A, Calif. — Crow's feet inched a little closer alongside Don Shula's weary eyes.
Nothing else changed.
He came off the phone from telling President Reagan that he was "proud" of the Dolphins. And then he stood tall in Miami's funereal dressing room in the bowels of the Rose Bowl and spoke without a quiver of how the ******** had smashed his Super Bowl XVII dream to 27-17 smithereens.
"It could have been a great story," Shula said. "But now it will only be on the ********. I realize better than anyone else that after a Super Bowl they're only going to be talking about one team, and it won't be the Dolphins. We had a fine season, and we have to turn this loss into a learning experience, which is the only positive thing I can possibly say about it."
Sunday, nine years after his second successive Super Bowl runaway, he could only say positive things about the ********. He let that roll like the gentleman he is.
"Give them all the credit. Their coach, Joe Gibbs. The great fullback, John Riggins. And a quarterback, Joe Theismann, who did a super job on us.
"They deserve to be champions. They had the best record of anybody in the regular season and now they come out of the Super Bowl with the best record, and when you do that, you're the best, and they are the best."
