Sept. 10, 2024
Larry Little: Chicken
Undrafted out of Bethune-Cookman in 1967, Larry Little turned a $750 free agent signing bonus with the San Diego Chargers into a Hall of Fame career with the Miami Dolphins. Little led the way for Larry Csonka, Mercury Morris, and Jim Kiick during the Dolphins run of three straight Super Bowl appearances, back-to-back championships, and the NFL’s only perfect season. Contributors to this episode include Sevach Melton and Dolphins Productions. Theme song created and performed by The Honorable SoLo D.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:00:00
Speaker 1: You're now diving. I'm gonna have been.
00:00:08
Speaker 2: That who sitting down with Seth living there, Oh Jay Jew Juice, And this is strictly for them, true fan Dophins number one of course, y'all just on the other nearest boys talk that might have.
00:00:24
Speaker 1: Been that pitch tank.
00:00:25
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Fish Tank presented by iHeartRadio right here on the Miami Dolphins Network, Seth Lovett and the man with the best hands in the podcast business, O J McDuffie, Juice.
00:00:36
Speaker 4: How you feeling today, man?
00:00:37
Speaker 1: Man, you know I'm feeling great, big Seth.
00:00:39
Speaker 5: Anytime we get a chance, as you know, to talk about my side of the football, He's gonna be a great day, bro.
00:00:45
Speaker 1: And this is a great day for sure.
00:00:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, great day, A Hall of Fame caliber day, someone.
00:00:51
Speaker 5: Might say, absolutely, man, I love it, Keith stacking these Hall of famers, man, you know, and this is a great one man, and just a great, great individual, great man.
00:01:00
Speaker 1: And I just I love the fact that I've gotten to get to know this man.
00:01:04
Speaker 3: Well, we're so excited to welcome in Miami Dolphins legend, but NFL legend, Larry, Little Larry, thank you for joining us for the second time you came alone. This time though, last time we saw you, you were protecting a couple guys.
00:01:17
Speaker 1: My pleasure.
00:01:17
Speaker 2: You know, I enjoyed the last time I was with you guys and with Murricans, because I'm the one that led them to the Promised Land.
00:01:25
Speaker 4: That's right, you led us to the promise lands. I think what really happened. I love that. God, I love that.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: Larry.
00:01:33
Speaker 5: You know, your career and really your whole story is truly legendary and we can't wait to discuss at all.
00:01:39
Speaker 1: But there's a more recent story that I have to talk about. You know that. I'd love to tell you what happens to need of I'm not sweet, right, oh.
00:01:46
Speaker 3: You love to tell I mean, Larry, he tells me how he's got the best seats in the building every time.
00:01:50
Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, I'm up in the press box. I got you well.
00:01:55
Speaker 5: Two seasons ago, as you know, as you recall, we were playing at Green Bay Packers on Christmas, right, and it was cold Florida cold, and probably anywhere else for a lot of places, cold forty six degrees might kick off cold, you know what I mean. And so I'm sitting there big seth every alumni, and Larry knows this every in alumni. Sweet, every game we open the windows up, you know, when the game's about to start, we open the windows up right, okay. And there's some people like saying, yo, okay, man, we did close those windows. I said, no, we're not closing the windows. We're not closing the windows. And I look back at Larry. I said, Larry, you want me to close the windows? He said, close those windows, young fella, right, Larry, tell us, tell us, tell us why you had me basically made me close those windows?
00:02:36
Speaker 1: Larry, Well, you.
00:02:37
Speaker 2: Know my balls are not younger than yours. You like get cold quickly than you young people. So I was gonna say it anyway, but you see it before I said it, I was too little, bad window.
00:02:52
Speaker 1: You know what exeth.
00:02:54
Speaker 5: Larry is the king in there, man, So whatever the king says, whatever the man.
00:02:58
Speaker 1: Says, that's what we do in the sweet. Bro.
00:03:00
Speaker 3: Well, this is what I wanted to ask, because I know, Juice, there's rules in there, and like you have your seat and a lot of guys go there to socialize and you're there to watch the game and nobody can sit in your seat in it. But when Larry Little steps into the box and he's like, closed the windows. Was there any pushback.
00:03:15
Speaker 1: From who from me? No, it was immediate. I tried to close all the way.
00:03:20
Speaker 5: I tried to close the other Sweets windows that were next door, does and everything. Everybody, everybody's windows get closed.
00:03:25
Speaker 4: Start going around the whole club level.
00:03:27
Speaker 2: And take this whole building down different than other places cold. You know, when the wind is blowing too, so you know it gets cold of that when they're doing the winter time.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad you got him straight, Larry. I appreciate you doing that. Juice gets fired up on game days.
00:03:47
Speaker 1: I do. I do good. Well.
00:03:49
Speaker 3: That leads me into my first question, So that that season, that twenty twenty two season was the first for Mike McDaniel, and ever since he arrived in South Florida, offensive football has looked different down here, and it's certainly been more productive than what we've seen in quite some time. Not as productive as some of the things you guys were doing, but it's been unbelievable what Mike McDaniels brought to this team and this offense specifically, Larry. Everybody knows, we've all seen the highlights you were one of the greatest, if not the greatest pulling guard of all time. And we've all seen you out there and that sweep and knocking fools down, so Zanka can have a clear path there when he wasn't knocking people down. How would Larry Little like to play in this offense, that wide zone offense where it requires offensive linemen to be athletic and fire off the ball. How do you think your skill set would have fit in an offense like this?
00:04:44
Speaker 2: Well, with them running at zone offense in the running game, it would have been perfect for me.
00:04:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know I wouldn't.
00:04:55
Speaker 2: Have gotten as tied now as I got back in the day and the running and like all that pulling in the Ouedge Bowl.
00:05:04
Speaker 1: So but you know, it's a great offense. Uh.
00:05:09
Speaker 2: They probably probably they probably throw the ball boarder in a game that we do the all year.
00:05:17
Speaker 4: You're right, right, that is true.
00:05:20
Speaker 2: You know, I remember some games we may have thrown the ball twelve times because of the offense that we had and the running back that we had and a quarterback like Grease Heat Bob you know was calling his own plays back then, too, So Bob was gonna take what the defense gave us.
00:05:39
Speaker 5: So Larry with him, with him calling his own plays, did you have any influence on of those play calls, like, yo, Bob, we need to you know, I need to we need to run this thing, or we need to you know, maybe.
00:05:48
Speaker 1: Throw one more pass, or any influence.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: From you, well, in sure, gage players, I'll always give him a stare run behind me, we get it, run behind me, and he did it.
00:06:01
Speaker 1: He ran.
00:06:01
Speaker 2: I think he ran behind me at least seventy percent of the time.
00:06:06
Speaker 4: Especially Yeah, I love that Jews. Was that the stair you got when he told you to close the windows?
00:06:12
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
00:06:13
Speaker 5: It's probably the same exact stay and Bob Greasy obliges obviously.
00:06:18
Speaker 3: I mean, if you had think about it, Juice, if you're the quarterback, look, Bob Greesey's in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
00:06:24
Speaker 4: But if you've.
00:06:25
Speaker 3: Got Zanka kick and Morris behind you, and you've got Larry Little in front of you, not to mention Jim Langer, Bob Coochberg, I mean, why wouldn't you hand the ball off right?
00:06:37
Speaker 2: A great offensive line? You not only mean, but yeah, Norm Evans that played right next to me and with coach Jim and Langler and Wayne Moore. I mean, we had the best offensive line in football doing the little day because we had a great offensive line coach, and Mommie Clark and Monnie Clott loved running the football.
00:06:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know.
00:06:59
Speaker 5: Let's let's turn back the a little bit. I mean, you grew up here in Miami and more specifically in the Overtown area. If I'm not mistaken, then you had to Thune Cookman where you play offense and defensive line, and obviously you were a all world there. But then the nineteen sixty seven draft rolls around, and we're talking about a day and age when I think it was seventeen rounds, I believe, and seventeen rounds go by four hundred and fifty five players selected, and not a damn one of them is named Larry Little. First of all, tell us about your draft day experience, because I mean, we read this great story about the phone that was next to your dorm room. But I also want to talk about you going undrafted. How much of that, in your opinion, had to do with you planning an HBCU during the time when the NFL just didn't expand their scouting to those schools at that point.
00:07:49
Speaker 1: Well, when I.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: Was signed by the San Diego Chargers, Oh you got to like you, you just said, the phone moving right next to my room and the dorm. I was the captain of the team, and I wouldn't let anybody use that phone all day because I was waiting on the phone call that never came. Right the next day, I got a call from San Diego Chargers, know the Baltimore coach.
00:08:17
Speaker 1: Really Shula was the coach's.
00:08:19
Speaker 2: Ball to tomour at that time, and I asked him how much bonuses I was going to get. He said, oh, we don't give bonuses, okay. So then right after them, San Diego called me and I said, how much boneas are you giving me? Oh, Larry're going to give you seven hundred and fifty dollars And I jumped.
00:08:38
Speaker 1: To it, amazing because I never had that much money in my life.
00:08:45
Speaker 2: And they get next day, guess who called me The Miami Dolphins. Joe Thomas was their general manager at the time. And when Joe called me, he said, Larry, how would you like to come back to play at home? I said, I would have loved to play in Miami. Joe, he said, Uh.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Tell me this, how much bones.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: Were you going to give me, Oh, we were going to give you five hundred dollars already signed niggas.
00:09:11
Speaker 4: Wrong number, wrong number. So Larry, if he had sat a thousand bucks, what would have happened?
00:09:19
Speaker 2: Well, because I hadn't signed the name on the paper yet, but I agree to it, I.
00:09:23
Speaker 1: Would have given to Miami.
