Shula Got Carried Off but Not Carried Away

David Shula, an assistant coach with the Miami Dolphins and son of Coach Don Shula, was asked his most vivid Super Bowl memory.

“They were carrying my father off the field at the Coliseum in 1973,” he said. “Somebody reached up and stole his watch. My father climbed off the shoulders and caught him and got the watch back.

“It was a good watch.”

Add Shula: The subject was injuries, and the New York Times recalled this line by former Dolphin publicist Bob Kearney: “Don Shula has a high threshold of pain for somebody else’s pain.”

Trivia Time: If Roger Kingdom wins at Seoul, he will be the second man to have won the Olympic 110-meter high hurdles twice. Who was the first? (Answer below.)

Maybe it doesn’t rank with Babe Ruth’s called shot, but when Bobby Bonds homered in an old-timers’ game at Philadelphia, his son was just as impressed.

“It was awesome,” Pirate outfielder Barry Bonds told the Pittsburgh Press. “We were sitting there talking before the game, and he said, ‘If he throws me a fastball I’m going to smoke it.’ He threw it, and he crushed it. I mean, he’s retired and he said it and did it.”

Add Ruth: Hall of Fame second baseman Billy Herman told the Chicago Tribune that the Babe’s called shot off Charlie Root of the Cubs in the 1932 World Series is strictly myth.

“He was pointing to our bench, not center field,” Herman said. “Our bench was on him, calling him everything, a big, fat baboon, everything you could think of. If he had pointed to center and hit it there, he’d have been on his butt the rest of the Series.”

Seattle Seahawks linebacker Fredd Young told USA Today he wanted to be traded, preferably to his hometown of Dallas, but he’s not counting on it.

“Teams never trade you to where you want to go,” he said. “I might end up in Green Bay, but if I do, that means I’ll be home for Christmas, I guess.”

From a column by Bernie Lincicome of the Chicago Tribune, after Willie Gault was traded from the Bears to the Raiders: “Gault, of course, was never a Bear. He was a ballet dancer and a bobsledder, but he was not a real Bear.

“He didn’t growl, he hummed. He didn’t stalk, he tiptoed. And he never said he was sorry getting ordinary results from extraordinary talent.

“Gault didn’t like to hurt people and never invited pain. He was the clean shirt among the dirty laundry.

“What he might have been will be missed more than anything he ever was.”

Michael Meredith, son of Don Meredith, is a walk-on receiver at Southern Methodist, where he doesn’t have any illusions of matching his father’s exploits, starting next season, but says, “I wouldn’t mind taking over my dad’s Lipton’s tea commercials.”

Poor Lee Thomas. The new general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies isn’t likely to find much help in the minor leagues.

Writes Tom Verducci of Newsday: “Through Monday, every one of the seven teams in the Philadelphia organization had a losing record. The teams were 291-384 (.431) and a combined 130 games behind in their respective standings.”

Trivia Answer: Lee Calhoun of the United States in 1956 and 1960.

Quotebook

Bobby Bowden, on the exalted expectations for his Florida State football team: “You know if you drop that halo down just about 12 inches, it becomes a noose.”