After brutal Super Bowl loss, Colts football coach Don Shula, team came to Cal Poly
Don Shula was a legend of the National Football League.
Shula, who died May 4, remains the only NFL coach to have an undefeated season.
He’s most often associated with the Miami Dolphins. But early in his professional career, he was known as the coach who couldn’t win the big game.
In the summer of 1969, the then-Baltimore Colts were bouncing back from an upset loss in Super Bowl III to the New York Jets and Joe Namath.
It was a horse of a different logo that practiced at Cal Poly’s Mustang Stadium.
The first day of that 1969 practice was brutal. A record temperature of 104 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded that day and the players practiced without pads.
Shula and 58 players ran drills and later signed autographs, as about 500 fans came to watch. Due to injuries, Johnny Unitas and Earl Morrall shared time at quarterback.
The Colts would return to the big game two seasons later. The team won Super Bowl V in 1971, defeating the Dallas Cowboys under the direction of rookie coach Don McCafferty.
Dave Verbon wrote this story for the Telegram-Tribune on Aug. 8, 1969.
Colts’ general manager: team underrated Namath
Wherever he goes, he waits for the bomb.
It is inevitable, so Baltimore Colts general manager Harry Holmes took the offensive at the Day Lions luncheon Thursday and gave his impressions of the Super Bowl before anyone had a chance to ask.
“After last January it (the game, which the Colts lost to the underdog Jets 16-7) was topic number one,” he said. “Everybody wanted to know what happened. Well, I’ll tell you what happened — I don’t know what happened.”“
“When you’re down, you’ll get outplayed, but I felt we were ready for this game. We played an underrated team and an underrated quarterback.”
“Namath showed us something. He’s got the quickest reaction of any quarterback in the game. His mind and his hands react at the same time to the defense.”
And speaking of defense, Holmes admitted the Jets had “out-defensed” the Colts.
He said the defense simply didn’t play the game it was capable of, and “who’s to tell why?”
One thing that surprised the Colts in the game, he said, was the Jets’ ability to run against the right side of the Colts. “Our right side turned out to be a weak spot,” he said.
Other teams tried all year to run there and couldn’t, but the Jets did.”
He said the team would naturally like to have another crack at Namath and the Jets next January, particularly considering the Colts heart-breaking record the past two years. Two years ago, they lost to the Los Angeles Rams in a play-off game after the Colts had compiled a far-superior season record.
What does the team think of San Luis Obispo?
“We couldn’t ask for more cooperation,” he said, “and the weather has been great.
“When we left Baltimore, we had 10 straight days of intermittent rain, and the humidity was always up around 90 percent. I really feel sorry for the guys when they have to work out with their pads in weather like that. You sit around hoping for cloudy days.
“Normally at this time of the season we wouldn’t be pressing the veterans into two-a-day sessions, but with this weather we’re able to teach them things they wouldn’t normally get until later.”
The practice sessions at Cal Poly are also giving the coaches their first opportunity to see the team’s rookies that played in the all-star game last week.
“We’re trying to mix in the new blood with the veterans,” he said. “The nucleus of the team right now is formed around the 1963 draft — that was the big one.”
“The older guys are dropping by the wayside now. Unitas is the only guy left from that 1958 overtime win over the New York Giants. We’re playing with two ancient quarterbacks. Unitas is 36 and Morrall is 37.
”Rookies have been a bit of a problem this year, he said.
“Three of them were out before the physicals were over, and you can’t hardly get out much sooner than that,” he said.
“They are just not convinced they have got to be in shape. Some of them think they’ve got to put on as much weight as possible and showed up 20 to 25 pounds over. They’re always the ones that protest they’ve been mistreated when they’re let go.”
Holmes then told about some of the “super Colts” past and present.
On Johnny Unitas:
“He is valuable not only to the Colts, but to all of pro football. This game was just on the rise in the early fifties, but his performance in the 1958 sudden death overtime game really aided the whole game. It was the first great game played on television.”
On Jim Parker:
“He was in a constant battle with the scales. Players get fined $10 for every pound they’re overweight, and there’s no better place to hurt a player than the pocketbook. Once when he weighed 282 and wanted to get down to 275, he dressed in a rubber suit, got in his car, closed all the windows, turned on the heater and drove for 20 miles. He might have made it, but just before weigh-in, he ate dinner and still came in three pounds over. He was a fantastic tackle, though.”
On Alex Hawkins:
“He was a player who went a long way with what he had. He retired from the game this year while he was a free agent. He refused to sign a contract and had played out his option. When he did he didn’t get a postcard from any other teams. He was already as retired as he could get, but held a two-day press conference to announce it anyway. He was one of the game’s great characters. We miss Hawkins, he kept things loose.”
On John Mackey:
“His switch to fullback lasted about two days. It didn’t work for three reasons. He didn’t like it, Terry Cole came back and he got hurt. We decided we’ve got to keep him up on the line where he won’t be so vulnerable and can stay in one piece.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Don Shula as the coach who led the Baltimore Colts to victory in Super Bowl V. The error has been corrected.
This story was originally published May 9, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