00:09:25
Speaker 3: Could have saved a couple of years. Yeah, that's too funny, man, that's too funny. Seven hundred and fifty bucks.
00:09:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Larry, I mean we're talking about the HBCUs and how they were overlooked back then. How much progress do you think has been made now in terms of some of these guys getting opportunities to play at the next level, at this level.
00:09:46
Speaker 1: You know what helped the hbc US.
00:09:48
Speaker 2: Back in the day when I played, the American Football League was just starting and they had to get players because a lot of the guys from the major college they were going to the NFL. But back then they didn't have anywhere to go but but the HBCUs. That's why you see so many HBCU guys now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I think it's seventy five, seventy five, thirty five others that wasn't the HBCUs or in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, But most of those guys were in the old AIRFL for like me, myself, Art Shell, people like that, Deacon Jones, Buck Buchanan, all those guys ames but not Deacon but Buck Buchanan. All of us came from the old AFLOW.
00:10:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the names that listened, right.
00:10:44
Speaker 5: You know there's some ballers back there, big seth and you know what I mean, just think at the opportunities and you know, like you talk about overlooked a little bit.
00:10:50
Speaker 3: Right, Well only for a little bit though, So and that's kind of what I want to talk to. So you get your seven hundred and fifty bucks, you go across the country. Now you're in San Diego, basically the two best two best weather locations in the entire right AFL NFL. You go from Miami to San Diego. So we were dealing with a smart man here.
00:11:10
Speaker 4: Juice for sure, for sure. But is it true?
00:11:14
Speaker 3: Granted we just talked about, you know, how athletic you were. Did sid Gilman actually try to play you at full back?
00:11:22
Speaker 1: Yes? He did.
00:11:23
Speaker 2: He ran the forty yard dash and I ran the forty in forty nine forty.
00:11:29
Speaker 4: In paths in pats Damn.
00:11:35
Speaker 2: But and I was weighing like two hundred and eighty five pounds at the time. Oh my god, and they thought I could be I don't know if you got maybe too young to remember Jim Nance. Jim Nance played with the Boston Pictures back in those days, and he was a big full back, and they thought I could beat it. Maybe the next Jim Nance, I'm running the pass, pat of the ball hit me in the chest, bouncing back out.
00:12:02
Speaker 1: You know.
00:12:04
Speaker 2: I was a good athlete, but not that good of an athlete.
00:12:09
Speaker 4: Oh that's hilarious.
00:12:10
Speaker 2: So the line, the offensive line coach at the time was Joe Madro, and Joe wanted to move me. Went to see it and say, I think this guy could play guard because I played both ways in college up until my senior year.
00:12:23
Speaker 3: Were you a tackle or garden at Bathom? Were you a tackle or a guard at Bath?
00:12:29
Speaker 1: I'm there both, and I was a defensive tackle.
00:12:32
Speaker 2: I made All American my senior year, a defensive tackle, not offensive tackle.
00:12:37
Speaker 1: Oh guarrd.
00:12:38
Speaker 2: But they moved me to offense in San Diego, and Joe became a guy. He was like he was an offensive line coach. He was like five foot two, always in my face. I wanted to slap him a lot of times.
00:12:52
Speaker 1: And then held my development as a as.
00:12:58
Speaker 2: An offensive lineman. Although I played office before. And another thing that was good for me. My college coach played professional football. He was the first person for Bethoone Cookman to play professional football and he bought the pro offense to us at Pathum and I pulled a lot in college and that helped my development also.
00:13:22
Speaker 1: So when I got to San Diego, they moved and moved me to guard. I was ready to go, right.
00:13:27
Speaker 4: They weren't throwing the ball at you.
00:13:31
Speaker 1: I was going to taxi squad for four games. That's what they called it.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: What are they call it nowadays, practice squad squad, And we called it.
00:13:42
Speaker 1: The taxi squad back in the day.
00:13:44
Speaker 2: Well, my rookie year, you know, I was my first contract of twelve thousand, five hundred dollars okay in San Diego, California, state tax federal tax I must have made maybe eight thousand dollars by rookie year put after taxes. And I've been on an active roster for twelve five so I didn't make any money hobby, but I was just happy to.
00:14:08
Speaker 1: Be playing every now. I didn't even buy a car my rookie here. Wow. So that's how tough it was.
00:14:15
Speaker 2: But you know, I was determined that I was going to play this game on a high level, and I wasn't gonna let anything stop me.
00:14:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt.
00:14:24
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I mean, something else happened in San Diego, and it's really it's a really important part of your journey. Here you earn the nickname that is stuck with you to this day. Tell us about Chicken. Please tell us, I want to hear yours. Why you know we think that chicken has become your nickname.
00:14:44
Speaker 2: Well, my rookie year re trained in a city called Escondido, California, and it was mainly a Mexican type food down there, and oh I even Mexican food.
00:14:58
Speaker 1: So my first night I caught her, I was some.
00:15:00
Speaker 2: Of the veterans down into the city of San Diego and they had a place on the court and there's a little strip mall called Brady Key Fried Chicken.
00:15:10
Speaker 1: Soul Fool Chicken. I ate a whole chicken and drank a fifth of ripple wine and the guys got a command, bore you ate all that chicken, We're gonna call you chicken little.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: And that name followed me from San Diego to Miami. And don't believe that a lot of that more likes to tale that when you were roommates, Nasty I sent him to the chicken place in Buffalo and I ate seventy five chicken wings. That's a lot that that not likes to tell.
00:15:48
Speaker 4: What's the real number. What's the real number? What's the real number? If that's telling a lot, I ate about twenty five.
00:16:01
Speaker 1: Wings.
00:16:02
Speaker 4: This is true, you know.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:16:07
Speaker 4: And did they pass the test? Like, were they legit.
00:16:11
Speaker 1: Test? Okay, anyone has Buffalo wings?
00:16:14
Speaker 4: Now, that's right, that's right. That is too funny. God, that's good.
00:16:18
Speaker 3: So well, well, two seasons in San Diego, a whole bunch of chicken, apparently, not a whole lot of anything else. Right, you know, you're playing time. It's crazy to think about it now, knowing where your career goes after this. But after two seasons, the Dolphins and coach Shuler are like, okay, well no, it's not coach Shula yet, so it's just a Dolphins still at this point, and They're like, all right, for two hundred and fifty bucks, we lost out on this guy that we believed in. They finally got their man, and they decide they're going to trade for you. And in this crazy twist of fate, they trade your high school teammate, Mack Lamb to the Chargers in exchange for your rights. And I feel like you told us a story last time you're here. Did you and Mac on any of each other or something when this trade was happening.
00:17:03
Speaker 1: Uh, Mac and I were very close.
00:17:06
Speaker 2: And although he was ahead of me, but going up over town like we did, everybody was pretty close. And over town when I was the Chargers, I met some Dolphin guys in the watering hole out in San Diego that was right next to the chicken places. UH hung out there when they came. So it was a place here in Miami called the Satellite. There was a watering hole for all the Miami Dolphin players. And and when I came home, do me all, because I came home do the off season. I come home, I went to the Satellite, a lot of gathering and I'm sitting there at the bar and I'd got a phone call already that I was traded to.
00:17:50
Speaker 4: The Dolphins, so you already knew.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: I knew. And then Mac walked.
00:17:55
Speaker 2: Into the uh well, into the watering hole. I was called I would call it the bar into the.
00:18:00
Speaker 1: Water hole, and man, what's happening?
00:18:04
Speaker 2: I feel it back? It was I've been treated to San Diego. No, it's treated to Miami. I'm sorry, I've been treated. I said, oh man, we'll be teammates up then now I'm back. They treated you me for you you, so he got it. But I found out who they had traded me for, so that went them that she had give him him a coach. I'm sorry cutting your ol. Juice called it nothing for nothing deal.
00:18:35
Speaker 4: How about that?
00:18:36
Speaker 1: Right? Right? Well, we're gonna talk a little bit more about that.
00:18:39
Speaker 5: We talk about, you know, you going into the Hall of Fame, Larry, because I know you had choice words, you know, when it came to that.
00:18:46
Speaker 2: Right there doing my Hall of Fame speech, I think although she was in the Hall of Fame already, he had been going. He had gone in ten years before me, and they was a team anniversary, so he was there. And during my speech, I said, I want to thank said Gilman for giving me an opportunity to play professional football. And I would also like to thank said Gilman for trading me to Miami.
00:19:14
Speaker 1: Although out but you know, whether I love San Diego.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: I was going to make my home in San Diego because I love the weather out there. And in San Diego we weren't winning championships, but we were winning. And Miami was an expansion team, and you know there are three games in two games here, three games there. I didn't want to come to that. I feel like that, but then again, it worked out for me. In nineteen sixty nine, I played. I played a year before Shore. Now right Shooter was at the coach and I came. I came to Miami, Joe. I played one year under George Wilson and on a hot day, George Wilson say, oh what the hell, go.
00:20:01
Speaker 1: Jump in the pool? You practice? Oh man, well we for Rudu waiting when that man named Don Shula came.
00:20:10
Speaker 4: That's too good.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're gonna talk about it. How about that?
00:20:13
Speaker 5: Because I tell Seth all the time, you came here in nineteen sixty nine, you guys go three ten and one, Like you said, you're under under George Wilson.
00:20:20
Speaker 1: He gets fired and Shula.
00:20:21
Speaker 5: Comes in and I tell Seth like, yo, I think I caught it a nicer Don Shuler compared to from what I understand from what other guys had gone through. So to talk about that, how how things change one no more pool days in general, and you know, as it's late to coach, and you know, I felt like sometimes your weight might have been an issue with coach at times too. Man talk about your relationship with coach when you got here and when he got here, and how things changed.
