Quote of the Week...from Don Shula

The superior man blames himself.  The inferior man blames others.       ---Don Shula.

Don Shula is the legendary former coach of the National Football League Baltimore Colts from 1963 through 1969 and the Miami Dolphins from 1970 to 1995, when he retired.  In that thirty-three-year span his teams suffered through only two losing seasons (winning a respectable six games in each of them), made the Super Bowl six times, won two of them...and in 1972 accomplished the only completely undefeated NFL season.  Being a fan of the Dolphins I am keenly aware, in light of their mediocrity for the past few years, of the "good old days' when Shula was on the sidelines and I knew I could expect his team to give it their all and play in a disciplined manner...they were consistently one of the least-penalized teams in the league, year after year.  Sometimes he would be rebuilding and yet managed to get his players to play above their talent level...there never was a "tank" season under his tenure.  It saddens me to see "my" team go down this path and, what's worse, some of their players...following Miami's 59-10 season-opening home drubbing at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens...seem to have given up and want to be traded.  I understand that teams need to rebuild, but deliberately stripping your team of all its talent and starting from scratch is a horrendous strategy and dishonors your fan base, saying in effect that you expect them to continue to shell out money for tickets and maintain loyalty while you thumb your nose at them.  Well, now that I have all that off my chest, let me get to Coach Shula's above quote, which I would expand to include both women and men...while focusing on those who would be leaders...

Don Shula was always soft-spoken in public, especially with the press.  He recognized as a coach that he could only control that which he himself had authority over, and to that extent he applied strict standards to his profession.  There was no Twitter back then, but if there were you wouldn't be reading Tweets of Shula railing against this official, that player, or some sports commentator...to do so would go against the grain of his character.  He sounds like a good, standout role model in this sorry age of politicians and media stars running off about how it's always the other guy causing all the problems while never seeing anything about themselves meriting correction...