The Inventor vs. the Perfecter : The Latter, Don Shula, Is About to Overtake the Former, George Halas

Halas and Shula.

Their names are linked for a pro football eternity, each the winner of more games than any coach in history. More than Bear Bryant. More than Amos Alonzo Stagg. More than Pop Warner. More than anyone.

Halas and Shula.

One wouldn’t be caught without a coat and tie. The other prefers polo shirts and baseball caps. One invented the game. The other perfected it.

They bridge the eras of the sport, from leather helmets to long hair. They stayed through all kinds of changes in their game, one from the ‘20s to the ‘60s, the other from the ‘60s to the ‘90s. They are like a road that winds through football, a sense of continuity, a spirit of excellence.

Halas and Shula.

So different and yet so similar.

When George Halas was 69 years old and in his fourth incarnation as coach of the Chicago Bears, he drafted running back Gale Sayers out of the University of Kansas. Sayers didn’t know quite what to make of this grizzled old man.

“I couldn’t believe a man that age, coaching football,” Sayers said. “He shocked me and he motivated me. I admired him for his age. We had a lot of cold winters in Chicago and he’d be the first one on the field and the last one off it. We had guys 21, 22 years old. They’d catch a cold and couldn’t play. He was always there.”

When Don Shula was 33 years old, he became coach of the Baltimore Colts, the youngest coach in NFL history. Seven years later, he took over the Miami Dolphins. NFL players were on strike in 1970 and Shula was coaching castoffs, not a comfortable situation. Miami linebacker Nick Buoniconti was on the executive board of the NFL Players Assn.

“We’d been away for six or eight weeks,” he said. “When the strike was settled, it was agreed that the executive committee would get an extra week off to settle affairs. I had never met Shula. I was home on a Saturday night. About 10 o’clock, I got a call. It was him. He said, ‘You have an extra week, but I want you to know you’re the leader of the defense, the captain, and I’d like you to act accordingly. We have a 9 a.m. meeting tomorrow.’

“I told him I’d be there and I was.”

Both coaches adjusted with the times, changing philosophies when it became necessary.

“Halas loved the game and he didn’t let it pass him by,” Sayers said. “He knew speed was a must on offense and that’s why he drafted me. He won with a great defense in 1963 and knew that defense could win titles. That was why he drafted Dick Butkus. He was always on top of the game.”

“Shula is a no-nonsense guy,” Buoniconti said. “But with a lot of no-nonsense guys, players get tired of hearing it after three or four years. They get locked in. They don’t change with the players. Shula’s not like that.

“He has the foresight to know that players are individuals. That’s why he’s endured and lasted a long period. A lot of players might not have liked him. But they all respected him.”

The same was true of Halas. He was a tough guy, perhaps a little rough around the edges. A lot of that, however, was image.

“He was a great man, maybe a better man than he was a coach,” Sayers said. “When Brian Piccolo got sick, his medical bills were $500,000. Halas took care of it. Piccolo’s three daughters all went to Wake Forest. Halas picked up the tab. He did things people never knew about.”

On the field, Halas twice produced instant turnarounds for the Bears. In 1933 and 1946, each time in his first year back as coach, Chicago won NFL titles. Shula, too, was a master of fast recoveries. The year before he took over the Dolphins, they won three games. In his first season in Miami, they won 10.

“Shula is performance-oriented,” Buoniconti said. “He’s straight forward. He doesn’t deal in personalities. Loyalties weren’t important. If you played 15 years and then you couldn’t cut it anymore, you were gone. You played up to his expectations or you were gone. Half the team turned over from 1969 to 1970. The gravy train was over.

“He put his stamp on early. We had three-a-day practices. He let you know who was in control. He tolerated no mistakes. He took a disorganized team that was unfocused and unmotivated with guys who didn’t know their positions. It was a quick education.”

Neither coach ever learned to deal warmly with failure.

“I had one run-in with Shula,” Buoniconti said. “It was either in the undefeated season, 1972, or the year after.

Buoniconti was not in the mood to listen and told the coach to get lost, or something like that. “He didn’t like that,” the linebacker said. “In the locker room after the game, he called me into his office. He said, ‘What did you say to me?’ ”

Buoniconti explained that it was said in the heat of battle and then repeated the remark. “He said, ‘When you say that to me, say it privately, not in front of the team.”’

Halas said anything he wanted, whenever he wanted. Perhaps it was out of respect to the man, but Sayers always thought the officials gave the boss of the Bears a wide berth on the sidelines.

“There were several scenes,” he said. “If I had a tape recorder, we’d have a best-seller. He’d cuss at them and they’d let him go. He could say anything. He was the father of football.”

The locker room was no different. Sayers remembered a game in his second or third season with the Bears, at Wrigley Field.

“We were losing by a couple of points,” he said. “We had a place kicker named Roger Leclerc. We drove down the field and with a minute or so to go in the game, we got to the 10-yard line. It was fourth down and we had to kick the field goal.

“Leclerc went in and set up, you know measured the steps and all that. And then he missed the ball.

“He just missed the whole ball!”

The Bears lost the game and trumped off the field, beaten and angry. “The locker room was dead silent,” Sayers said. “Leclerc was on a stool, slumped over. Then the old man came in.”

Halas walked toward the place kicker’s stall. In another time and another place, the coach might be inclined to pat the kicker on the back and whisper a word of encouragement. This, though, was Halas’ time and Halas’ place.

“He looked down at Leclerc sitting there,” Sayers said, “and he said, ‘You bleepin’ bleep!’ ”

Or something like that.