PHOENIX | The members of the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins would like to make it clear to everyone that, despite how it may seem, they’re not just grumpy old guys hanging on to past glory. Trouble is, even while explaining, they might sound a bit like grumpy old guys hanging on to past glory.
“My heart is dead set against it,” Dolphins guard Bob Kuechenberg says of the New England Patriots’ run to be undefeated. “The ’72 team is uniquely immortal in American sports, and I don’t want to lose that special place.”
“It doesn’t matter to me whether or not they win them all,” running back Mercury Morris says. “Because it doesn’t affect anything we’ve done. When all the dust clears, the best they can do is stand beside us, and in the end, that’s not a bad thing.”
“All we can do if they are undefeated through the season is congratulate them and say they are the second team to do it,” Dolphins safety Dick Anderson says.
It’s a strange thing: Thirty-five years after the Dolphins beat Washington 14-7 in the Super Bowl to complete the only undefeated season in NFL history, the players and coaches don’t appreciate the way they’ve been portrayed. Stories have been told that they clink champagne glasses every time the last undefeated NFL team goes down. Their quotes tend to come off like cranky grandfathers who want the kids to stay off the lawns. They don’t like that image at all. It makes them look like sore winners or something.
On the other hand, they really don’t want the Patriots to win Sunday.
“How elated will you be if the Giants do pull the upset?” someone asks the old Dolphins coach Don Shula.
“I’m going to be at the game,” Shula says. “I’ll be jumping up down.”
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There’s an unspoken rule in sports that says you are supposed to be magnanimous and look happy when your record gets broken. The correct phrase is, of course, “Records are made to be broken.” Then you’re supposed to smile, and shake the record-breaker’s hand and walk off the stage, like a president leaving office.
The question is: Why? I remember a few years ago, when an outfielder named Marquis Grissom came close to breaking the late, great Hank Bauer’s record for a World Series hitting streak. We called Hank at home about it, and he offered one of the most honest quotes I’ve ever heard about records, one that seems to me to cut much closer to the heart. He said: “If it’s a choice between keeping the record and giving it up, I’ll keep it.”
That seems a much more honest and real reaction than the plastered smile and bland clichés. Remember when the old Pittsburgh running back Franco Harris was closing in on Jim Brown’s all-time rushing record? Jim Brown was so livid about it he actually challenged Franco to a 40-yard dash, even though Brown was, at the time, closing in on 50. It turned out to be an embarrassing moment — Harris blistered him on the track, and Brown pulled up lame about halfway through. But again, that seems like the human response. You’re going to break my record? Oh yeah? Let’s race.
That’s why I find the 1972 Dolphins to be endearing. They try, but they really can’t hide how they feel. Of course they want the Patriots to lose to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl. Of course they don’t want anyone joining them on Undefeated Mountain. They like it up there all by themselves.
