Just how tough was Mike Curtis?
In 1970, during a Colts/Dolphins matchup, a drunken fan ran onto Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium during a game and tried to grab the ball. An enraged Curtis ripped off the fan’s head, threw the freshly decapitated head at the feet of Don Shula, and hung the corpse from the goal posts and beat it like a pinata. “Just sending a warning,” was all he had to say about it.
Okay—the pinata part is a lie.
Curtis didn’t have the “Monsters of the Midway” mythology that played a part in the legend of Butkus, nor did he have the stretch of NFL titles that enriched Nitschke’s legacy.
He was just tough. We are talking “he almost punched Johnny Unitas in the face during a game but didn’t because he was a rookie and hadn’t yet earned the right to do that” tough.
Just how tough was Mike Curtis?
In 1970, with three regular season games to go, Curtis said at a team meeting that he planned on practicing all out, to his absolute maximum effort, and was going to play the same way. And that he planned on winning the two playoff games and the Super Bowl because everyone would be performing to as high a standard as he held. And if they didn’t? They would deal with him. Then he sat down. Meeting over.
They won the next six games—partially out of fear of Curtis’s divine retribution.
THAT is how tough Mike Curtis was.
Check out this video on Mr. Curtis
