Shula Misses Staunchest Fan

MIAMI - Don Shula took Dorothy Bartish to a dinner club on their first date. The trouble was, she wanted to dance.

"I was very reluctant to dance," Shula recalls. "But when she got me on the dance floor, she made things easy, made me feel comfortable. We hit it off."

They hit it off, but the young woman with dark hair and blue eyes decided to run off to Hawaii to teach for a year.

"She informed me of that, and I said, `What?!' "

Shula, then an assistant football coach at the University of Virginia, told her she was making a big mistake.

"When she left me - you know that saying, `Absence makes the heart grow fonder'? That's when I realized that she was the one."

Shula proposed by letter. "I just liked everything about her." Dorothy accepted by letter. They married in 1958.

"You can't get along in my profession unless you have somebody at home," Shula once said. His "somebody" was the woman who put him at ease on the dance floor, the wife who made him feel like a winner even when the Miami Dolphins lost.

"When I got home, no matter how bad it was, there would be somebody there to help me through it," Shula said. "We never got into technical stuff, but I used to kid her about being my Sunday-night quarterback. I'd say, `I don't have to wait until Monday morning. I've got you Sunday night.' "

Today Shula, head coach of the Dolphins, is the second-winningest coach in pro football history, after George Halas of the Chicago Bears. In his coaching career, Shula has guided teams to 298 victories and six Super Bowls.

Last week he began his 29th season with the usual goal: Make it to the Super Bowl and win.

But this season arrives with a painful twist. Shula's staunchest fan is gone. Dorothy Shula died in February after a six-year battle with breast cancer. She was 57.

"Everybody sees him on the sideline with that stern jaw sticking out. Everybody thinks he's so much in control, and he is. But we all have to go home in the evening," said former Dolphin quarterback Bob Griese, a close friend of Shula's. "Dorothy was a big support for him."

Said Shula: "This is actually going to be my first year in coaching that Dorothy hasn't been around.

"You know, we had five kids in our first six years of married life, changed jobs four times. I said at the funeral, when I was talking about her, `We were known as a sexy couple and a guy who couldn't hold a job.' We never thought anything about having kids or picking up and moving. It just went like that," Shula said and snapped his fingers.

It was the day after the Fourth of July and less than a week before the Dolphins reported for training camp. Shula, who moved to Miami 21 years ago, was sitting in the family room of his seven-bedroom home in Miami Lakes, sipping a glass of ice water.

He had played golf earlier in the day. Tan and solid-looking at 61, Shula loves golf. He loves golf because it's golf and because it keeps grief from sneaking up on a man.

"I've tried to keep extra busy. I've been conscious of that, of keeping busy," he said.

He golfs. He vacationed as usual in North Carolina with the Shula clan. He still goes to Mass. "I enjoy starting the day that way." He walks for about 45 minutes in the evenings, on a golf course near his home.

"And the kids have been great. Like Michael made the decision to - he could have gone with the (Cleveland) Browns. They offered him a job. He thought about it, but he also had a chance to stay here with me. And he just felt at this stage in his life that it was better for him to stay at home."

Better for him and better for his father.

"I have Michael to spend time with and talk to. Otherwise, I'd walk in here and there'd be nobody. At least now, after a game and during the week when we've got time, we can discuss things and communicate. He knows what I'm going through."

Mike, 26, is the youngest of the five Shula children and a Dolphin coaches' assistant. He moved into the house in February and is the only family member living with his father.

"People ask me, `How's he been?' I say, `He's been fine,' " Mike said.

"He's never been one to show his emotions a whole lot anyway, except to referees on the football field. But on our vacation we talked a lot about our mom, certain little things. They're mostly all good things."

Said Shula, "I couldn't have accomplished or stayed in the coaching profession as long as I have if I didn't have the strength that Dorothy gave me."

On this post-Fourth Friday, Mike was in the Keys. Lucy Howard, the Shulas' housekeeper for 23 years, was in the kitchen fixing dinner.

"I think yesterday was probably one of the few days I've had with nobody around," Shula said. "I didn't make any plans to play golf or anything. I just sat around. I took a walk in the morning and sat around watching tennis. Didn't do anything at all. That was a lonely day."

