The first time I thought anything about it was the 13th game of the season. We happened to go into New York to play the Giants for the last football game played in Yankee Stadium. We were 12-0 and it’s the first time I’d thought, “Gee, we’re undefeated.” But in those days, we’d been beaten by Dallas the year before in the Super Bowl, and the whole focus that year was to win the division, get back to the playoffs, win the playoff games to get to the Super Bowl and win the Super Bowl. So, we won our division at the end of 10 games. We played the championship game in Pittsburgh in December. Our whole focus was truly the Super Bowl. When we won the Super Bowl, no one thought anything about being undefeated.
It wasn’t until 1985 when the Bears came into Miami and had that great Monday night game and Marino lit up the sky –that was the first time that people talked about being undefeated.
I was up in the stands. I wasn’t one of the players on the sidelines for that game, but coach Shula got players like Csonka and Kiick and some of the players to come in before the game and be on the sidelines. He was the one who orchestrated that.
The next time people talked about it was 1992, when the Redskins were 13-0 and Dallas came in and beat them.
Nick Buoniconti and I lived four doors from each other. Bob Griese lived across the street from Nick. I was watching the Dallas-Redskins game in ’92, and when Dallas kicked the field goal to go 10 points up, I called Nick and said, “I’m going to bring down a bottle a champagne; we’re going to celebrate.” That’s kind of how it started. Nick and I pretty much get together every year over the fact our record’s still intact.
I’m not going to apologize for saying that we have a record that no one in 87 years of the National Football League has. We’re proud of the accomplishment. Today, with ESPN and Fox Sports and USA Today and all the media that’s out there, the undefeated season gets more play when an undefeated team keeps winning like Indianapolis did last year. But we’re really celebrating that fact that our record is still there, not that Indianapolis loses or the Redskins lose. It’s not personal. We’re proud of that record and we’re not going to apologize for it.
Hale Irwin and I grew up together in Boulder. We played sports in junior high, high school and college. In high school, Hale was the quarterback and I was the fullback. On defense, he was one corner and I was the other. In basketball, he was a guard and I was a forward. On the golf team, he was No. 1 and I was No. 2. One year I beat him in the state championship. Hale was and is a great athlete. He was a great shortstop. He quit playing baseball at 14. He really wanted to be a golfer. In his senior year in college, he thought about quitting football so he wouldn’t get hurt, and he was All-Big Eight twice as a weak safety.
I was disappointed that the Broncos didn’t draft me. I grew up in Colorado. I wanted to play for the Broncos. I wanted to stay in Colorado. Miami drafted me and I said, “Jeez, what’s this team?” But in reality, sometimes a player is better off going to a team where he has an opportunity to play. Miami was an expansion team. I had a better opportunity to make that team. Playing football is being in the right place at the right time.
We were very fortunate to have a guy named Joe Thomas put that team together. And when coach Shula came in in 1970, it was like night and day. Every minute of every practice was planned.
When I played, my first year’s salary was $15,000, so we had to work in the off- season. I started an insurance business the first off-season.
I kid people — I won more money when I won the celebrity golf tournament in 1994 than I did in my first five years in the NFL.
I got interested in politics after I became president of the players association in ’76 and ’77. I kind of had my eye on state insurance commissioner. I ran for the state senate the year I got out of football and got elected and was there four years. I got to be chairman of the Commerce Committee, which had all the banking and insurance issues in the Senate.
My kids both graduated from Northwestern and my daughter lives and works in Chicago right now. She works for Aon in the entertainment division.
I know Brian (1) very well. He used to baby-sit for my kids.
(1)-Bears quarterback Brian Griese.
