It’s impossible to reflect on Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Larry Csonka’s new memoir Head On (Matt Holt/BenBella Books) without referencing Always On the Run (1973), the former Miami Dolphins fullback’s previous book of ever-colorful exploits.
As told to New York Times columnist Dave Anderson, that entertaining 50-year-old set of tall-but-true tales was authored with Csonka’s former running partner, in more ways than one, Jim Kiick. Unbeknownst to them at the time, they were writing it as teammates in the middle of the Dolphins’ perfect 17-0 season, leading to their first Super Bowl Championship in 1972. Head On is less rollicking without Kiick (1946-2020), who died while suffering from brain trauma symptoms related to chronic traumatic encephalopathy at age 73 in a South Florida assisted-living facility.
Nicknamed “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” by Miami Herald sportswriter Bill Braucher (based upon the popular 1969 Western of the same name starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford), Csonka and Kiick became hard-partying athletic rock stars in South Florida as running backs for the Dolphins from 1968-1974. Now 75 years old, Csonka is understandably more mature and reflective without his friend, backfield mate, and frequent drinking partner, but no less of a storyteller, especially with a half-decade’s worth of extra stories.
Csonka doesn’t waste time in getting to that 1972 undefeated season, a feat that has never otherwise been achieved before or since. With the book separated into six different sections, Section One describes the Dec. 21, 2019, gathering of 30 former Dolphins, many of them fellow Hall of Fame members, and their wives/partners in Miami Beach to surprise their Hall of Fame head coach, Don Shula.
As part of its 100th anniversary, the National Football League had recently named the Dolphins’ 1972 squad as the logical greatest in pro football history, and Shula had been the coach who transformed the team from perennial losers into back-to-back Super Bowl champs in 1972 and 1973. In ailing health, the coach would die four months later at age 90. Shula and Csonka’s shared Hungarian heritage, combined with the coach’s taskmaster attitude and the player’s rebellious nature, often made for a strained familial dynamic.
Having long since given up alcohol, Csonka reflects early about the celebrated team’s sobering losses: safety Jake Scott, linebackers Nick Buoniconti and Bob Matheson, kicker Garo Yepremian, defensive lineman Bill Stanfill, quarterback Earl Morrall, and offensive linemen Bob Kuechenburg and Jim Langer, many of whom also suffered from CTE.
The author also writes about how Kiick, who would die six months later, “could remember every detail from our playing days, but short-term memories were fleeting.” Later in the epilogue, Csonka’s description of an improving Kiick’s final fall from grace also describes what many suffered through during assisted-living facility restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially within its first year:
“Jim’s routine was disrupted. No visitors. His disorientation and dementia accelerated. My best buddy died unexpectedly in his sleep on June 19, 2020. Alone.”
A lengthy Section Two is devoted to Csonka’s 1964-1968 experiences attending Syracuse University in New York, a portion of his life only touched upon in Always On the Run. The school had produced extraordinary running backs like Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Jim Nance, so Csonka trusted head coach Ben Schwartzwalder to help him develop similarly. Which worked for “Zonk” and other backs on the roster, in different ways, like future Denver Broncos halfback Floyd Little and future New York Giants Super Bowl champion head coach Tom Coughlin.
Flashbacks to Csonka’s boyhood days on the farm in his hometown of Stow, Ohio, show his burgeoning love for animals and the outdoors in an environment that included everything from cats and dogs to pigs and cattle. And his elementary school stories are always humorous, like when he got into trouble for following the girls into the ladies room in first grade. Used to the family outhouse, he simply didn’t understand the concept of separate restrooms. Less innocent mischief in his adolescence led Csonka under the wing of Stow High School principal Lawrence Saltis, whose X’s and O’s football lessons piqued the teenager’s interest and perhaps kept him out of juvenile hall.
Much of the oversized Csonka’s high school football career involved trying to convince coaches that a player of his stature, assigned to linebacker and defensive lineman positions, could indeed run with the ball on offense. That quest was fulfilled as a sophomore at Syracuse. In a late-season win over West Virginia, Csonka broke Brown’s single-game school rushing yardage record with 216. Little added 196, helping to set Syracuse’s new single-game team record. The two would combine for 1,860 yards, the highest season total for two backs on the same team in NCAA history.
As a Syracuse senior, Csonka broke Little’s school rushing record and was Most Valuable Player in postseason college all-star games the East-West Shrine Bowl and the Hula Bowl. All of which led to the bruising fullback being the first running back chosen, and the No. 8 player overall, in the 1968 NFL draft by a new expansion team, the Miami Dolphins — charting his future course into NFL history.