He found himself working at the desk in Dorothy's office, where his wife organized her volunteer work and tended to the Shulas' correspondence and bills. The room is as she left it, with a Dolphins-helmet lamp on the desk and black-and-white wedding photos on the wall. In one, Don and Dorothy feed each other cake.

"The thing that I have trouble with more than anything . . ." Shula began, then paused. "Of course you always ask the `Why?' question. `Why?' But what she looked forward to more than anything was the grandkids, enjoying being a grandmother. She was like the mother hen. She was so great with our kids. And then the grandkids were going to be what she would really enjoy. She didn't really have the opportunity to do that. That's what I think I regret more than anything else."

Shula has five grandchildren, ages 3 to 7. A closet in the family room is packed with toys for them when they visit.

Donna Jannach, Shula's oldest daughter and the mother of two of the grandchildren, has noticed a change in her father.

"He's really made an effort to take over a lot of the things my mother used to do," said Jannach, 30, who lives in Fort Lauderdale. "My mother was like all things to all people, especially to her children. My dad has made more of an effort to reach out to each of the children. Things that we never used to talk to him about, we talk to him about now."

She has noticed something else, too.

"I see him as more vulnerable. I used to see him as this almighty person. I don't think he used to like to let anyone see that he was vulnerable or hurt or scared," she said. "He comes to me a lot of times with things to talk about. It feels good."

The stern-jawed coach knows he's famous for his man's man image, for guarding his feelings.

"I've always been a more private than open sort of a person. It's not natural for me," he said. "It was natural for Dorothy. She just could talk with anybody about anything and make them feel good. I don't have that gift. I have to work at it more."

Shula clears his throat when he talks about his wife of 32 years. Sometimes his eyes redden around the rims. Other times, he chuckles, remembering.

"There were many times when I would be running to go somewhere, and she would always be taking that extra second or that extra minute to spend time with someone, to finish a conversation. I'd be saying, `Come on! Let's go!' And she'd say, `We've got time.' That's what made her so special. She always had time."

She had time to talk, time to lift a coach's spirits.

"You walked away from a conversation with Dorothy feeling like you knew a lot more than you did before the conversation and that you were better-looking and more confident."

Confidence is a theme Shula circles around again and again.

"No matter how bad the football was going - and there were some bad days - you could always count on Dorothy being there when you got home," he said. "She would be there to pick you up and get you through it, give you the confidence for tomorrow and next week."

After the Dolphins' victory in Super Bowl VII, Dorothy Shula told Sports Illustrated that she liked to see Don settle into his chair at night and "watch the peace on his face. He'd light up a big cigar, and sit there, and I'm thinking, `Happy at last.' "

Dorothy loved football, but last season she made it to only one exhibition game. "It was a tough, tough year. You could just see how she was slipping," Shula said. "We had gone through six years of battling."

She fought hard and had the best medical care, but, as Shula said, "It was just a vicious disease." She died at home, where she wanted to die, with her family present.

Said Mike: "I just thank God now that she's at peace and doesn't have to suffer anymore. And I know that's how she would want us to feel."

Since Dorothy's death, Shula has launched his own battle against cancer by forming the Don Shula Foundation Inc. to raise money for breast-cancer research. He's planning an event next month at Shula's Steakhouse in Miami Lakes and a golf tournament in February at the Doral Country Club.

"Fortunately, I'm in a position where I can help raise money. So that's the least I can do," he said.

Meanwhile, the coach will strive to take the Dolphins to victory - and to keep what lessons his dance partner taught him close to his heart.

"What I learned from Dorothy more than anything is always take the necessary time. Don't ever be in too big a hurry. To do the right thing, no matter the inconvenience or whatever. She always had time for people, to say or do things to help make their lives more pleasant, to feel better about themselves.

"At this stage in my life, that's something I want to do. I don't need to rush anymore."

To contact the Don Shula Foundation Inc., write to 1300 NW 167th St., Miami, FL 33169. Or call 1-305-624-0011.