00:20:46
Speaker 2: Well, you know, they had a press conference and I found out he was gonna be named the head coach at the DuPont Plaza Hotel downtown Miami. So I drove downtown and introduced myself to coach Shoe and I said, I went up to him, the head coach, my name is Larry Little, I'm your right guard. That's what I played. He looked at me and said, how much do you wait? I said twenty five. We just walked off. They said another word to me.
00:21:17
Speaker 1: That was it. You see, the thing is, back in those days, the guys from outsize compared. I was big for alignment offensive lineman, but.
00:21:29
Speaker 2: Today those guys are huge for the offensive lineman, and also that that's the yeah, the first major strike too. And we didn't go to camp until the week before our first preseason game, and I thought, man, oh, we got it made.
00:21:47
Speaker 1: I got it made. We don't We got a game, so I know.
00:21:49
Speaker 2: We can't work that hard before the first preseason game. Man, we're in for a big rude Awake went in there Sunday night and he started reading the schedule off tours. After he got passed the second practice, he kept going. I thought it was after one day, and then two days he kept going, and then at the three o'clock we'll be back on the field again.
00:22:15
Speaker 1: That's three. Then were back on the field again. That's wait a minute. To myself, you mean the temple.
00:22:22
Speaker 2: We're gonna be practicing four times a day, four days, four times a day, although two of them went pass but still minerally just being on the field, although they were like walk through in the evening, but being on the field four times a day was unbelievable. And then and we had six pre season games at that time, and four weeks after that, he went three times a day.
00:22:52
Speaker 4: Wait a minute.
00:22:54
Speaker 1: Coach Uler could have coached in this era of football, no, he coulnot.
00:23:00
Speaker 3: You violation for sure. Forget what the players, they would react. Wait a second, you were doing three days once the season started. Is that what you're telling me?
00:23:13
Speaker 4: Doing the preseason during the preseason games?
00:23:15
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have the season started four days.
00:23:20
Speaker 4: During camp, three days during the preseason.
00:23:22
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my god did and hon.
00:23:27
Speaker 2: Bow, we were on one side of the field when when the heat doing the game, when he got it, he saw that and he switched us to those sides so the poling team could be standing in the heat.
00:23:40
Speaker 1: Well was sun study the sun studies been there forever.
00:23:43
Speaker 4: For the for the Dolphins, right, yes, yes, yes, that was absolute genius for sure.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: And not only do the Dolphins players thank coach Sulla for that, but there's what about thirty five thousand fans right, just.
00:23:59
Speaker 5: You that you ran Longebow You you played there only in college? Okay, yeah, yeah, only in college, played against you there. And by the time I got to the Dolphins, we were already at Joe Robbie.
00:24:12
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, that place was loud.
00:24:15
Speaker 5: Oh man, think about that, Larry, talk about that experience in the Orange Bowl. Man, it had to be unbelievable experience in the Orange Bowl.
00:24:24
Speaker 2: It was you can look right back. You would turn around and a get somebody you know that leaving that email.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: It was so close to you.
00:24:33
Speaker 3: Crazy, so Larry you when you're talking about he asked about your weight and uh and jus, I hope I'm not stepping on your toes here, but I'm remembering so so I'm remembering some of the interviews we had with offensive lineman like Richmond Webb, Keith Simms, and they would talk about weigh in and remember Dreuce Bobby Monica said that that they would line up. It was almost like Saturday night at the movies. All the players would line up and wait to see if Richmond and Keith could make weight. And they would sit there and they'd watch him get on the scale. Did you have to go through this whole like weigh in process with coach?
00:25:07
Speaker 2: Yes, we will be waiting there on Thursdays. And Uh called tassive. He was that was his main job basically for when and.
00:25:19
Speaker 1: He loved when. I loved the way he would love to tell her to go back to the coach. Somebody would go wait, so uh, the night before whey in, I knew I knew a pharmacist who was a good friend of mine, and I would get water pills. Oh boy, you know to make sure I made to wait the next day. And you know it's not literally a drug dealer.
00:25:46
Speaker 2: But the night before wheening, a lot of teammates were bringing my doorbell at my home. And but one time I was half a pound overweight. And you know at bits came college when you were going into the wait the meeting room, Carl said I would have had a pound old way. I said I wasn't, So I was going to my box by shoeler. I was going to the A lineman said that he was going to the meeting, said you will have a pound over week today?
00:26:22
Speaker 1: Huh? And I said no, I was gonna have a pound Your boys said I was having a pounder over. Oh. He didn't like that, so he got up in the meeting. He said, you know what I'm.
00:26:33
Speaker 2: Tired of you guys bitching about being old weighed when your old way your old wait, I'm what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna mix it up. So he then he may have more scary the defensive line coach more than wont that job. So we went back to cause Carl took pride in telling Shuler that someone was overweight. You know, so who I got time. I'm getting tired of you guys bitching about who's the old way, Who's well you old weigh your way?
00:27:00
Speaker 1: So I didn't say anything.
00:27:01
Speaker 2: But you know the guys, you know they getting the water pills helped me out anyway, right, because I was it's about all night. But now zonk Zonk could make the way in that Thursday, and on Sunday it was like two thirty nine, I think something like that. On Sunday he was two sixty. And then the next week they is sitting in asana again trying to lose weight.
00:27:31
Speaker 1: Then we had a guy named.
00:27:32
Speaker 2: Frank Cornish who was also my team, made my room, made his sun play with it. That was cowboys and uh, the boy called him the Bappa the boppa. Get it his car with a sweatsuit on, turned that heat on and right. So I ride around just flitt the weight off to make way in.
00:27:53
Speaker 4: It just doesn't seem healthy way, but not being.
00:28:00
Speaker 2: Healthy weally meann't get water on the field until nineteen seventy five.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: You didn't get water till seventy wow. On the field. No, we didn't know.
00:28:14
Speaker 2: What we did was if a guy got hurt and they'll bring ice on the field, we'll go stand behind the line and hit the bags.
00:28:24
Speaker 1: I drinking water out of the bag. That dirty water out of the bag, I dreaded.
00:28:30
Speaker 3: Oh come on, man, So wait a second, were you at Did anybody like take a dive so everyone can run over and get water. Did you make a rookie go take a dive? Hey, go pull a hamstring so we can all sneak over to get through the ice bags.
00:28:43
Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna tell you the story.
00:28:44
Speaker 2: I took the biggest dive and mind me the off in history and shoot first she is I took a dive.
00:28:52
Speaker 1: You guys don't know this story.
00:28:54
Speaker 2: After the third practice, I told my roommate at the time the name of Freddy.
00:29:01
Speaker 1: I told what he is. You know what, man, I'm not gonna let this some or so and so killed me. I'm going down tomorrow. That was of the third practice of forty as.
00:29:16
Speaker 2: About halfway through the practice, I started reeling, going back and forth like I'm dizzy, and all of a sudden I hit the ground. Boom while I was on the ground. Uh, they came out and we had old ragging station wagon. Lennon, all the trainers came. The other trainer came up. Let see what was wrong with me.
00:29:39
Speaker 1: So they put me in the station wagon to take me back into the locker room. And I'm in the station wagon, but one I opened and one eye closed seeing what was happening.
00:29:52
Speaker 4: My kids were returning to be asleep.
00:29:54
Speaker 2: When they took me in the locker room, it was cold, and then and they started packing me in ice.
00:30:01
Speaker 1: I said, oh, hell, I.
00:30:02
Speaker 2: Gotta think think of plan be now. So I jumped up off the table like I was having hallucinations to get all that ice off of me. Because so the next day they they happen to go see different doctors and they then they can't find anything wrong with me. Then they finally sent me to an interness and the interno checked me all out and all over the place. I said, Larry, I looked, I can find anything wrong with you. You wanted the healthy specimens I've seen in my life. I said, doctor, you got to find something now.
00:30:41
Speaker 1: He said, well, you do have a slight sinus problem. I'm gonna put that on that.
00:30:50
Speaker 2: And to this day, to the day he died, he never knew that was the biggest act that ever happened with the Miami Dolphins.
00:31:00
Speaker 1: And he in through the I remember that day. I got just started giggling and I said, no, coach, I got you.
00:31:07
Speaker 4: Oh that's too good.
00:31:09
Speaker 2: Oh So.
00:31:13
Speaker 1: That was that was playing. It wasn't spontaneous at all.
00:31:17
Speaker 5: I think the best part is, Larry, that you didn't do it that day. You wait a couple of days to make it happen, you know what I mean. That was smart on your Yeah. I wanted to make sure I was starting first and I was starting at the time.
00:31:32
Speaker 4: Please your value.
00:31:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was a great days. That's too good man.
00:31:39
Speaker 5: So so Larry, once all this happens, I mean, it's it's like something out of an unbelievable movie.
00:31:44
Speaker 1: From here.
00:31:44
Speaker 5: I mean, you go from three, ten and one to ten and four and she was first first year to super Bowl, to the super Bowl, to undefeated three super Bowls and three years two titles and Dulptin become the most dominant rushing team in the history of the league up to that point. And you are the centerpiece in the middle of all this. What was that experience like? And have you ever dreamed anything like that was even possible.
00:32:08
Speaker 1: You know, the year we.
00:32:09
Speaker 2: Lost to Dallas in nineteen seventy one, our goal was to get back to the super Bowl, and we did not play a good game in Dallas that year. In fact, I think that was the only time was fumbling ever Miami Dolphin.
00:32:25
Speaker 1: He formled in that game.
