Undefeated

by Freeman, Mike

• ISBN13: 9780062009821
• ISBN10: 0062009826
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-08-21
• Publisher: It Books

Summary

Each year, every football team sets out to play a perfect season. Only one has ever succeeded talk about beating the odds. The Miami Dolphins of the late 1960s were a laughingstock, an expansion team, and a franchise where careers went to die. Then came Coach Don Shula. In just a few short years'through hard work, long practices, and his no-nonsense attitude toward the game?Shula transformed the team into a championship franchise. The Dolphins were by and large unseasoned players or rejects from other teams. Even so, they made it to Super Bowl VI. They suffered a humiliating loss to the Dallas Cowboys, becoming the first team in Super Bowl history not to score a single touchdown. But Shula closed the 1971 season by telling his players to remember this loss and make sure nothing like it ever happened again. And they listened. The Miami team came back for the 1972 season determined to be winners this time, not losers. Through his tough-as-nails coaching, grueling preseason training, and inspiring message of redemption, Shula took the Dolphins, one game at a time, to their legendary Super Bowl victory. Led by such greats as Larry Csonka, Bob Griese, Nick Buoniconti, Larry Little, Mercury Morris, and Jake Scott'as well as players discarded from other franchises who were transformed into key contributors once they were indoctrinated into Shula's system'the team was undefeated 17-0 in the regular season and went on to win Super Bowl VII, in one of the greatest stories of toughness, perseverance, and skill the National Football League has ever seen. Along the way, the Dolphins became the team of the 1970s, with Miami as a fascinating backdrop. The city emerged as an anti?Fidel Castro hub and morphed into the city made notorious on the television show Miami Vice. The cocaine began to flow as the Dolphins rose to prominence, and the team struggled with its own drug issues. Yet the Dolphins established themselves as one of the city's most trusted entities. While the city faced racially charged riots, Shula purposely built an integrated locker room in an NFL'and a city'that were still extremely hostile to blacks. Based on years of research and interviews, Undefeated, by award-winning journalist and author Mike Freeman, examines what is perhaps the single greatest accomplishment in team sports history: the unforgettable NFL season in which the Dolphins didn't lose a single game. There has never been a football team like those Miami Dolphins, and there may never be again.

Table of Contents

Introduction: President Nixon on the Line	p. xiii
Wreckage
"I Don't Ever Want to Feel This Way Again"	p. 1
Truce	p. 13
The Start of Redemption	p. 21
The Three Wise Men	p. 29
Revenge of the Nameless	p. 51
The Duke of Earl	p. 57
From the Ashes
Melting Pot	p. 73
The Man who Fired Flipper	p. 92
Shula's Backbone	p. 109
The Beginning	p. 121
Guts	p. 148
The Greatest Team
Unbeatable	p. 169
"The Money Season"	p. 177
Steel Hurtin'	p. 184
Gonzo Dolphins	p. 212
Shoe Shiners	p. 229
Perfect	p. 250
Afterword: Perfection's End	p. 273
Author's Note	p. 281
Acknowledgments	p. 294
Notes	p. 297
Bibliography	p. 299
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