RUSH: Stan in Surprise, Arizona. Great to have you, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Good morning, Rush. Lovable, little fuzzball dittos to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.

CALLER: Hey, before I get to my actual question, can I make just a real quick comment on the story you haven’t gotten to yet about overmothered men?

RUSH: Yeah. “America is Awash in Overmothered Men” right here in the formerly nicotine-stained fingers awaiting my treatment coming up —

CALLER: I can’t wait to hear it. But actually there is a growing body of scientific evidence that the increase in the amount of so-called estrogenic compounds in the environment are having a negative effect on masculine traits, and there’s more studies being done over in Japan, also in Western Europe. I haven’t heard of anything coming out of the United States yet, but there may be some actual biological reasons behind that story.

RUSH: Well, I’ll be sure to investigate that aspect of it. This is primarily cultural.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: This story and its claims.

CALLER: Well, I look forward to hearing that. Anyway, to my question. I just wondered if you had a comment on Don Shula’s passing and if you happened to know him personally.

RUSH: Well, I had met him a couple times at some charity golf tournaments. He was one of these people that you’ve known them on television that is bigger than life for your whole life, then one day you have a chance to meet them, and he was always exactly the way you hoped he would be. He was not distant. He was more than willing to talk to you about anything. He loved the NFL.

You know, I found a lot of people who, when they retire from whatever it is they’ve done, they don’t want to talk about it, they’ve had their life fill of it, they’re done with it. But he couldn’t get enough of it. I asked him, I said, “Do you miss it? You still miss coaching?” He said, “You know what I miss most is the big games, the Monday night games and the playoffs. You can’t get enough of those if you’re coach, if you’re player, you just can’t get enough.” But he’s the warmest, nicest person. He had no airs about him. He was not put-offish, like I say, wasn’t distant. I had a pleasant time talking to him three or four different times when I had run into him at various charity golf tournaments.

CALLER: Well, speaking of golf, then, let me throw a little curveball at you, maybe a question to think about for a while. Who would be the other three people in your dream golf foursome?

RUSH: Ahhhh, dream golf foursome. Now, that is something that I would have to take some time to think about. I love those kinds of questions. I always love it when I’m in the answer to those kinds of questions. You know how often that happens, people, “Who would you love to have dinner with?” I love it when I am in the answer to those questions. I haven’t been asked that question so I’ll have to think about it.

You know what else about Don Shula? He was deeply respected throughout the league. I’ll never forget, Bum Phillips, who was the coach of the Houston Oilers, had a way of describing the talent of Don Shula as a coach. And Bum Phillips spun all these old home-isms. He had country sayings for any number of circumstances, and he said about Don Shula, he said, “He can take his’n and beat your’n. And then he can take your’n and beat his’n.” Meaning he was the coach that made the difference.

He was the coach that made the players champions. And he could take your players and win with ’em. He could take his own players and win with ’em. And within the coaching community, that would be a pretty lofty compliment. (interruption) Hm-hm. (interruption) Oh, man that’s hard to say when they were better — Snerdley wanting to know if Landry and Shula and that era, those coaches were better than the coaches of today. That’s so hard to say. Because the game has some things about it that are universal that never change.

And then for marketing purposes they want fans to think the game is being revolutionized every year by some highfalutin coach who’s come up with new zone blitzes or new this or new that. But Shula and Landry, they had seen it all. I once asked Pat Summerall this. I was at a Warren Buffett golf tournament, and I said, “Look. I need to ask you a question. Is the game these guys are playing today really that much different than what you old-timers were playing?”

He said, “Well, in the passing game it is. In the passing game it’s been totally revolutionized from the days that I played.” Pat Summerall was in the fifties and sixties, the kicker so forth, New York Giants. But, yeah, that’s a tough one. If you look at a coach, is a coach an X’s and O’s schemer, a guy that comes up with plays that fool others, is he a good motivator, is he a great organizer?

I mean, there’s so much that goes into what a coach does and whether a coach is good or not. I don’t know that I could tell you whether the coaches of yesteryear were better coaches than the coaches of today ’cause you have to be real careful of the PR. And I don’t say this negatively. But I’m not kidding. The sports media, the PR, the league itself routinely present the game as being revolutionized every year by whoever the hot dog coach is or whoever the hot dog player, or whoever the hot dog offensive coordinator, it’s all marketing.

It’s all designed to make you think there’s some hot new coach that’s come up with some scheme that nobody’s ever thought of. It could be a zone blitz scheme. It could be route running. And they do it every year to try to get coaches jobs, offensive coordinators or head coaches or what have you. And it’s all marketing. It’s not to take away from the coaches and so forth.

But I think it’s brilliantly executed the way they’ve taken this game and basically made many of the fans who love it think that it is being literally revolutionized every season with things that have never been done before, which is simply not possible. I mean, there’s only one way to run a zone blitz. There’s only one way to design some of these plays, right, Brian? Brian knows what I’m talking about. And, plus, when you got quarterbacks with an IQ of about 8, there’s not a whole lot that you can do on offense.