00:32:27
Speaker 2: But you know, we we thought we were ready to play. Well we really weren't. We weren't ready to play, and that'll kicked our butts. But our goal the next year was to get back to the super Bowl and win it. And it started off you know, the preseason we were three three and three. We lost three preseason games that year. But once the season started, we played you know right now, team said people that teams people say we wouldn't We went under feed it because we had a soft schedule. Hell, everybody had to play the game on Sunday, right you know, So, I mean they were professionals. We were just better professionals than they were. You know, we I think the first game we'd beat I forgot we won the first game. Then we beat the Redskin, I mean the forty nine ers. We gets kept on. We didn't win a lot of games by large scores. Now they were closed games. They played a lot of closed games. But what it did was it gave us some resilience that in tight games. We found a way to pull these tight games out in the playoffs. I mean Cleveland Gale, the first game of the first preseason game of the year, Cleveland game was hell. We barely won that game and Charlie Babb blocked the punt. The next week we would we had to go into Pittsburgh and we had the better record.
00:33:57
Speaker 1: At that time, but we had to go in the Bury to play the.
00:34:00
Speaker 2: Steelers, a young, up and coming Pittsbury Steeler game. But we found a way to win win that game when a Larry Sipel took a punt and ran back.
00:34:12
Speaker 1: I mean, you know.
00:34:14
Speaker 2: Then the Super Bowl, we got ready to play the Redskins. We knew that we were a better football team because they were a bunch of what we would call an unemotional team. Then we did not show a lot of enthusiasm. We didn't do any jumping up and down. We just went out and took care of business. And uh, we got ready to play the Redskins. They were the older guys. They were older guys. They were called her over the hill game. And I didn't say that to everyone, but I told that to myself. If we're not gonna let these little man kick our ass.
00:34:50
Speaker 1: You know. And the game wasn't as close as a score. It wasn't for what Garro did in that game that.
00:34:58
Speaker 4: Would have been coming.
00:35:05
Speaker 1: Believable board history. And he came and Garol came to the sideline. God bless her dead.
00:35:13
Speaker 2: Forty I would have killed Garo before dead. What we're doing, what he did in that game, and that made it a close game. But and then the next year we had you know, everyone talks about the undefeated team, but in nineteen seventy.
00:35:29
Speaker 1: Three we were actually a better football team. Although we lost two.
00:35:34
Speaker 2: Games that year, we dominated more in nineteen seventy three than we did in nineteen seventy two. And I mean we, I mean we give in the playoffs, really walked through the playoffs that year. The first game we played, I think the Bengals.
00:35:54
Speaker 1: The first two times we had the ball against the Bengals, we scored. The next week we.
00:35:59
Speaker 2: Played uh Oakland Raiders and Oakland Beatles that year earlier out in Berkeley, California, and I did the Joe Namath again. We got ready to play them again. I said, we will not lose to the Oakland Raiders. And they put it up and it was all over the scoreboard on their wall, Larry Little predicting victory. Yeah, I'm predicting the damn it. We're gonna win it. And we scored the first two times in the ball.
00:36:26
Speaker 4: Put my name on it.
00:36:30
Speaker 1: And the next game he played out so good.
00:36:33
Speaker 2: We scored the first three times we had the I mean, we had walked through the playoffs that year. That's why I said, I feel that we were a better football team in nineteen seventy three. We did our guards down early. No, when we lost to Oakland in the second game of the year. We then went on a ten game winning streak and got ready to play the Baltimore Coaches. And the coach went to Baltimore Coaches. He was in trouble at that time, and it happened to be a guy by the name of House Mellenburger.
00:37:04
Speaker 1: He was a Coast coach, and I think Shooter was trying to help Howell to keep that job and to be not ready to play that game.
00:37:16
Speaker 2: Man.
00:37:17
Speaker 4: And there's quite an expense to help him keep that job.
00:37:20
Speaker 1: And a lot of us didn't play that crazy stuff. We had the conference, we had already clinched, like about eight games, we had already clinched the playoffs. And that's how that's one of the Coast beatings.
00:37:33
Speaker 4: Amazing memories.
00:37:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, thirty two and two. You can't beat that.
00:37:39
Speaker 4: No, Well, nobody has right, but he has.
00:37:42
Speaker 1: Nobody has right.
00:37:44
Speaker 3: Like they could talk about soft schedules or talk it wasn't your job to schedule the games, and it wasn't your job to build other teams rosters, right like you know every that that's the way this thing works.
00:37:55
Speaker 4: All you can do is line up on Sunday. That's it.
00:37:59
Speaker 3: That's it, As were their coaches, as were their general managers and everybody else.
00:38:03
Speaker 4: So I couldn't agree with you more.
00:38:05
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just when you think about the Pro Bowls, the All Pros, the Super Bowls, it's just.
00:38:10
Speaker 4: An incredible, incredible career.
00:38:13
Speaker 3: And then in nineteen ninety three, you take your rightful place in Canton, Ohio, as we discussed earlier, as we can see on that great T shirt of yours, you take your rightful place as a member of the Pro Football Hall of fame. Now, what I didn't realize in preparing for this that class was crazy. So they kind of call you guys the fab five. So juice, it's not just Larry Little, it's Dan Fouts, it's Chuck Nole, it's Walter Payton, it's Bill Walsh. It's just a ridiculous class.
00:38:43
Speaker 4: Like the Hall of Fame is.
00:38:44
Speaker 3: The Hall of Fame, everybody there is going to be one of the greatest to ever be around this game. But that group of five men is crazy impressive. What did it mean for you, Larry, a kid from Overtown, with everything you went through, undrafted your entire story, to end up there on the steps of Canton, Ohio and to go in there with that group of guys and get that gold jacket.
00:39:09
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Dan and I right now we're the only two survivors out of that class. Walters we ain't gone, Chuck Nolers no longer with us, and Bill Walsh is along with us. But every time Dan and I get together we see each other, Dan a hole over one finger Number one talk about our class and we joke about it. I know people in via the others or we don't care. We all Number one I mean, how can you beat that class? The Chuck Old Bill Walter Payton in that class?
00:39:44
Speaker 1: How can you beat it? You know?
00:39:46
Speaker 4: But it's pretty darn impression.
00:39:48
Speaker 1: We have a lot of pride in it, and just like that doesn't going undefeed it.
00:39:52
Speaker 2: That's the pride I have and being feeling that we're the number one class in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
00:40:00
Speaker 3: And Juice was telling me, like, you can make that statement because you've been back to watch how many of those classes?
00:40:06
Speaker 5: Right?
00:40:07
Speaker 1: What were you telling me out out of thirty one years? Now? Yeah? Incredible? What time I didn't go?
00:40:16
Speaker 2: Because then on autograph signed on the same weekend and I'm gonna make some money, so I didn't go ahead year, that's right?
00:40:25
Speaker 1: Did you give us?
00:40:28
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:40:30
Speaker 4: You don't pay me? How much are you going?
00:40:32
Speaker 1: No, I didn't go doing the COVID year. I didn't go that year. That was the second time.
00:40:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's understandable. Amazing.
00:40:41
Speaker 3: Well, you've been incredibly generous with your time here. But uh, we end every episode the same way. And I know you guys like to ground and pound it, but every now and then an offense needs to run a two minute drill and score in a hurry. So we ended every podcast with what we call the fish Tank two minute drill. We're gonna throw a few fast paced, fun questions. We think they're fun. Hopefully you think they're fun. To have some fun with the answers, and then we'll get you out of here. Sound good, No problem at all?
00:41:08
Speaker 1: All right.
00:41:08
Speaker 5: So, as we've talked about, Larry, you blocked for some of the greatest backs in the in the history of the game. But if you could pick one running back to block four that you never got a chance to block with block four, who would that be?
00:41:20
Speaker 1: WHOA? Probably Jim Brown? You're the greatest backup.
00:41:26
Speaker 3: Could you imagine Larry Little run at you Jim Brown behind him, which I with Jim Brown?
00:41:32
Speaker 4: That would have worked out nice? Larry, Are you ready for it?
00:41:34
Speaker 2: I blocked for old j Simpson in the Pro Bowls, so you know I had an opportunity broke block for him. Yeah.
00:41:42
Speaker 1: But you guys like Earl Campbell you're another great one. You know, maybe even a Ricky William.
00:41:51
Speaker 2: Oh, I like that that.
00:41:54
Speaker 1: Seem by in front of Ricky with Ricky's got his hand on his back, you know what I mean?
00:41:57
Speaker 4: Like, let's go, that would have been good. That would have been really good. All right, next question.
00:42:02
Speaker 3: In March of twenty twenty three, a portion of Northwest eleventh Terrace and Overtown was renamed Larry C.
00:42:09
Speaker 4: Little Street, obviously in your honor. What did that mean to you? I want to know what that meant to you to have a street named after you, have that street named after you.
00:42:17
Speaker 3: And then if you had the ability to name a street after a Miami dolphin, who would be the next guy to get a street named in his honor?
00:42:25
Speaker 1: That was a great honor for me. That was one of the biggest honors I received in my life. You know, when I.
00:42:36
Speaker 2: Made a lot of guys making the Hall of Fame, they shared tears for making the Hall of Fame.
00:42:44
Speaker 1: That particular day, I shed tears because my mom had worn in that day for me.
00:42:53
Speaker 2: And they had videos showing different videos that day at the auditory Book of Team, and uh, when they showed a picture of.
00:43:01
Speaker 1: My mom, that got it because she wanted that for me.
00:43:07
Speaker 2: And she passed away in twenty nineteen at the age of one hundred and then she wanted around to see that. See that day the person that the next person I think, yeah, man, although you have although he have.
00:43:23
Speaker 1: The time out, man, Yeah, he took out these one Larry's timeouts.
00:43:27
Speaker 2: Man.
00:43:27
Speaker 5: We know, I know how important moms are to Larry now man, he was you know, he holds a special place in my heart, he and his beautiful wife. When I met him and my mom met him, you know, we were cruising, you know, doing some dolphin cruises, man, and they all hit it off really well, man, and you hit it all. Idea man about about moms and your mom and I really hit it off whole next cruise.
