Dolfan Radio Essay
By Brad Michaels • September 2, 2026
Seventeen months after Don Shula died, Miami finally got to stand in his building and say the thing the pandemic stole. The next afternoon the 2021 Dolphins lost to the Colts. Both of those things happened in the same stadium. Only one of them still matters.
Don Shula died on May 4, 2020. He was 90. The private service was socially distanced. The public one had to wait. COVID did not care that he coached the only unbeaten team in the history of the league.
Saturday, October 2, 2021. 4:30 p.m. Hard Rock Stadium. First public ceremony. About five thousand people. Free admission. A 347 patch in your hand if you registered. Alumni weekend. The Colts in town the next day — the other franchise Shula built before he ever saw Miami.
Hard Rock Stadium video board · Celebration of Life weekend · October 2021
Stephen Ross said the shortest true sentence of the afternoon: Don Shula is the Miami Dolphins.
Roger Goodell was there. David Baker from the Hall. Archbishop Thomas Wenski. Mary Anne Shula in aqua. David Shula trying to close a two-hour goodbye that should have happened in 2020.
The players were the point. Bob Griese. Larry Csonka. Larry Little. Bob Baumhower. Kim Bokamper. Dwight Stephenson. Joe Rose. John Offerdahl. Dan Marino. That is not a guest list. That is the franchise reading itself out loud.
Dave Hyde wrote that they did not sanitize him. Good. Shula was not a mural. He was a coach who could freeze a room and then win the argument on Sunday. The 17–0 team was not a bedtime story. It was a standard he never let this place put down, even when the building around him changed names.
347–173–6. Colts 1963–69. Dolphins 1970–95. Consecutive Super Bowls. The 1972 team that never lost.
Died May 4, 2020. Public farewell October 2, 2021. Seventeen months. A virus on the calendar.
Saturday: the board, the alumni, the thank you. Sunday: Colts 27, Dolphins 17. Alumni still in the building.
October 3. Hard Rock again. Indianapolis 27, Miami 17. Jonathan Taylor ran for 103. Carson Wentz found Mo Alie-Cox twice. Jacoby Brissett started for Miami. Tua was out. The Dolphins scored three in the first quarter and nothing else until the fourth. Final: 1–3.
Greg Cote wrote that the ghosts of the glory days were in the stands watching an inept home team. He was not wrong. The alumni weekend crowd had just spent Saturday remembering a coach who would have hated 27 rushing yards from the backs and a kickoff out of bounds after you finally scored.
That 2021 club started 1–0 at New England and then lost seven straight. Buffalo 35–0 at home. Las Vegas in overtime. The Colts. Tampa 45–17. London against Jacksonville — a loss, 23–20, not a rescue. Atlanta. Buffalo again. 1–7. They finished 9–8. Flores was gone the morning after they beat New England in Week 18.
John Bock was on the other mic that year. I had the fan chair. We recorded after the Colts game. The episode is still up: ep 10 vs colts, October 6, 2021, an hour and five minutes. Shula on the board. Then the score.
Dolfan Radio · ep 10 vs colts · Week 4 · October 6, 2021 · 1:05:09 · Full archive
| What | Number | Why it sits here |
|---|---|---|
| Career wins | 347 | Still the NFL record. The patch they handed out that Saturday. |
| Perfect season | 17–0, 1972 | Only one in the modern league. It is the ceiling this franchise invented and has not touched again. |
| Miami years | 1970–1995 | Twenty-six seasons. Two Super Bowls. Then three more years after the 1993 title-game loss, and he walked in January 1996. |
| Last conference title game | January 17, 1993 | Bills 29, Dolphins 10. That afternoon is the other essay. This one is the goodbye. |
The 1993 game is the on-field break. The 2021 ceremony is what the franchise looked like when it finally said the name out loud in his own stadium.
Because the board photo still exists, and the show still exists, and the standard does not. Hafley can talk physicality. Sullivan can churn the 53. None of that replaces the man whose name is the measuring stick every regime pretends it is chasing.
Dolfan Radio started in 2006. In 2021 John Bock sat in the other chair while Miami fell into that 1–7 hole. We talked Shula that week because the building did. Five years later the videos are still on the channel — thirty-two of them — and the jumbotron shot is the picture from that weekend. That is the archive. Not a museum. A reminder.
January 17, 1993 showed the ceiling. October 2, 2021 showed who set it. The Colts game on the third was just the 2021 team being the 2021 team.
If you were in that building on Saturday, you already know. If you only remember the Sunday score, look at the board again.
The Saturday ceremony and the Sunday loss live on the same hard drive. The show is in the podcasts vault. The 1993 title game is the other essay.