Coach Shula has passed away. The idiots are congregating in parks without masks, and the government is trying to re-open. We have a lot to cover, so pay attention.
When the news broke Monday that legendary coach Don Shula had passed away, we imagined legions of millennial lawyers and judges briefly pausing to reflect that the "guy who built that road I drive to work on died" before getting back to the serious business of selfies and Insta-whatever.
It's not just that Shula was one of the greatest coaches of all time. It's not just that he is the only coach in the history of professional sports to coach a championship team to an undefeated season. And followed that season with another super-bowl winning season. It's not just that he is the all-time winningest coach in professional football. It is that at a time when Miami was emerging as city of national importance, Shula helped put us on the map with the Miami Dolphins of the 1970's. Professional sports teams bring an identity to a city and can sometimes carry a city through hard times. The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970's assumed the identity of the hard steel town, bringing Pittsburgh through the recessions and the change from steel manufacturing to tech and health care.
While Miami did not suffer those economic hard times, the Dolphins and Shula brought to this town something that Miami never had before- a winner. And a winning attitude. Shula became more than the Miami Dolphins. He became part of us. And that, dear readers, is why there is an expressway named after him. We will examine Coach Shula's career, and perhaps the best coaching year of his career (hint- it's not the 72 undefeated season) in more detail this weekend.
COVID 19 UPDATE:
Three thousand Americans will die every day in June from Covid-19. Two-hundred thousand new cases will be diagnosed every day in June. If you take away the declining numbers in New York, the curve in the United States is sharply rising, not falling. We are NOT on the other side of this pandemic. We are in the middle of it.
In February and March we shouted as loud as we could to close the courts and society down. Initially, no one listened. Hopefully decision makers are listening now.
KEEP COURTS SHUT DOWN THROUGH THE END OF JULY.
KEEP OUR CITIES AND TOWNS CLOSED.
Very simply, we tell you this. If judges open courts, if politicians open cities for dining and recreation, millions of Americans will die and our economy will be destroyed. We will be involuntarily quarantined in the fall and winter because going out will mean illness with little hope of treatment at a collapsed health-care system, and possible death
There are some potential bright spots on the horizon. Pfizer along with Biontech, using new RNA technology, has started a small clinical vaccine trial in humans with possible approval for emergency use in the fall. BUT assuming the vaccine is successful, companies still need to scale up for the production of BILLIONS of doses of the vaccine. And that doesn't just mean securing the chemicals for the new vaccine. It means securing the glass vials for storage; securing the delivery systems for the vaccine, be it oral or with syringes. It is a monumental Apollo-type project with several thousand moving parts that must be coordinated.
Happy Cinco De Mayo. Have a tequilla (at home) on us.
