Donald Francis Shula (born January 4, 1930 in Grand River, Ohio) is a former professional football coach for the National Football League. He is best known as coach of the Miami Dolphins, the team he led to two Super Bowl victories, and to the NFL's only undefeated Perfect Season in 1972. Shula was named 1993 Sportsman of the Year by Sports Illustrated. He currently holds the NFL record for most career wins with 347.

Don Shula was born in Northern Ohio in 1930. He grew up in suburban Cleveland graduating from Harvey High School in Painesville, and then John Carroll University. He played football at both schools. He earned an M.A. in Physical Education from Case Western Reserve University in 1954. As part of a government public awareness campaign he was the first American to sign up for Medicare Part D prescription drug plan benefits, enrolling just after midnight on November 15, 2005.http://www.humana-medicare.com/news/PR-News-20051115-110738-NR.asp Shula is the father of former Alabama coach Mike Shula and former Cincinnati Bengals coach Dave Shula. He and his wife Mary Anne are currently spokespersons for NutriSystem weightloss program, using which he lost 35 pounds.

In 1951 Shula signed with the Cleveland Browns where he played defensive back under coach Paul Brown. On March 26, 1953, he was traded to the Baltimore Colts in what was, at that time, the largest NFL player trade ever made, involving 15 players. The Colts traded T Mike McCormack, DT Don Colo, LB Tom Catlin, DB John Petitbon, and G Herschell Forester to the Browns for Shula, DB Bert Rechichar, DB Carl Taseff, LB Ed Sharkey, E Gern Nagler, QB Harry Agganis, T Dick Batten, T Stu Sheets, G Art Spinney, and G Elmer Willhoite. Shula and Taseff were teammates at John Carroll, with the Browns and with the Colts.

Shula played with Baltimore for four seasons before finishing his playing career with the Washington Redskins. Shula intercepted 21 passes in his seven NFL seasons, returning them for 267 yards, and also recovered four fumbles. He would find his true calling, however, on the sidelines as an assistant and then head coach.

Shula took a position as an assistant coach at the University of Kentucky in 1959 coaching defensive backs under head coach Blanton Collier.

Shula played under both the aforementioned Paul Brown and Weeb Ewbank, a Brown disciple, who is also in the Hall of Fame. After Ewbank left the Baltimore Colts to coach the New York Jets in 1963, Shula was hired by Colts' owner Carroll Rosenbloom to coach Baltimore. Shula's hiring was controversial because he was thought to be too young at only age 33.

Shula took the controls and led the Colts to an 8-6 record in 1963. He was very successful, compiling a 71-23-4 record in seven seasons with Baltimore, but he was just 2-3 in the postseason, including two losses in championship games in which the Colts were heavy favorites, the 1964 NFL championship game won by the Browns 27-0 and Super Bowl III, the game in which Joe Namath of the New York Jets guaranteed and delivered a victory. Shula won the NFL Coach of the Year Award three times in this period: 1964, 1967 (tied with George Allen) and 1968.

To a certain extent Shula's Colt teams were unlucky. The 1965 team lost a special tie breaker playoff game in overtime to the Green Bay Packers while forced to use running back Tom Matte at quarterback because of injuries to John Unitas and his backups. The 1967 team failed to make the playoffs despite a regular season record of 11-1-2.

After the 1969 season, Joe Robbie, owner of the Miami Dolphins, signed Shula to a contract to become Miami's second head coach. As a result of Shula's signing the team was charged with tampering by the NFL, which forced the Dolphins to give their first round pick to the Colts. The decision was controversial because Shula and Robbie's negotiations and signing were conducted before and after the official NFL/AFL merger, respectively. Had the negotiations been concluded before the merger, while the NFL and AFL were rivals, the NFL's anti-tampering rules could not have been applied.

Shula had great success with Miami in the 1970s. His teams were known for great offensive lines (led by Larry Little, Jim Langer and Bob Kuechenberg), strong running games (featuring Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, and Mercury Morris), solid quarterbacking (by Bob Griese and Earl Morrall), excellent receivers (in Paul Warfield, Howard Twilley and TE Jim Mandrich) and a defense that worked well as a cohesive unit. In an era when defenses were given fanciful nicknames (for instance, the Dallas Cowboys were known as the "Doomsday Defense", Pittsburgh was called "The Steel Curtain" and the L.A. Rams front line was known as "The Fearsome Foursome") the Dolphins were known as "The No-Name Defense" even though they had a number of great players, including DT Manny Fernandez and MLB Nick Buoniconti. Using what he learned from Brown and Ewbank and his personal experience, Shula led the Dolphins to three Super Bowl appearances, two Super Bowl wins and seven playoff appearances during the 1970s.