00:43:51
Speaker 2: O Jays.
00:43:52
Speaker 5: The same for you, man, especially your mom is to you, man. And may all of our moms be watching us do this podcast right now, and look at our boys go you know what I mean, look at our boys and just just shining on us right now.
00:44:05
Speaker 1: Man. So I just wanted to say that, Manic. You know, I had to say that real quick.
00:44:09
Speaker 4: That's a good use of a timeout, juice, Yeah.
00:44:11
Speaker 1: For sure, for sure, for sure. But I was gonna say the other person that I would name the street.
00:44:17
Speaker 4: After it would be that more well, juice.
00:44:20
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was a technical difficulty or if Larry got us like he got Coach Schula that day and he told he must have told somebody that he was going down before this thing ended, so he tapped out in the two minute drill. I imagine he left it up to Zonke and Kick and mrk Now we know why he brought them in the last time. But unfortunately we've lost Larry for the rest of his interview. But amazing stuff. I know you are a huge fan of his. You get to spend all kinds of great time with him and all the appearance that he does. I'm you know, he talked about how there's only two guys left and as survivors in his nineteen ninety three enshrinment class, and unfortunately he's you know, we didn't get a chance to ask him, but he's seen a lot of his teammates pass away as well, guys that he made amazing memories with, guys that will be always remembered in Dolphin's lore.
00:45:12
Speaker 4: But Larry just he just sounds great. Seventy eight years old and he's still rocking and rolling. And what a treasure for us to be able to spend that time with him.
00:45:21
Speaker 5: Absolutely, man, you know, it's truly a blessing for us. Bex Seth to have you know, Larry Little come to the games and see some of these young guys that are probably in the mid twenties still all the way up to Larry being seventy eight, and you know, be able to bless them with his presence for one, but with his knowledge and you know, know how and just you know, like a fatherhood for all of us. Man, we realize how blessed that we are when we see and hear what Larry had to go through with four days and three days, you know what I mean, and no water and all these different things, and how things have changed, you know, over time. And so yeah, he and then then the salaries, I mean, look at the salaries alone. You know, Larry was the first one hundred thousand dollars lineman in the league, you know, and that's.
00:46:06
Speaker 4: It, you know, seven and fifty dollars signing bonus right.
00:46:09
Speaker 5: Exactly right, exactly right, man. So yeah, man, it's just a just a great, great guy man. And you know, it's always an honor and a pleasure to get some guys on man. But you know that's a personal one from you right there now.
00:46:22
Speaker 3: I could tell I could tell between both of you guys, it was really special to see and just the ultimate underdog story, right A kid from from over Town goes to an HBCU, does not get drafted despite being an All American and gets traded. The nothing for nothing deal is just one of the great lines of all time and and probably one of the best football players to ever strap on the helmet and shoulder pads in the history of this game.
00:46:47
Speaker 5: I have a question, really cool y, you know we talk about the history suff could he could he play today? Absolutely? He could play today. And that's how that somebody's a all timer right there, right.
00:46:58
Speaker 4: No question about it.
00:47:01
Speaker 1: We appreciate your diving in Larry great being here. You're now diving into the.
00:47:06
Speaker 5: Fish tank.
00:47:09
Speaker 4: Just like Jew said.
00:47:10
Speaker 3: Thanks for diving into the fish tank presented by iHeartRadio. Be sure to follow us on whatever streaming platform you're using, and don't be afraid to rate the show or leave us a comment. We love your feedback, and remember you can find us as well as Drive Time with Travis Wingfield and all of our international partners on Miami Dolphins dot com.
Speaker 1: You're now diving. I'm gonna have been.
00:00:08
Speaker 2: That who sitting down with Seth living there, Oh Jay Jew Juice, And this is strictly for them, true fan Dophins number one of course, y'all just on the other nearest boys talk that might have.
00:00:24
Speaker 1: Been that pitch tank.
00:00:25
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Fish Tank presented by iHeartRadio right here on the Miami Dolphins Network, Seth Lovett and the man with the best hands in the podcast business, O J McDuffie, Juice.
00:00:36
Speaker 4: How you feeling today, man?
00:00:37
Speaker 1: Man, you know I'm feeling great, big Seth.
00:00:39
Speaker 5: Anytime we get a chance, as you know, to talk about my side of the football, He's gonna be a great day, bro.
00:00:45
Speaker 1: And this is a great day for sure.
00:00:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, great day, A Hall of Fame caliber day, someone.
00:00:51
Speaker 5: Might say, absolutely, man, I love it, Keith stacking these Hall of famers, man, you know, and this is a great one man, and just a great, great individual, great man.
00:01:00
Speaker 1: And I just I love the fact that I've gotten to get to know this man.
00:01:04
Speaker 3: Well, we're so excited to welcome in Miami Dolphins legend, but NFL legend, Larry, Little Larry, thank you for joining us for the second time you came alone. This time though, last time we saw you, you were protecting a couple guys.
00:01:17
Speaker 1: My pleasure.
00:01:17
Speaker 2: You know, I enjoyed the last time I was with you guys and with Murricans, because I'm the one that led them to the Promised Land.
00:01:25
Speaker 4: That's right, you led us to the promise lands. I think what really happened. I love that. God, I love that.
00:01:32
Speaker 1: Larry.
00:01:33
Speaker 5: You know, your career and really your whole story is truly legendary and we can't wait to discuss at all.
00:01:39
Speaker 1: But there's a more recent story that I have to talk about. You know that. I'd love to tell you what happens to need of I'm not sweet, right, oh.
00:01:46
Speaker 3: You love to tell I mean, Larry, he tells me how he's got the best seats in the building every time.
00:01:50
Speaker 4: I'm like, all right, I'm up in the press box. I got you well.
00:01:55
Speaker 5: Two seasons ago, as you know, as you recall, we were playing at Green Bay Packers on Christmas, right, and it was cold Florida cold, and probably anywhere else for a lot of places, cold forty six degrees might kick off cold, you know what I mean. And so I'm sitting there big seth every alumni, and Larry knows this every in alumni. Sweet, every game we open the windows up, you know, when the game's about to start, we open the windows up right, okay. And there's some people like saying, yo, okay, man, we did close those windows. I said, no, we're not closing the windows. We're not closing the windows. And I look back at Larry. I said, Larry, you want me to close the windows? He said, close those windows, young fella, right, Larry, tell us, tell us, tell us why you had me basically made me close those windows?
00:02:36
Speaker 1: Larry, Well, you.
00:02:37
Speaker 2: Know my balls are not younger than yours. You like get cold quickly than you young people. So I was gonna say it anyway, but you see it before I said it, I was too little, bad window.
00:02:52
Speaker 1: You know what exeth.
00:02:54
Speaker 5: Larry is the king in there, man, So whatever the king says, whatever the man.
00:02:58
Speaker 1: Says, that's what we do in the sweet. Bro.
00:03:00
Speaker 3: Well, this is what I wanted to ask, because I know, Juice, there's rules in there, and like you have your seat and a lot of guys go there to socialize and you're there to watch the game and nobody can sit in your seat in it. But when Larry Little steps into the box and he's like, closed the windows. Was there any pushback.
00:03:15
Speaker 1: From who from me? No, it was immediate. I tried to close all the way.
00:03:20
Speaker 5: I tried to close the other Sweets windows that were next door, does and everything. Everybody, everybody's windows get closed.
00:03:25
Speaker 4: Start going around the whole club level.
00:03:27
Speaker 2: And take this whole building down different than other places cold. You know, when the wind is blowing too, so you know it gets cold of that when they're doing the winter time.
00:03:41
Speaker 3: Well, I'm glad you got him straight, Larry. I appreciate you doing that. Juice gets fired up on game days.
00:03:47
Speaker 1: I do. I do good. Well.
00:03:49
Speaker 3: That leads me into my first question, So that that season, that twenty twenty two season was the first for Mike McDaniel, and ever since he arrived in South Florida, offensive football has looked different down here, and it's certainly been more productive than what we've seen in quite some time. Not as productive as some of the things you guys were doing, but it's been unbelievable what Mike McDaniels brought to this team and this offense specifically, Larry. Everybody knows, we've all seen the highlights you were one of the greatest, if not the greatest pulling guard of all time. And we've all seen you out there and that sweep and knocking fools down, so Zanka can have a clear path there when he wasn't knocking people down. How would Larry Little like to play in this offense, that wide zone offense where it requires offensive linemen to be athletic and fire off the ball. How do you think your skill set would have fit in an offense like this?
00:04:44
Speaker 2: Well, with them running at zone offense in the running game, it would have been perfect for me.
00:04:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know I wouldn't.
00:04:55
Speaker 2: Have gotten as tied now as I got back in the day and the running and like all that pulling in the Ouedge Bowl.
00:05:04
Speaker 1: So but you know, it's a great offense. Uh.
00:05:09
Speaker 2: They probably probably they probably throw the ball boarder in a game that we do the all year.
00:05:17
Speaker 4: You're right, right, that is true.
00:05:20
Speaker 2: You know, I remember some games we may have thrown the ball twelve times because of the offense that we had and the running back that we had and a quarterback like Grease Heat Bob you know was calling his own plays back then, too, So Bob was gonna take what the defense gave us.
00:05:39
Speaker 5: So Larry with him, with him calling his own plays, did you have any influence on of those play calls, like, yo, Bob, we need to you know, I need to we need to run this thing, or we need to you know, maybe.
00:05:48
Speaker 1: Throw one more pass, or any influence.
00:05:51
Speaker 2: From you, well, in sure, gage players, I'll always give him a stare run behind me, we get it, run behind me, and he did it.
00:06:01
Speaker 1: He ran.
