Super Bowl Hoopla Revisited
The recent Super Bowl controversy over the halftime show and other events, even including the coin toss, brought to mind something written years back about a most unusual Dolphins player. Doug Swift was the biggest no name on the famous 1972 No Name Defense of the only undefeated team in NFL history. Swift was different from go - he played college at Amherst, better known for its academic distinction as a Little Ivy school than for its sports program. Football was simply a pause before his real career in medicine. He only tried out with the Dolphins when it was suggested that Don Shula's young team might be interested.
Both his parents were doctors. He was an art major at Amherst but achieved the considerable task of taking pre-med courses while playing with the Dolphins. It did not take him long to establish a reputation as an anesthesiologist. We looked him up when in 1984 an item appeared in a Philadelphia paper about his being part of the team that performed the city's first heart transplant. He could not have been more gracious. He gave us the rare opportunity to watch his Temple University Hospital team in open heart surgery. That turned into a cover story in the Miami Herald's old Sunday Tropic Magazine.
Swift's shaggy hair was in recession during his playing days. Eight years later it changed his appearance. That impish little smile was familiar to his teammates.
Back to football. Midway in his six-year career with the Dolphins, he gave Gold Coast magazine a remarkably candid interview which bears retelling in the current context.
"Things went well in Miami right from the beginning," he said. "I felt that they liked me. I was easy to coach, and it wasn't a very good rookie group that year. Also, I could read. I think they liked me because I could read."
That type of line was common with Swift. He often spoke irreverently of the game he played so earnestly. He resented politicians, notably President Richard Nixon, sticking their noses into the game. He was irritated by all the pre-game ceremonies, including lengthy pre-game prayers.
"The bullshit that takes place on the field before the game is ridiculous. You are ready to go and then you have to go through that bullshit. It's like a bad joke. There's no need for those prayers, those invocations."
If that makes him sound bitter, Doug Swift was hardly that. He was a friendly guy, a good locker room presence, liked by his teammates. He laughed easily and his normal expression was a half-smile. His comments about the game must have been shared by other players 50 years ago. And they applied to the game in general, not the premier event of the season. One can only imagine their reaction to all the hoopla nonsense we put up with today.