In 1972 the Dolphins became the only team in the modern NFL to go undefeated (14-0) in the regular season. They swept the playoffs and finished 17-0 in what is known as the Perfect Season, a mark still unequaled in the league. Including the Dolphins' 12-2 mark in 1973 the club also set a record with a 32-2 record over two seasons.

Shula changed his coaching strategy as his personnel changed. His Super Bowl teams in 1971, 1972, 1973 and 1982 were keyed by a run-first offensive strategy and a dominating defense. In 1983, shortly after losing Super Bowl XVII to the Washington Redskins, the Dolphins drafted quarterback Dan Marino out of the University of Pittsburgh. Marino won the starting job halfway through the 1983 regular season, and by 1984 the Dolphins were back in the Super Bowl thanks largely to Marino's record 5,084 yards through the air and 48 touchdown passes. Shula's offensive strategies helped Marino rewrite the NFL record book for quarterbacks.

For all his success, the Dolphins' January, 1974 Super Bowl win over the Minnesota Vikings proved to be Shula's last championship. Despite consistent success in the regular season, Shula was unable to capture another title, failing in 12 trips to the playoffs – including two more Super Bowl appearances – before retiring after the 1995 season.

Toward the end of Shula's career, despite continued regular season success, some fans and members of the local media began to speculate that "the game has passed him by." With the change of ownership from Joe Robbie to Wayne Huizenga the pressure to get back to the Super Bowl led to the addition of many high-priced free agents who did not necessarily fit into Shula's systems.

Former Dallas Cowboys and Miami Hurricanes coach Jimmy Johnson wrote in his weekly syndicated newspaper column that the 1995 Dolphins had the talent to be favorites for the Super Bowl. However, this team finished a disappointing 9-7 and lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Buffalo Bills. The press and local radio urged Huizinga to replace Shula with Johnson, and after the season Shula retired, and Johnson was hired as his replacement.

Shula set numerous records in his 33 seasons as a head coach. He holds NFL records for regular season wins (328), total victories (347), single season win percentage (1.000 in 1972), most games coached (526), most consecutive seasons coached (33), Super Bowl appearances (6) and Super Bowl losses (4) (tied with Bud Grant, Dan Reeves and Marv Levy). His teams' won 7 NFL conference titles: 1964, 1968, 1971-73, 1982 and 1984. Shula's teams were consistently among the least penalized in the NFL, and Shula served on the Rules Committee, to help change the game to a more pass oriented modern league.

He is honored at the Don Shula Stadium at John Carroll University, and the Don Shula Expressway in Miami. Additionally, an annual college football game between South Florida schools Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University is named the Shula Bowl in his honor. The game's winner receives a traveling trophy named the Don Shula Award. Two of his sons, David and Mike, also became head coaches. On October 2, 1994, Don and David Shula became the first father and son to coach against each other. David's Cincinnati Bengals fell at home 23-7. Mike Shula was the former head coach at his alma mater, the University of Alabama, where he played quarterback from 1983-86.

He has co-authored three books: "The Winning Edge" (1973) with Lou Sahadi ISBN 0525235000, "Everyone's a Coach" (1995) ISBN 0310208157 and "The Little Book of Coaching: Motivating People to be Winners" (2001) ISBN 0066621038 both with Ken Blanchard.

He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997.

In retirement, Shula has lent his name to a chain of popular steakhouses Shula's Steakhouse and a line of condiments. He also appears in NutriSystem commercials with Dan Marino and other former NFL players telling viewers how much weight they lost.

Coach Shula's first wife, Dorothy Shula, fought breast cancer for six years. Just before her death in 1991, Coach Shula formed the Don Shula Foundation for the purpose of finding a cure for breast cancer .

In 2005, Shula was on a commercial for Aqua Teen Hunger Force, where he sang a revised version of the show's opening song.

Don Shula remarried on October 16, 1993, to Mary Anne Stephens. In 2007 ads for NutriSystem geared for people age 60 and older featured the 77 year-old Shula and his 61 year-old wife Mary Anne.

In 2007 in Miami at Super Bowl XLI, Shula took part in the Vince Lombardi Trophy presentation.

He appeared in a Budweiser Super Bowl XLI ad with rapper Jay-Z, in which they played a futuristic football board game.

On March 25, 2007, Shula presented the Winners Cup to Tiger Woods, winner of the 2007 WGC-CA Golf Tournament held at the Doral Resort in Miami.

Bum Phillips: (explaining why Don Shula was a great coach in spite of the lack of a catchy moniker for his "system"): "He can take his'n and beat yours'n and take yours'n and beat his his'n."

*Pro Football Hall of Fame: Member profile *Databasefootball.com: player profile * *

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