Hanover
Dartmouth head coach Buddy Teevens who was the Big Green’s senior quarterback in 1978, often threw to sophomore Shula during that championship campaign. Shula is the eldest of five children of legendary coach Don Shula, who coached the NFL’s Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins and was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame after winning a league-best 347 games.
Shula, coach of the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals from 1992-96, and Teevens declined comment on Thursday, noting that the younger man has yet to have his hiring formally approved by the college. It was clear, however, that Shula still possesses the personality to reach the young men he’s coaching. They hung on his every word.
“Don’t forget to breathe!” a smiling Shula called out to one of his receivers after he botched a drill. “You held your breath the entire time.”
Half an hour later, however, that amiable man was gone, replaced by one barking at a player struggling to push a weighted sled across the turf while almost prone to the ground.
“Finish, finish!” Shula shouted, bending down far enough that his mouth was only a foot or two from his charge’s right ear. “All the way, all the way, all the way!”
In his own playing days, Shula declined a Florida State football scholarship to attend Dartmouth, where he twice earned All-Ivy honors at receiver. Like Teevens, he was a history major and a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. Capable of completing the 40-yard dash in a relatively slow 4.9 seconds, Shula ran junior varsity track in an attempt to increase his speed. Following his 1981 graduation, Shula joined the Colts and made his lone appearance in an NFL game later that year.
After being released, Shula attended a semester of law school at the University of Baltimore, where a television magazine show’s cameras documented his first days. Home on break, Shula joined his father’s Dolphins staff with a game remaining in the 1982 regular season schedule. Miami reached the Super Bowl a few weeks later and their new guy became the youngest assistant in NFL history at 23.
After toiling for the Dolphins and Cowboys, Shula became one of the youngest head coaches in the NFL’s modern era when he was hired by the Bengals at 32, a year younger than Don Shula had been when he took over the Colts in 1963. The son, however, lost 50 games faster than any coach in league history (71 games) and finished with a record of 19-52.
Cincinnati owner Mike Brown, himself a former Dartmouth player, fired Shula seven games into the 1996 campaign, leaving him with the third-worst winning percentage (.268) in NFL history. The teams for which Shula coached were a combined 104-128 during his 15-year pro career.
“I could have done a better job of holding people more accountable to earn more respect,” Shula told the Cincinnati Enquirer last year, noting however, that the Bengals struggled long after his departure. “Over a five-year period they didn’t show much growth if any … So it kind of evened out over a period of time where I didn’t feel quite as bad.
“You realize that maybe it wasn’t all me. Certainly, I had a role in it, but you can’t blame everything on me, either.”
Shula has helped manage his family’s eponymous restaurants and served as its “brand manager” since leaving the Bengals. The company’s website lists more than 20 locations in eight states. Florida is the primary site, with 17. He’s also helped coach at a Florida high school and at the summer Manning Passing Academy in Louisiana, which is run by Teevens and the NFL quarterback family of that name.
Shula’s son, Dan, played quarterback at Dartmouth from 2002-05, appearing in 13 games before becoming a college assistant and eventually moving into his current career with a sporting goods manufacturer. Another son, Chris, is an assistant linebackers coach with the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams last season. Mike Shula, David’s brother, is offensive coordinator for the NFL’s New York Giants.
In 2007, Teevens biked across much of the country, raising money for breast cancer research as he went. He talked Shula, whose mother died of the disease in 1991, into accompanying him for roughly half of the trip, which began in San Diego.
The Dartmouth position Shula is taking opened earlier this year when Jerry Taylor departed to coach at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Taylor joined the Big Green in 2014 as a part-time assistant before being promoted to receivers coach the next year. After playing one season at Bowie (Md.) State, Taylor had stops at Virginia State and St. Francis (Penn.) University before arriving in Hanover.
Dartmouth, which was 8-2 overall and 5-2 in Ivy League play last season, begins spring practice April 10 and concludes it May 5.
In other Big Green news, junior quarterback Jimmy Fitzgerald, who transferred from Illinois last year, said on Thursday he’s ending his football career because of injuries. Fitzgerald suffered his most recent setback during a junior varsity scrimmage with visiting Norwich University last season. He scrambled for a touchdown but tore a knee ligament on the play.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.