That history encompasses the even lengthier Section Three, and includes him befriending Kiick, who he met for the first time when the two were named to play against the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers in the 1968 Chicago College All-Star Game. They bonded immediately as roommates, sneaking down the fire escape to go out drinking; finding out Evanston, Ill., was a dry town, taking a taxi to decidedly wetter Chicago, and getting back to the hotel undetected at 2 a.m.
Under original Dolphins head coach George Wilson, Csonka and Kiick endured losing seasons and injuries through 1968 and 1969. Those included concussions for Csonka, who’s lucky to have thus far avoided the CTE that many of his former teammates endured, and one of multiple broken noses, which eventually resulted in the protective U-shaped addition to his helmet seen on the book’s cover. Yet pieces were being put in place toward winning. Csonka helped talk the Dolphins into signing offensive lineman Larry Little, and the team traded for Buoniconti and drafted defensive end Stanfill and halfback Eugene “Mercury” Morris.
Those moves helped the losing stop once the more intense and disciplined Shula took over, in spite of opposition by players used to Wilson’s more casual, relaxed set of rules. The new coach had an attention to detail honed from playing defensive back for the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Colts for seven seasons, and he’d coached the 1968 Colts to Super Bowl III, losing to the New York Jets. He valued intellect, and his teams were always among the league’s least penalized. Shula also had important, cerebral assistants like offensive coordinators Howard Schnellenberger and Monte Clark and defensive coordinator Bill Arnsparger.
During the 1970 season, the Dolphins went 10-4 and played their first playoff game, losing to the powerful Oakland Raiders 21-14 with important new additions like Kuechenburg, Langer, Scott, Yepremian, receiver Paul Warfield, tight end Jim Mandich, and linebackers Mike Kolen and Doug Swift. Kiick gained more than 1,000 yards between rushing and pass receptions, and Csonka became an even more feared ground force, including earning a rare personal foul penalty as a running back for the forearm shiver he delivered to Buffalo Bills safety John Pitts during a tackle.
Section Three also includes a couple dramatic, death-defying sidebars by Csonka. One was as part of 17 NFL players sent by the USO to entertain troops in Vietnam in early 1971. Wrongly assuming he’d be sent to non-combat zones, Csonka recounts spending time in bunkers with the soldiers during battles; barely missing being shot down by snipers while flying out, and then spending time in the Philippines to visit wounded soldiers, many of them missing limbs and suffering from napalm burns.
In the 1971 season, Miami improved to 10-3-1 and reached their first Super Bowl, along the way playing against another perennial power, the Kansas City Chiefs, in what was the NFL’s longest game in the first round of the playoffs. In many ways, the thrilling, double-overtime 27-24 win at Kansas City — which started at 4 p.m. and delayed many a Christmas dinner on what was also Csonka’s 25th birthday on December 25, 1971 — put the Dolphins on the national map. Miami then dominated Baltimore 21-0 in the American Football Conference title game.
But Super Bowl VI was in New Orleans, and Csonka recounts having too much fun along Bourbon Street with Kiick and defensive line teammates Manny Fernandez and Jim Riley leading up to the game. Facing the Dallas Cowboys, the team that had lost the previous Super Bowl, the comparatively unfocused Dolphins were humiliated by all-business head coach Tom Landry and quarterback Roger Staubach, 24-3. As Landry had, Shula shrewdly used the lopsided loss as immediate motivation toward the 1972 season.
That magical year will forever be etched into NFL and Miami history, with the team’s home games played at the downtown Orange Bowl (the crowd at which became a home-field advantage Csonka called “the twelfth man”), since vacated in 1987 and demolished in 2008.
Making the perfect season that much more impractical was the fact that Bob Griese, the Dolphins’ veteran starting quarterback and outstanding field general, suffered a broken ankle in a 24-10 Week 5 win over the San Diego Chargers. Thirty-eight-year-old backup quarterback Morrall took over, and kept the team undefeated until Griese was able to return as a starter midway through the AFC Championship and all of the Super Bowl.
Part of the Dolphins’ 1972 success involved Morris becoming a bigger part of the team’s backfield. Kiick had actually outgained Csonka in total yardage as a starter from 1968-1970, but unhappily accepted becoming a role player in 1972, albeit one who tallied six touchdowns and nearly 700 yards total. Kiick became the goal line specialist as a runner and receiver; Csonka bludgeoned defenses for 1,117 rushing yards, and lightning-quick breakaway threat Morris gained 1,000 even. The fullback and halfback became the first-ever backfield tandem to gain 1,000 yards or more each in a season.
Sure, there were regular season blowouts like the 52-0 home win over the New England Patriots, but there were nail-biters that could’ve derailed Dolphins history — 16-14 away against the Minnesota Vikings with Griese starting; 24-23 over Buffalo and 28-24 over the Jets, both in Miami with Morrall under center.