00:06:01
Speaker 2: I think he ran behind me at least seventy percent of the time.
00:06:06
Speaker 4: Especially Yeah, I love that Jews. Was that the stair you got when he told you to close the windows?
00:06:12
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
00:06:13
Speaker 5: It's probably the same exact stay and Bob Greasy obliges obviously.
00:06:18
Speaker 3: I mean, if you had think about it, Juice, if you're the quarterback, look, Bob Greesey's in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
00:06:24
Speaker 4: But if you've.
00:06:25
Speaker 3: Got Zanka kick and Morris behind you, and you've got Larry Little in front of you, not to mention Jim Langer, Bob Coochberg, I mean, why wouldn't you hand the ball off right?
00:06:37
Speaker 2: A great offensive line? You not only mean, but yeah, Norm Evans that played right next to me and with coach Jim and Langler and Wayne Moore. I mean, we had the best offensive line in football doing the little day because we had a great offensive line coach, and Mommie Clark and Monnie Clott loved running the football.
00:06:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know.
00:06:59
Speaker 5: Let's let's turn back the a little bit. I mean, you grew up here in Miami and more specifically in the Overtown area. If I'm not mistaken, then you had to Thune Cookman where you play offense and defensive line, and obviously you were a all world there. But then the nineteen sixty seven draft rolls around, and we're talking about a day and age when I think it was seventeen rounds, I believe, and seventeen rounds go by four hundred and fifty five players selected, and not a damn one of them is named Larry Little. First of all, tell us about your draft day experience, because I mean, we read this great story about the phone that was next to your dorm room. But I also want to talk about you going undrafted. How much of that, in your opinion, had to do with you planning an HBCU during the time when the NFL just didn't expand their scouting to those schools at that point.
00:07:49
Speaker 1: Well, when I.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: Was signed by the San Diego Chargers, Oh you got to like you, you just said, the phone moving right next to my room and the dorm. I was the captain of the team, and I wouldn't let anybody use that phone all day because I was waiting on the phone call that never came. Right the next day, I got a call from San Diego Chargers, know the Baltimore coach.
00:08:17
Speaker 1: Really Shula was the coach's.
00:08:19
Speaker 2: Ball to tomour at that time, and I asked him how much bonuses I was going to get. He said, oh, we don't give bonuses, okay. So then right after them, San Diego called me and I said, how much boneas are you giving me? Oh, Larry're going to give you seven hundred and fifty dollars And I jumped.
00:08:38
Speaker 1: To it, amazing because I never had that much money in my life.
00:08:45
Speaker 2: And they get next day, guess who called me The Miami Dolphins. Joe Thomas was their general manager at the time. And when Joe called me, he said, Larry, how would you like to come back to play at home? I said, I would have loved to play in Miami. Joe, he said, Uh.
00:09:03
Speaker 1: Tell me this, how much bones.
00:09:05
Speaker 2: Were you going to give me, Oh, we were going to give you five hundred dollars already signed niggas.
00:09:11
Speaker 4: Wrong number, wrong number. So Larry, if he had sat a thousand bucks, what would have happened?
00:09:19
Speaker 2: Well, because I hadn't signed the name on the paper yet, but I agree to it, I.
00:09:23
Speaker 1: Would have given to Miami.
00:09:25
Speaker 3: Could have saved a couple of years. Yeah, that's too funny, man, that's too funny. Seven hundred and fifty bucks.
00:09:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Larry, I mean we're talking about the HBCUs and how they were overlooked back then. How much progress do you think has been made now in terms of some of these guys getting opportunities to play at the next level, at this level.
00:09:46
Speaker 1: You know what helped the hbc US.
00:09:48
Speaker 2: Back in the day when I played, the American Football League was just starting and they had to get players because a lot of the guys from the major college they were going to the NFL. But back then they didn't have anywhere to go but but the HBCUs. That's why you see so many HBCU guys now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I think it's seventy five, seventy five, thirty five others that wasn't the HBCUs or in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, But most of those guys were in the old AIRFL for like me, myself, Art Shell, people like that, Deacon Jones, Buck Buchanan, all those guys ames but not Deacon but Buck Buchanan. All of us came from the old AFLOW.
00:10:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the names that listened, right.
00:10:44
Speaker 5: You know there's some ballers back there, big seth and you know what I mean, just think at the opportunities and you know, like you talk about overlooked a little bit.
00:10:50
Speaker 3: Right, Well only for a little bit though, So and that's kind of what I want to talk to. So you get your seven hundred and fifty bucks, you go across the country. Now you're in San Diego, basically the two best two best weather locations in the entire right AFL NFL. You go from Miami to San Diego. So we were dealing with a smart man here.
00:11:10
Speaker 4: Juice for sure, for sure. But is it true?
00:11:14
Speaker 3: Granted we just talked about, you know, how athletic you were. Did sid Gilman actually try to play you at full back?
00:11:22
Speaker 1: Yes? He did.
00:11:23
Speaker 2: He ran the forty yard dash and I ran the forty in forty nine forty.
00:11:29
Speaker 4: In paths in pats Damn.
00:11:35
Speaker 2: But and I was weighing like two hundred and eighty five pounds at the time. Oh my god, and they thought I could be I don't know if you got maybe too young to remember Jim Nance. Jim Nance played with the Boston Pictures back in those days, and he was a big full back, and they thought I could beat it. Maybe the next Jim Nance, I'm running the pass, pat of the ball hit me in the chest, bouncing back out.
00:12:02
Speaker 1: You know.
00:12:04
Speaker 2: I was a good athlete, but not that good of an athlete.
00:12:09
Speaker 4: Oh that's hilarious.
00:12:10
Speaker 2: So the line, the offensive line coach at the time was Joe Madro, and Joe wanted to move me. Went to see it and say, I think this guy could play guard because I played both ways in college up until my senior year.
00:12:23
Speaker 3: Were you a tackle or garden at Bathom? Were you a tackle or a guard at Bath?
00:12:29
Speaker 1: I'm there both, and I was a defensive tackle.
00:12:32
Speaker 2: I made All American my senior year, a defensive tackle, not offensive tackle.
00:12:37
Speaker 1: Oh guarrd.
00:12:38
Speaker 2: But they moved me to offense in San Diego, and Joe became a guy. He was like he was an offensive line coach. He was like five foot two, always in my face. I wanted to slap him a lot of times.
00:12:52
Speaker 1: And then held my development as a as.
00:12:58
Speaker 2: An offensive lineman. Although I played office before. And another thing that was good for me. My college coach played professional football. He was the first person for Bethoone Cookman to play professional football and he bought the pro offense to us at Pathum and I pulled a lot in college and that helped my development also.
00:13:22
Speaker 1: So when I got to San Diego, they moved and moved me to guard. I was ready to go, right.
00:13:27
Speaker 4: They weren't throwing the ball at you.
00:13:31
Speaker 1: I was going to taxi squad for four games. That's what they called it.
00:13:35
Speaker 2: What are they call it nowadays, practice squad squad, And we called it.
00:13:42
Speaker 1: The taxi squad back in the day.
00:13:44
Speaker 2: Well, my rookie year, you know, I was my first contract of twelve thousand, five hundred dollars okay in San Diego, California, state tax federal tax I must have made maybe eight thousand dollars by rookie year put after taxes. And I've been on an active roster for twelve five so I didn't make any money hobby, but I was just happy to.
00:14:08
Speaker 1: Be playing every now. I didn't even buy a car my rookie here. Wow. So that's how tough it was.
00:14:15
Speaker 2: But you know, I was determined that I was going to play this game on a high level, and I wasn't gonna let anything stop me.
00:14:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt.
00:14:24
Speaker 5: Well, you know, I mean, something else happened in San Diego, and it's really it's a really important part of your journey. Here you earn the nickname that is stuck with you to this day. Tell us about Chicken. Please tell us, I want to hear yours. Why you know we think that chicken has become your nickname.
00:14:44
Speaker 2: Well, my rookie year re trained in a city called Escondido, California, and it was mainly a Mexican type food down there, and oh I even Mexican food.
00:14:58
Speaker 1: So my first night I caught her, I was some.
00:15:00
Speaker 2: Of the veterans down into the city of San Diego and they had a place on the court and there's a little strip mall called Brady Key Fried Chicken.
00:15:10
Speaker 1: Soul Fool Chicken. I ate a whole chicken and drank a fifth of ripple wine and the guys got a command, bore you ate all that chicken, We're gonna call you chicken little.
00:15:27
Speaker 2: And that name followed me from San Diego to Miami. And don't believe that a lot of that more likes to tale that when you were roommates, Nasty I sent him to the chicken place in Buffalo and I ate seventy five chicken wings. That's a lot that that not likes to tell.
00:15:48
Speaker 4: What's the real number. What's the real number? What's the real number? If that's telling a lot, I ate about twenty five.
00:16:01
Speaker 1: Wings.
00:16:02
Speaker 4: This is true, you know.
00:16:07
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:16:07
Speaker 4: And did they pass the test? Like, were they legit.
00:16:11
Speaker 1: Test? Okay, anyone has Buffalo wings?
00:16:14
Speaker 4: Now, that's right, that's right. That is too funny. God, that's good.
00:16:18
Speaker 3: So well, well, two seasons in San Diego, a whole bunch of chicken, apparently, not a whole lot of anything else. Right, you know, you're playing time. It's crazy to think about it now, knowing where your career goes after this. But after two seasons, the Dolphins and coach Shuler are like, okay, well no, it's not coach Shula yet, so it's just a Dolphins still at this point, and They're like, all right, for two hundred and fifty bucks, we lost out on this guy that we believed in. They finally got their man, and they decide they're going to trade for you. And in this crazy twist of fate, they trade your high school teammate, Mack Lamb to the Chargers in exchange for your rights. And I feel like you told us a story last time you're here. Did you and Mac on any of each other or something when this trade was happening.
