European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 07, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                I sunday november 7,1993 sports the stars and stripes pag31 Burns inside so us a by Dave Kindred if we wonder How Don Shula puts up with the trash he sees arid hears in pro football these Days it might be instructive to recall a summer Long ago when Paul Brown s Stern vision fell on a Rookie defensive Back who in a Cleveland training Camp had hammered Down the mighty runner Marion Motley. Nice tackle Taseff the coach said. Whereupon the Rookie Rose from Motley s body and announced the name is Shula followed by Shula  had the Earth opened to Swallow the kid with the Square jaw no one would have been surprised. Grown men stood silent in wonder at what would happen  one spoke to the imperious Brown unless invited. And when invited the proper tone was of supplication not in Ignance. And yet of everything that mattered to Brown nothing mattered More than intelligence Bonfire. He had confused the Shula kid with Carl Taseff Shula s buddy also a Rookie from John Carroll univer sity. Brown Learned something in his mistake. He Felt the fire in Shula. So that Day in 1951, the master warm ing to the kid Brown said to Shula "111 try to re Mem  now in a new world who could forgets he a Ais the last legend. In his 31 Yean As an nil head coach Shula s Tea shave reached the league s championship game seven times winning twice. They have been to the superbowl in three decades and he is eager at 63, to make it four. He has won by smashing Mouths and by airing it  has won with Hall of Fame players and with Guys who tape the plays to their wrists Johnny Unitas to Matte and Bob Griese Earl Morrall David Woodley and Dan Marino. He has won with Gino Marchitti an Bubba Smith and yikes Louis Oliver. He has looked through single bar face masks and he has seen Darth Vader visors. His players went from Crew cuts to hippie curls to shaved Heads. His first year a stamp Cost a Nickel. From 1963 to today 188 other nil coaches have been hired and fired and Shula instill there his jaw still Square a Man still on fire. As Bubba Smith once said if a nuclear bomb is dropped the Only things i m certain will survive Are astroturf and Don  those who know Shula Best say the Pursuit of commentary Don Shula awaits the applause Tor win no. 325. Shula s. It s amazing really. Here was George Halas. The old Man took a soybean factory s team and practically invented pro football. He named it the National football league. He gave the Ball to red Grange and Bronks Nagurski. He set Loose the monsters of the Midway. Still growling at age 68, papa Bear won an nil championship in 1963 and was named coach of the year an Honor that prompted him to say that kid in Baltimore should have got  Only 33 then Shula would move the Colts from an 8-6 record that season to 12-2 the next a season ending George Halas Means a lot to him. And it should. Just with a 27-0 loss to Gox Eland in the nil championship twice in a Century a Guy wins 324 pro football games. Game. That def Wash Lythe first of three Champi Thalas did it in 40 seasons stopping Only when doctors on ship losses hat conspired to persuade lab makers spoke strongly to him. That Stoda Cajet win the big me. His 1969colts were by then Halas career had intersected with Don 17-Pj it favourites Over the jets in Van As a flighty Hunch turf controversy deep Over latest serious injury of upstarts with a quarterback not Good enough to play real football. When Joe Namath finished throwing and Matt Snell finished running in that super bowl real football had doubled in size. Years later Shula would even argue with a smile that he had contributed to establishing the american football league. That smile came after Shula had won successive super bowls himself the first following Miami s undefeated 1972 season the nil s Only perfect season. Though he reached the super bowl again in 82 and 84, his dolphins lost them both. Then came four consecutive seasons 86 to 89, in which Shula s teams failed to win More than eight games. That had never happened two years running let alone four. Overlapping Miami s mediocrity were the de Cline and fall of empires built by Tom Landry in Dallas and Chuck Noll in Pittsburgh. Suddenly these men who had coached brilliantly for 75 seasons became tar gets of ridicule and objects of pity. Label makers decided the game has passed them by. Maybe in Landry s Case. Maybe in Noll s. We Don t know. They left before we could find out. We do know about Shula. He can still do it. Matter of fact when folks were wondering it s unlikely Shula heard them. A longtime Shula watcher Don got mad when people talked about Noll and Landry. But his ego is such and i mean in a positive ego Way a sense of self Worth and Security that i Don t think he Ever thought anybody was writing that about him. He d think anybody saying