We had the chance to call the toss, and it was Walter's time to call it in the air, which he didn't. The coin hit the ground before he called it, and they just complained about the toss to start the game off. I thought, "OK, here we go."

What I think separates Mike from those great coaches is the guy coached the game like he played. When the guy tells you in his unique way how poorly you've done something, your response is, "You know? I've got to listen to this guy, because he's been there, he's done it."

I think Buddy's forte--and this is so different these days--Buddy could line everybody up on the defense and go down the line and tell each guy what he did the best, and then he found a way to put you in that position to do what you did best.

In my experience, in the defensive huddle, if you screwed a play up and got back into the huddle with the guys, you were held accountable.

I guess one thing that really stands out for me is a situation we had in Dallas, where we go into play Ditka's old team, Tom Landry, and you could actually feel not just tension, but you really understood what was on the line. It wasn't just a game. At the time they were still considered somewhat "America's Team." You could feel the relationship on a level of respect between Landry and Ditka, and with all those things together the night before the game, you would expect a fire-and-brimstone talk by Ditka to go out and get this thing done because of all the things I just explained.

But completely out of character, the night before the game, Ditka puts on a videotape of a comedian. I forget the guy's name, but he had this skit he would do about football, and it was pretty funny. All Mike said that night was, "You know what? If you don't know it by now, then you're not going to know it by us talking about it."

I've got to tell you, that whole year after the midway point, when teams came out, you could see that some were defeated before they even snapped the ball.

At the time, I really didn't understand how brash it was for us to do that (1). I didn't even equate the fact that we were singing a song about the Super Bowl and we hadn't even gotten to the playoffs yet.

We wanted the Dolphins to win that playoff game and have that rematch in the Super Bowl.

I just returned from Japan. The martial art that I'm involved in is called kendo, where I am a third-degree black belt.

When I began writing those books (2), I did not have the first clue that they would turn out to be as popular or getting as much recognition as me playing for a professional team. I'm considering getting a few more books out.

I got a call from Oliver Stone's people to audition for the movie "Any Given Sunday." I promptly lost the role to LL Cool J. His name is bigger in the industry than mine.

The main thing about my parents: Everything started with school. I had to do well in school.

Never do anything in victory that you would not do in defeat.

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, and they're throwing dirt on that hole that they're going to out us all in sooner or later, it's going to come down to how you treated people, how you handled situations. That will be the legacy that you leave behind.

(1): Shoot the "Super Bowl Shuffle" video.

(2): The "Shaun Gayle's Sports Tales" series.