Publisher Description
Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1997, Don Shula remains the winningest coach of all time with 347 career victories and the only undefeated season in NFL history. But before he became the architect of the Dolphins dynasty, Shula was a hardworking kid selling fish on the banks of Lake Erie. As acclaimed sports biographer Mark Ribowsky shows, Shula met serious resistance at home when he asked to play high school football, but when his parents finally relented, they discovered that their son had an unmatched mind for the game's strategy and a stomach for its brutality.
With rugged determination, the jut-jawed Shula started as a defensive back in the 1950s, later beginning his thirty-two-year coaching career as the then-youngest coach ever with the Baltimore Colts. The Colts had several successful years, but Shula never quite recovered from the historic loss to the upstart New York Jets in Super Bowl III, and when a lucrative job opened in Miami, he took his talents to South Beach, where he led the Dolphins to the first perfect season in NFL history.
Tracing Shula's singular rise from his blue-collar origins to his glory days in the Miami heat, Ribowsky reveals a man of grit and charisma who never lost sight of a simple creed: "All I've ever done is roll up my sleeves, figure out what to do, and start doing it."
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About Mark Ribowsky
Mark Ribowsky is the acclaimed author of more than thirty books on music, sports, and pop culture, his definitive biographies including those of Phil Spector, the Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Lynyrd Skynyrd, James Taylor, Hank Williams, and Little Richard. His biography of Otis Redding was a finalist for the prestigious Marfield Prize. Some of his sports subjects include Al Davis, Satchel Paige, Howard Cosell, Tom Landry, Don Shula, the football Manning family, and a complete history of the Negro baseball leagues. He co-authored Dale Berra’s My Dad, Yogi. He has also written major articles for Playboy, Penthouse, and Sport and has appeared on Dateline NBC, Primetime Live, The Tavis Smiley Show, and numerous radio and Internet programs and documentaries.
About L. J. Ganser
L. J. Ganser is a multiple Audie Award–winning narrator with over six hundred titles recorded to date. Prized for versatility, his work ranges from preschool books to crime noir thrillers, from astronomical adventures in both science and science fiction, to Arctic Circle high school basketball stories. He lives in New York City with his family and dog, Mars.