that had flipped  and Why should t he think that he is still Shula. Still prickly and charming compassionate and volcanic always teaching and always learning As single minded As Ever. Granted even his friends were surprised last month when Shula used a Bye week to get married. True he has t threatened an owner since the night 20 years ago when he grabbed two handfuls of Joe Rob Bie s dinner jacket and said say that one More time and i la Knock you on your still the fire is there. Even after Louis Oliver returned an interception 56 Yards for a touchdown october 24, Shula could t abide his Guy s taunting the poor Colts. So he fined Oliver $1,000. Even a Man who once spelled his name for Paul Brown has his limits. A \. Paul Brown. George Halas. And Don Shula. It s 31 seasons for Shula now and his friends think hell coach until he wins another super bowl. Not that he needs it to be remembered. The kid with the Square jaw is there. As Pete Dexter has written i be never seen a statue that would t look better with Shula s head on  by Dave Goldbe Gap football writer it will never happen. The peo ple who own and run nil stadiums will never get rid of fake grass because the real stuff costs More to maintain. There Are two problems artwork Here there seem to be no studies that show that More football in juries occur on artificial turf than grass but. Almost every player says he feels much safer playing on real stuff. All of which is relevant be cause of what happened last sunday to the unfortunate Mik Sherrard who was having a pro bowl season with the giant until he tried to Cut at the end of a is Yard pass play planted wrong and is now out for the season with a slight break and dislocation of the hip. Sherrard who has broken his ankle three times in his seven year career has always been fragile commodity. This time however he be he lived the turf was the cause. It s just unforgiving said. His teammate Steve Deossie put it More succinctly turf stinks. Turf should be outlawed. It s just not going to  but neither arc its supporters. The Day after Sherrard s sea son ending injury was diag nosed Robert Mulcahy who runs the authority that runs giants stadium was suggesting that no facility that hosts 30 football games could keep a when it was suggested that the san Francisco 49ers, Sher Rard s old team play on a grass Field at candlestick that hosts 81 baseball games plus a number of football games each season Mulcahy acknowledged that maintenance costs Are a Factor. But i Don t think we could have As Many events As we put on if we have a grass Field Mulcahy said and then went on to cite the injuries on grass. The biggest problem for play ers who want a change is that there Are no conclusive studies on the number of injuries on turf opposed to those on grass something the nil is Quick to Point out. One league official noted for example that Sherrard broke an ankle twice on grass and another time while jogging  Beach. And Dan Marino s rup tured Achilles Tendon occurred on natural turf the chewed up variety in Cleveland cancelling out the same injury to Lawrence Taylor last season on the same Meadowlands turf on which Sherrard got Hurt. But that ignores lesser injuries like turf Burn and turf toe that have become a regular part of trainers vernacular. And it ignores the fact that Many teams that play on turf conduct most of their practices on grass Fields including the jets and giants the denizens of the Meadowlands. And it ignores other significant turf injuries this year like the Knees both of them torn up by Wendell Davis of the bears Steve Emtman of the Colts and Chris Miller of the giants Mike Sherrard it s unforgiving Falcons. The problem is that the most definitive study done by or. James Nicholas team physician for the jets Between i960 and 1985, found no significant differ ence Between injuries on grass and turf. Don t Tell that to the players. Turf says Doug Allen assistant executive director of the nil players association is necessary and harmful. Yet you still see  Lombardi finalists named new York up four finalists for the Lombardi award Given to the Best line Man in College football each sea son were announced Friday. The award Winner who will be announced dec. 2, will come from a group including a line Backer an offensive tackle a nose guard and a defensive end. The favorite is Florida state linebacker Derrick Brooks. Brooks a 6-foot-1, 225-Pound Junior has led the seminoles to a perfect 8-0 record and Heads a defense that has allowed just 38 Points this season. Among the other finalists Are two defenders 6-foot-2, 274 Pound senior Rob Waldrop of Arizona and 6-foot-4, 269 Pound Sam Adams of Texas am. Waldrop plays nose guard on the nation s Sti Giest run de sense while Adams is a defensive end. Notre Dame senior offensive tackle Aaron Taylor is the big Gest of the Buch at 6-foot-4, 299 pounds and is the Only offensive player among the finalists