden desk in his home office and pulls a greeting card off a stack of them.

“This is from my first coach, Joe Jenkins,” he said.

The card reads, “Happy Birthday.”

“He’s out in Scottsdale, Ariz., now,” Shula said. “He was my fifth- and sixth-grade coach at St. Mary’s Catholic Grade School. I’m turning 80, so he’s got to be over 90 now. Every year I get a card from him.”

He puts the card back on the pile, pulls out another.

“This one’s from Chuck Connor,” he said.

He opens the card, reads its birthday message.

“Chuck’s the guy who made me draft Dan (Marino),” he said. “Dan’s slipping and slipping, for whatever reason, and we realize he’s going to be there for us to take. I say, ‘We’ve got to take him.’ (Defensive coordinator) Bill Arnsparger says, ‘We’ve got to have a defensive lineman.’

“I remember going out in the hall with Chuck and he says, ‘We’ve got to take Marino.’ Turns out the defensive lineman we were going to take was there for us in the second round. Mike Charles.”

Shula smiles. “So Dan was a bonus pick.”

The finest coach pro football has watched, and the finest man South Florida has known, turns 80 on Monday. His steps are smaller. His face is softer. But there’s something refreshing about sitting across from him to hear the familiar voice and the good, common sense that comes with it.

“Preparation, hard work, attitude – those are the details I coached by,” he said.

“I didn’t know something like ‘burned out’ existed,” he said.

“There was no three- or five-year plan – I just worked,” he said.

Sports are about now, today, this moment, and so some people think Shula is as pertinent as a turntable. But in an age where coaches are fired for mistreating players, caught spying on opponents or contemplating in their mid-40s if they can go on, the Shula name stands as a beacon of constancy, integrity and humanity.

That’s why the corporations keep lining up for him. He’s on the I-95 billboards for a medical company. More Nutrisystem ads are coming out. He still gives as many corporate talks as he wants, focusing on the “winning edge” phrase he came to define and looks for in others.

“I had to take Tiger Woods out of the speech,” he said.

Now he’s 80. Nearly 500 friends and former players came Saturday night for a birthday party at Land Shark Stadium. All his players are retired now. Time moves on. He’s moving happily with it.

He’s asked what he wants for his birthday.

“I’m the toughest guy to shop for,” he said.

“Look around here. Go ahead. Look. See the house against the bay. See the golf course across the street. See the grandchildren entering the home, back from a shopping trip to South Beach.”

He stands at the door and asks what everyone hopes to: “What more could I have ever wanted?”