Even the playoffs were close, including 20-14 over Cleveland, 21-17 in an astonishing away AFC Championship win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, when home field was dictated before the playoffs and not based on a won-loss record, and finally 14-7 over the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII in Los Angeles. Shula craved ever-elusive perfection, and had finally led a team to achieve what had been thought impossible. And earned a Super Bowl title in his third try.
The perfect season, along with Always On the Run, furthered the celebrity of Csonka and Kiick, who appeared afterward on programs like The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Csonka had also befriended actor Burt Reynolds, who’d once been named to Florida’s all-state football team as a fullback for Palm Beach High School (now Dreyfoos School for the Performing Arts in West Palm Beach).
While the NFL made the obvious choice in naming the undefeated 1972 Dolphins as its greatest single-season team ever, the franchise may have had one that was even better. That would be the 1973 team, which Csonka references as “a better, tighter, more seasoned team … even stronger than the ’72 squad.” Punter Larry Seiple, an all-around athlete who actually led the team in receiving before punting for both championship rosters, has also said, “I thought our ’73 team was better than our ’72 team.”
Yes, the 1973 Dolphins would lose two regular season games, finishing 15-2 after a second consecutive Super Bowl win in Houston. After winning their season opener, one could almost see the team exhale, and the pressure released, when it lost to the Raiders in Week 2. That ending to the 18-game winning streak, and a meaningless loss late in the season to the Colts as Miami rested players for its playoff run, were overshadowed by a dominant remainder of the regular season.
And while the ’72 playoffs were a series of close games, the ’73 Dolphins took no prisoners. Repeating as champions is arguably harder than winning a first title, requiring a swaggering confidence that doesn’t cross the line into cockiness.
In the ’72 postseason, the Dolphins’ combined margin of victory across three games was 17 points. In ’73, it would be 52, including 17 alone in the 24-7 demolition of the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl VIII. Csonka’s 145 yards, two touchdowns and MVP honors followed his third straight 1,000-yard season, and capped a three-game postseason in which he gained 333 yards and scored six TDs. Selflessly, he gave all credit to offensive line teammates like Little, Langer, and Kuechenberg, who should be with him in the Hall of Fame.
Always On the Run ends with the bang of the Dolphins’ first Super Bowl title. Head On can’t match that a half-century later, so for Dolphins die-hards, “Section Four: WFL and Exile” might ring as anticlimactic. Still contracted through the 1974 season by the Dolphins, Csonka, Kiick and Warfield all sign for 1975 with the Memphis Southmen of the upstart (and short-lived) World Football League, getting paid much more in the process but perhaps creating a distraction that derailed Miami’s chances of a three-peat.
The WFL folding led Csonka into acting, and then a return to the NFL with the lowly New York Giants, before “Section Five: Homecoming” describes his return to Miami in 1979. In what would be his final season, Csonka went out in style, leading the Dolphins in rushing with 837 yards and 12 touchdowns and being named NFL Comeback Player of the Year. His 10-6 team made the playoffs, losing 34-14 in the first round to the Steelers, now a dynasty on its way toward its fourth Super Bowl title in six years. Unable to agree with the Dolphins on a salary for 1980, Csonka retired.
After football, Csonka and life partner Audrey Bradshaw moved to Alaska in the 1990s. “Section Six: Gone Fishin'” recounts how old backfield mates Kiick and Morris flew north in 2014 to join the fullback for an angling expedition, recorded for an episode of NFL Films’ A Football Life called “The Perfect Backfield.”
The greatest Dolphins player ever? The Top 10 list likely includes six from those Super Bowl-winning squads, all Hall-of Famers: Griese, Csonka, Warfield, Little, Langer, and Buoniconti. The others are probably more recent Hall-of-Famers in quarterback Dan Marino, center Dwight Stephenson, defensive lineman Jason Taylor, and a linebacker who should be there, Zach Thomas.
Csonka’s 8,081 career rushing yards still have him in the Top 50 on an all-time list consisting almost entirely of halfbacks. He was one of the few fullbacks in history that opposing defenses actually had to game-plan for, with his ability to power out three or more additional yards after initial contact. And his blocking abilities and 235-pound frame (similar to most tight ends) practically made him an additional offensive lineman when he didn’t have the ball. The fullback position started dwindling through the 1980s, and there are only a few currently playing it, perhaps in part because no one could equal his success.
Shula, who would also lose to the Washington Redskins 27-17 in Super Bowl XVII following the 1982 season, would go 2-4 in such NFL title games. Csonka chose Shula to introduce him upon his 1987 induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but the coach never did win a Super Bowl without his head-on presence.
No one has ever worn No. 39, or the Dolphins uniform, better.
HEAD ON, by Larry Csonka, Matt Holt/BenBella Books, 344 pp., $26.99.