Another fond memory for Shula, of course, is the perfect season of 1972, when the Dolphins went 17-0. He said the widely held belief that players from that Miami team celebrate whenever a team threatening to go undefeated loses is not true.

"What happened was Nick Buoniconti and Dick Anderson lived across from each other down in Coral Gables, and after one of those undefeated teams got beat they went out in the parking lot with a bottle of champagne and popped it," he said. "Another time we were at a fund-raiser at a place owned by Jack Nicklaus and it was right after a team lost its first game. Jack came out with a bottle of champagne and we toasted each other. People read that and thought we were having a big party."