00:17:03
Speaker 1: Uh, Mac and I were very close.
00:17:06
Speaker 2: And although he was ahead of me, but going up over town like we did, everybody was pretty close. And over town when I was the Chargers, I met some Dolphin guys in the watering hole out in San Diego that was right next to the chicken places. UH hung out there when they came. So it was a place here in Miami called the Satellite. There was a watering hole for all the Miami Dolphin players. And and when I came home, do me all, because I came home do the off season. I come home, I went to the Satellite, a lot of gathering and I'm sitting there at the bar and I'd got a phone call already that I was traded to.
00:17:50
Speaker 4: The Dolphins, so you already knew.
00:17:52
Speaker 1: I knew. And then Mac walked.
00:17:55
Speaker 2: Into the uh well, into the watering hole. I was called I would call it the bar into the.
00:18:00
Speaker 1: Water hole, and man, what's happening?
00:18:04
Speaker 2: I feel it back? It was I've been treated to San Diego. No, it's treated to Miami. I'm sorry, I've been treated. I said, oh man, we'll be teammates up then now I'm back. They treated you me for you you, so he got it. But I found out who they had traded me for, so that went them that she had give him him a coach. I'm sorry cutting your ol. Juice called it nothing for nothing deal.
00:18:35
Speaker 4: How about that?
00:18:36
Speaker 1: Right? Right? Well, we're gonna talk a little bit more about that.
00:18:39
Speaker 5: We talk about, you know, you going into the Hall of Fame, Larry, because I know you had choice words, you know, when it came to that.
00:18:46
Speaker 2: Right there doing my Hall of Fame speech, I think although she was in the Hall of Fame already, he had been going. He had gone in ten years before me, and they was a team anniversary, so he was there. And during my speech, I said, I want to thank said Gilman for giving me an opportunity to play professional football. And I would also like to thank said Gilman for trading me to Miami.
00:19:14
Speaker 1: Although out but you know, whether I love San Diego.
00:19:19
Speaker 2: I was going to make my home in San Diego because I love the weather out there. And in San Diego we weren't winning championships, but we were winning. And Miami was an expansion team, and you know there are three games in two games here, three games there. I didn't want to come to that. I feel like that, but then again, it worked out for me. In nineteen sixty nine, I played. I played a year before Shore. Now right Shooter was at the coach and I came. I came to Miami, Joe. I played one year under George Wilson and on a hot day, George Wilson say, oh what the hell, go.
00:20:01
Speaker 1: Jump in the pool? You practice? Oh man, well we for Rudu waiting when that man named Don Shula came.
00:20:10
Speaker 4: That's too good.
00:20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're gonna talk about it. How about that?
00:20:13
Speaker 5: Because I tell Seth all the time, you came here in nineteen sixty nine, you guys go three ten and one, Like you said, you're under under George Wilson.
00:20:20
Speaker 1: He gets fired and Shula.
00:20:21
Speaker 5: Comes in and I tell Seth like, yo, I think I caught it a nicer Don Shuler compared to from what I understand from what other guys had gone through. So to talk about that, how how things change one no more pool days in general, and you know, as it's late to coach, and you know, I felt like sometimes your weight might have been an issue with coach at times too. Man talk about your relationship with coach when you got here and when he got here, and how things changed.
00:20:46
Speaker 2: Well, you know, they had a press conference and I found out he was gonna be named the head coach at the DuPont Plaza Hotel downtown Miami. So I drove downtown and introduced myself to coach Shoe and I said, I went up to him, the head coach, my name is Larry Little, I'm your right guard. That's what I played. He looked at me and said, how much do you wait? I said twenty five. We just walked off. They said another word to me.
00:21:17
Speaker 1: That was it. You see, the thing is, back in those days, the guys from outsize compared. I was big for alignment offensive lineman, but.
00:21:29
Speaker 2: Today those guys are huge for the offensive lineman, and also that that's the yeah, the first major strike too. And we didn't go to camp until the week before our first preseason game, and I thought, man, oh, we got it made.
00:21:47
Speaker 1: I got it made. We don't We got a game, so I know.
00:21:49
Speaker 2: We can't work that hard before the first preseason game. Man, we're in for a big rude Awake went in there Sunday night and he started reading the schedule off tours. After he got passed the second practice, he kept going. I thought it was after one day, and then two days he kept going, and then at the three o'clock we'll be back on the field again.
00:22:15
Speaker 1: That's three. Then were back on the field again. That's wait a minute. To myself, you mean the temple.
00:22:22
Speaker 2: We're gonna be practicing four times a day, four days, four times a day, although two of them went pass but still minerally just being on the field, although they were like walk through in the evening, but being on the field four times a day was unbelievable. And then and we had six pre season games at that time, and four weeks after that, he went three times a day.
00:22:52
Speaker 4: Wait a minute.
00:22:54
Speaker 1: Coach Uler could have coached in this era of football, no, he coulnot.
00:23:00
Speaker 3: You violation for sure. Forget what the players, they would react. Wait a second, you were doing three days once the season started. Is that what you're telling me?
00:23:13
Speaker 4: Doing the preseason during the preseason games?
00:23:15
Speaker 1: Okay, so you have the season started four days.
00:23:20
Speaker 4: During camp, three days during the preseason.
00:23:22
Speaker 1: Yes, oh my god did and hon.
00:23:27
Speaker 2: Bow, we were on one side of the field when when the heat doing the game, when he got it, he saw that and he switched us to those sides so the poling team could be standing in the heat.
00:23:40
Speaker 1: Well was sun study the sun studies been there forever.
00:23:43
Speaker 4: For the for the Dolphins, right, yes, yes, yes, that was absolute genius for sure.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: And not only do the Dolphins players thank coach Sulla for that, but there's what about thirty five thousand fans right, just.
00:23:59
Speaker 5: You that you ran Longebow You you played there only in college? Okay, yeah, yeah, only in college, played against you there. And by the time I got to the Dolphins, we were already at Joe Robbie.
00:24:12
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, that place was loud.
00:24:15
Speaker 5: Oh man, think about that, Larry, talk about that experience in the Orange Bowl. Man, it had to be unbelievable experience in the Orange Bowl.
00:24:24
Speaker 2: It was you can look right back. You would turn around and a get somebody you know that leaving that email.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: It was so close to you.
00:24:33
Speaker 3: Crazy, so Larry you when you're talking about he asked about your weight and uh and jus, I hope I'm not stepping on your toes here, but I'm remembering so so I'm remembering some of the interviews we had with offensive lineman like Richmond Webb, Keith Simms, and they would talk about weigh in and remember Dreuce Bobby Monica said that that they would line up. It was almost like Saturday night at the movies. All the players would line up and wait to see if Richmond and Keith could make weight. And they would sit there and they'd watch him get on the scale. Did you have to go through this whole like weigh in process with coach?
00:25:07
Speaker 2: Yes, we will be waiting there on Thursdays. And Uh called tassive. He was that was his main job basically for when and.
00:25:19
Speaker 1: He loved when. I loved the way he would love to tell her to go back to the coach. Somebody would go wait, so uh, the night before whey in, I knew I knew a pharmacist who was a good friend of mine, and I would get water pills. Oh boy, you know to make sure I made to wait the next day. And you know it's not literally a drug dealer.
00:25:46
Speaker 2: But the night before wheening, a lot of teammates were bringing my doorbell at my home. And but one time I was half a pound overweight. And you know at bits came college when you were going into the wait the meeting room, Carl said I would have had a pound old way. I said I wasn't, So I was going to my box by shoeler. I was going to the A lineman said that he was going to the meeting, said you will have a pound over week today?
00:26:22
Speaker 1: Huh? And I said no, I was gonna have a pound Your boys said I was having a pounder over. Oh. He didn't like that, so he got up in the meeting. He said, you know what I'm.
00:26:33
Speaker 2: Tired of you guys bitching about being old weighed when your old way your old wait, I'm what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna mix it up. So he then he may have more scary the defensive line coach more than wont that job. So we went back to cause Carl took pride in telling Shuler that someone was overweight. You know, so who I got time. I'm getting tired of you guys bitching about who's the old way, Who's well you old weigh your way?
00:27:00
Speaker 1: So I didn't say anything.
00:27:01
Speaker 2: But you know the guys, you know they getting the water pills helped me out anyway, right, because I was it's about all night. But now zonk Zonk could make the way in that Thursday, and on Sunday it was like two thirty nine, I think something like that. On Sunday he was two sixty. And then the next week they is sitting in asana again trying to lose weight.
00:27:31
Speaker 1: Then we had a guy named.
00:27:32
Speaker 2: Frank Cornish who was also my team, made my room, made his sun play with it. That was cowboys and uh, the boy called him the Bappa the boppa. Get it his car with a sweatsuit on, turned that heat on and right. So I ride around just flitt the weight off to make way in.
00:27:53
Speaker 4: It just doesn't seem healthy way, but not being.
00:28:00
Speaker 2: Healthy weally meann't get water on the field until nineteen seventy five.
00:28:09
Speaker 1: You didn't get water till seventy wow. On the field. No, we didn't know.
00:28:14
Speaker 2: What we did was if a guy got hurt and they'll bring ice on the field, we'll go stand behind the line and hit the bags.
00:28:24
Speaker 1: I drinking water out of the bag. That dirty water out of the bag, I dreaded.
00:28:30
Speaker 3: Oh come on, man, So wait a second, were you at Did anybody like take a dive so everyone can run over and get water. Did you make a rookie go take a dive? Hey, go pull a hamstring so we can all sneak over to get through the ice bags.
00:28:43
Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna tell you the story.
