Lies, beer, suffering and Dolphins training camp
A Marino imposter? A grown man crying? Dolphins camp has had it all
One August morning in 1984, Don Shula's office phone rang. His assistant, Anne Rodriguez, answered.
"This is Dan Marino,'' the voice said. "Can you tell coach I'm not going to make it to work today?"
Rodriguez found Shula in a meeting and informed him. Shula turned in the room to look at Marino, who was therefore at work. Marino shrugged. As you have to at some of the stories that have come out of Dolphins training camp through the years. Or laugh. Or wonder.
Dolphins camp doesn't arrive this week with poetry like baseball's spring training. It is not neat and ordered and innocent. It is hot and uncomfortable and smells like an over-used sock.
t also delivers stories that careen through the years like that 1984 phone call to Shula's office. The Dolphins did some footwork and discovered a man was impersonating Marino each morning at a Krispy Kreme donut store in North Miami Beach.
Stu Weinstein, the team's head of security, drove there one morning. "Dan Marino" was regaling a group of housewives and donut-eaters with football stories. Except this Marino was 5-foot-8. He was fat. He was balding. (Talk about a blow to the real Marino's image! Teammates rode the joke for days!)
Weinstein had "Marino" step outside.
"This either stops now or we call in the police,'' Weinstein said.
The Krispy Kreme Dan Marino was never heard from again. But the stories lives. As do all these training Dolphins camp stories:
Read about the other stories at
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...-dolphins-0722-20120721,0,5999249,full.column
A Marino imposter? A grown man crying? Dolphins camp has had it all
One August morning in 1984, Don Shula's office phone rang. His assistant, Anne Rodriguez, answered.
"This is Dan Marino,'' the voice said. "Can you tell coach I'm not going to make it to work today?"
Rodriguez found Shula in a meeting and informed him. Shula turned in the room to look at Marino, who was therefore at work. Marino shrugged. As you have to at some of the stories that have come out of Dolphins training camp through the years. Or laugh. Or wonder.
Dolphins camp doesn't arrive this week with poetry like baseball's spring training. It is not neat and ordered and innocent. It is hot and uncomfortable and smells like an over-used sock.
t also delivers stories that careen through the years like that 1984 phone call to Shula's office. The Dolphins did some footwork and discovered a man was impersonating Marino each morning at a Krispy Kreme donut store in North Miami Beach.
Stu Weinstein, the team's head of security, drove there one morning. "Dan Marino" was regaling a group of housewives and donut-eaters with football stories. Except this Marino was 5-foot-8. He was fat. He was balding. (Talk about a blow to the real Marino's image! Teammates rode the joke for days!)
Weinstein had "Marino" step outside.
"This either stops now or we call in the police,'' Weinstein said.
The Krispy Kreme Dan Marino was never heard from again. But the stories lives. As do all these training Dolphins camp stories:
Read about the other stories at
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...-dolphins-0722-20120721,0,5999249,full.column
