Raiders in the Orange Bowl?
Get me rewrite. Who’d believe that fairy tale?
“I’m having a tough time living that one down,” Auer said, chuckling.
The Dolphins’ first hero is 63 today, living in Winter Park, anything but retired. He owns a computer consulting and training firm, and – remember that dune buggy with the rollbars? – fledgling NASCAR team.
He’s not sure even his racecar driver knows his background.
“I don’t make a practice of telling people.”
History somehow has passed down only one indelible snapshot of that first Dolphins year, and it is Auer’s improbable fireworks that launched a franchise. Forty years on, it’s as if everything else about 1966 has disappeared, except that.
“A storybook thing,” Auer called it.
19
1965
March 3:
American Football League Commissioner Joe Foss meets with Minneapolis lawyer Joseph Robbie in Miami, and Foss encourages Robbie to apply for an expansion franchise in Miami.
August 16:
AFL awards its first expansion franchise to Joe Robbie and TV star Danny Thomas for $7.5 million.
November 27:
Miami picks Kentucky quarterback Rick Norton and Illinois running back Jim Grabowski in the first round of the AFL’s college draft.
Timeline 1965-1969
20
DOLPHIN TRIVIA:
DOLPHIN TRIVIA:
Which Dolphin complained about the car the team gave him as part of his contract?
Name the only Dolphin ever to intercept Joe Namath for a touchdown.
Cookie Gilchrist.
Pete Jaquess in 1966.
1966
January 29:
George Wilson is named the Dolphins’ first head coach after eight years coaching the Detroit Lions.
21
Quarterback Dick Wood and head coach George Wilson during the first training camp, July 26, 1966. (Bob East/Miami Herald)
September 2:
In the franchise’s first regular-season game in front of 26,776 at the Orange Bowl, the Dolphins’ Joe Auer returns the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, but Oakland wins, 23-14.
DOLPHIN TRIVIA:
Which quarterback led Oakland to victory in the first regular-season game ever played by the Dolphins?
Tom Flores, who later coached the Raiders to two Super Bowl victories.
22
Joe Auer takes the opening kickoff and runs 95 yards for a TD with 26,776 fans going nuts as he is pursued by Oakland’s Mike Mercer (10) and Rodger Bird (21). Auer, a hometown hero, played at Coral Gables High. Auer finished the season with 416 yards rushing, 22 catches, and averaged 24.9 yards on kickoff returns. Oakland won, 23-14. September 2, 1966. (John Pineda/Miami Herald)
October 16:
After going 0-4 in the preseason and opening the regular season 0-5, the Dolphins win their first game, beating Denver 24-7 in front of 22,191 at the Orange Bowl.
23
DOLPHIN TRIVIA:
What was the shortest field goal ever missed by a Dolphin, and who missed it?
Nine yards, Gene Mingo in 1966 (the goalposts were on the goal line then).
1967
September 17:
Quarterback John Stofa breaks his right ankle, and rookie Bob Griese leads the Dolphins to a 35-21 victory over Denver in the season opener at the Orange Bowl. Griese throws a 68-yard TD pass to Joe Auer.
Bob Griese, soon to be known as the general, is Miami’s ‘smart’ quarterback in battle with Houston in the Orange Bowl, 1968. (John Pineda/Miami Herald)
24
November 26:
Dolphins end an eight-game losing streak