Iconic Miami Herald sports columnist Edwin Pope, who died January 19, covered the first 47 Super Bowls. This column from Super Bowl XVII, in which John Riggins and the Washington Redskins took out the Miami Dolphins in the Rose Bowl, originally ran on Jan. 31, 1983.
PASADENA, Calif. — Crow's feet inched a little closer alongside Don Shula's weary eyes.
Nothing else changed.
He came off the phone from telling President Reagan that he was "proud" of the Dolphins. And then he stood tall in Miami's funereal dressing room in the bowels of the Rose Bowl and spoke without a quiver of how the Redskins had smashed his Super Bowl XVII dream to 27-17 smithereens.