Super Bowl Bound

Only two years ago the Miami Dolphins were drawing more laughs than their trained counterparts at the local Seaquarium. Winners of only 15 of 56 games in their first four seasons, the team needed help fast. In desperation, the normally tightfisted Dolphin owner, Joe Robbie, stole away-Coach Don Shula from the Baltimore Colts by offering him a $75,000 yearly salary and part ownership of the team. When Shula arrived in Miami in July to open training camp, Robbie was asked if he would give his new coach enough time to produce a winner. "Sure," came the answer. "He's got all summer."

Robbie was kidding but Shula was not. On the first day of practice, the jut-jawed coach startled everyone by chewing out Quarterback Bob Griese, the dimpled blond star of the team. Accustomed to the easygoing ways of former Coach George Wilson, the players were dumbfounded when Shula announced that there would be four practice sessions a day, beginning before breakfast and lasting until nightfall. Overweight players were fined $10 for every pound in excess of what Shula determined was their "optimum performance level." When 250-lb. Running Back Larry Csonka was ordered to trim off 15 Ibs., he sputtered, "But I haven't been that light since high school." Replied Shula: "You will function better at that level." Csonka pared down.

All the Dolphins are functioning better. This season, in fact, Miami has been all but unstoppable, rolling to the best record in the N.F.L. with nine wins, one loss and one tie. Csonka and his mustachioed sidekick, Jim Kiick, are, respectively, the No. 1 and No. 6 leading ground gainers in the American Football Conference. Quarterback Bob Griese is leading the league in touchdown tosses (19); his favorite target, Wide Receiver Paul Warfield, leads all rivals in touchdown receptions (eleven) and yardage gained (861). On defense, veteran Linebacker Nick Buoniconti anchors a quick, fierce unit that has held opponents to an average of eleven points a game. Summing up, Offensive Tackle Norm Evans, the lone survivor of the first Dolphin team of 1966, says: "We have a winning attitude."

So do the Dolphins' long-suffering fans. Attendance at the Orange Bowl has soared from an average of 34,687 two seasons ago to sellout crowds of 75,312 for the last two home games. Last week a national TV audience watched Kiick and Csonka, known to the adoring "Dol-fans" as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, grind out a total of 175 yds. on the ground. Coupled with Griese's brilliant passing (twelve completions in 17 attempts, two touchdowns), the Dolphins mauled the Bears 34 to 3. Afterward, Bear Coach Jim Dooley confidently predicted what Miamians already accept as a certainty: the Dolphins are bound for the Super Bowl.

*Found guilty of breaking the National Football League's rule against "tampering," Robbie was ordered by the league to compensate the Colts by giving them the Dolphins' No. 1 choice in the 1971 player draft.

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