00:28:44
Speaker 2: I took the biggest dive and mind me the off in history and shoot first she is I took a dive.
00:28:52
Speaker 1: You guys don't know this story.
00:28:54
Speaker 2: After the third practice, I told my roommate at the time the name of Freddy.
00:29:01
Speaker 1: I told what he is. You know what, man, I'm not gonna let this some or so and so killed me. I'm going down tomorrow. That was of the third practice of forty as.
00:29:16
Speaker 2: About halfway through the practice, I started reeling, going back and forth like I'm dizzy, and all of a sudden I hit the ground. Boom while I was on the ground. Uh, they came out and we had old ragging station wagon. Lennon, all the trainers came. The other trainer came up. Let see what was wrong with me.
00:29:39
Speaker 1: So they put me in the station wagon to take me back into the locker room. And I'm in the station wagon, but one I opened and one eye closed seeing what was happening.
00:29:52
Speaker 4: My kids were returning to be asleep.
00:29:54
Speaker 2: When they took me in the locker room, it was cold, and then and they started packing me in ice.
00:30:01
Speaker 1: I said, oh, hell, I.
00:30:02
Speaker 2: Gotta think think of plan be now. So I jumped up off the table like I was having hallucinations to get all that ice off of me. Because so the next day they they happen to go see different doctors and they then they can't find anything wrong with me. Then they finally sent me to an interness and the interno checked me all out and all over the place. I said, Larry, I looked, I can find anything wrong with you. You wanted the healthy specimens I've seen in my life. I said, doctor, you got to find something now.
00:30:41
Speaker 1: He said, well, you do have a slight sinus problem. I'm gonna put that on that.
00:30:50
Speaker 2: And to this day, to the day he died, he never knew that was the biggest act that ever happened with the Miami Dolphins.
00:31:00
Speaker 1: And he in through the I remember that day. I got just started giggling and I said, no, coach, I got you.
00:31:07
Speaker 4: Oh that's too good.
00:31:09
Speaker 2: Oh So.
00:31:13
Speaker 1: That was that was playing. It wasn't spontaneous at all.
00:31:17
Speaker 5: I think the best part is, Larry, that you didn't do it that day. You wait a couple of days to make it happen, you know what I mean. That was smart on your Yeah. I wanted to make sure I was starting first and I was starting at the time.
00:31:32
Speaker 4: Please your value.
00:31:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was a great days. That's too good man.
00:31:39
Speaker 5: So so Larry, once all this happens, I mean, it's it's like something out of an unbelievable movie.
00:31:44
Speaker 1: From here.
00:31:44
Speaker 5: I mean, you go from three, ten and one to ten and four and she was first first year to super Bowl, to the super Bowl, to undefeated three super Bowls and three years two titles and Dulptin become the most dominant rushing team in the history of the league up to that point. And you are the centerpiece in the middle of all this. What was that experience like? And have you ever dreamed anything like that was even possible.
00:32:08
Speaker 1: You know, the year we.
00:32:09
Speaker 2: Lost to Dallas in nineteen seventy one, our goal was to get back to the super Bowl, and we did not play a good game in Dallas that year. In fact, I think that was the only time was fumbling ever Miami Dolphin.
00:32:25
Speaker 1: He formled in that game.
00:32:27
Speaker 2: But you know, we we thought we were ready to play. Well we really weren't. We weren't ready to play, and that'll kicked our butts. But our goal the next year was to get back to the super Bowl and win it. And it started off you know, the preseason we were three three and three. We lost three preseason games that year. But once the season started, we played you know right now, team said people that teams people say we wouldn't We went under feed it because we had a soft schedule. Hell, everybody had to play the game on Sunday, right you know, So, I mean they were professionals. We were just better professionals than they were. You know, we I think the first game we'd beat I forgot we won the first game. Then we beat the Redskin, I mean the forty nine ers. We gets kept on. We didn't win a lot of games by large scores. Now they were closed games. They played a lot of closed games. But what it did was it gave us some resilience that in tight games. We found a way to pull these tight games out in the playoffs. I mean Cleveland Gale, the first game of the first preseason game of the year, Cleveland game was hell. We barely won that game and Charlie Babb blocked the punt. The next week we would we had to go into Pittsburgh and we had the better record.
00:33:57
Speaker 1: At that time, but we had to go in the Bury to play the.
00:34:00
Speaker 2: Steelers, a young, up and coming Pittsbury Steeler game. But we found a way to win win that game when a Larry Sipel took a punt and ran back.
00:34:12
Speaker 1: I mean, you know.
00:34:14
Speaker 2: Then the Super Bowl, we got ready to play the Redskins. We knew that we were a better football team because they were a bunch of what we would call an unemotional team. Then we did not show a lot of enthusiasm. We didn't do any jumping up and down. We just went out and took care of business. And uh, we got ready to play the Redskins. They were the older guys. They were older guys. They were called her over the hill game. And I didn't say that to everyone, but I told that to myself. If we're not gonna let these little man kick our ass.
00:34:50
Speaker 1: You know. And the game wasn't as close as a score. It wasn't for what Garro did in that game that.
00:34:58
Speaker 4: Would have been coming.
00:35:05
Speaker 1: Believable board history. And he came and Garol came to the sideline. God bless her dead.
00:35:13
Speaker 2: Forty I would have killed Garo before dead. What we're doing, what he did in that game, and that made it a close game. But and then the next year we had you know, everyone talks about the undefeated team, but in nineteen seventy.
00:35:29
Speaker 1: Three we were actually a better football team. Although we lost two.
00:35:34
Speaker 2: Games that year, we dominated more in nineteen seventy three than we did in nineteen seventy two. And I mean we, I mean we give in the playoffs, really walked through the playoffs that year. The first game we played, I think the Bengals.
00:35:54
Speaker 1: The first two times we had the ball against the Bengals, we scored. The next week we.
00:35:59
Speaker 2: Played uh Oakland Raiders and Oakland Beatles that year earlier out in Berkeley, California, and I did the Joe Namath again. We got ready to play them again. I said, we will not lose to the Oakland Raiders. And they put it up and it was all over the scoreboard on their wall, Larry Little predicting victory. Yeah, I'm predicting the damn it. We're gonna win it. And we scored the first two times in the ball.
00:36:26
Speaker 4: Put my name on it.
00:36:30
Speaker 1: And the next game he played out so good.
00:36:33
Speaker 2: We scored the first three times we had the I mean, we had walked through the playoffs that year. That's why I said, I feel that we were a better football team in nineteen seventy three. We did our guards down early. No, when we lost to Oakland in the second game of the year. We then went on a ten game winning streak and got ready to play the Baltimore Coaches. And the coach went to Baltimore Coaches. He was in trouble at that time, and it happened to be a guy by the name of House Mellenburger.
00:37:04
Speaker 1: He was a Coast coach, and I think Shooter was trying to help Howell to keep that job and to be not ready to play that game.
00:37:16
Speaker 2: Man.
00:37:17
Speaker 4: And there's quite an expense to help him keep that job.
00:37:20
Speaker 1: And a lot of us didn't play that crazy stuff. We had the conference, we had already clinched, like about eight games, we had already clinched the playoffs. And that's how that's one of the Coast beatings.
00:37:33
Speaker 4: Amazing memories.
00:37:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, thirty two and two. You can't beat that.
00:37:39
Speaker 4: No, Well, nobody has right, but he has.
00:37:42
Speaker 1: Nobody has right.
00:37:44
Speaker 3: Like they could talk about soft schedules or talk it wasn't your job to schedule the games, and it wasn't your job to build other teams rosters, right like you know every that that's the way this thing works.
00:37:55
Speaker 4: All you can do is line up on Sunday. That's it.
00:37:59
Speaker 3: That's it, As were their coaches, as were their general managers and everybody else.
00:38:03
Speaker 4: So I couldn't agree with you more.
00:38:05
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just when you think about the Pro Bowls, the All Pros, the Super Bowls, it's just.
00:38:10
Speaker 4: An incredible, incredible career.
00:38:13
Speaker 3: And then in nineteen ninety three, you take your rightful place in Canton, Ohio, as we discussed earlier, as we can see on that great T shirt of yours, you take your rightful place as a member of the Pro Football Hall of fame. Now, what I didn't realize in preparing for this that class was crazy. So they kind of call you guys the fab five. So juice, it's not just Larry Little, it's Dan Fouts, it's Chuck Nole, it's Walter Payton, it's Bill Walsh. It's just a ridiculous class.
00:38:43
Speaker 4: Like the Hall of Fame is.
00:38:44
Speaker 3: The Hall of Fame, everybody there is going to be one of the greatest to ever be around this game. But that group of five men is crazy impressive. What did it mean for you, Larry, a kid from Overtown, with everything you went through, undrafted your entire story, to end up there on the steps of Canton, Ohio and to go in there with that group of guys and get that gold jacket.
00:39:09
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Dan and I right now we're the only two survivors out of that class. Walters we ain't gone, Chuck Nolers no longer with us, and Bill Walsh is along with us. But every time Dan and I get together we see each other, Dan a hole over one finger Number one talk about our class and we joke about it. I know people in via the others or we don't care. We all Number one I mean, how can you beat that class? The Chuck Old Bill Walter Payton in that class?
00:39:44
Speaker 1: How can you beat it? You know?
00:39:46
Speaker 4: But it's pretty darn impression.
00:39:48
Speaker 1: We have a lot of pride in it, and just like that doesn't going undefeed it.
00:39:52
Speaker 2: That's the pride I have and being feeling that we're the number one class in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
00:40:00
Speaker 3: And Juice was telling me, like, you can make that statement because you've been back to watch how many of those classes?
00:40:06
Speaker 5: Right?
00:40:07
Speaker 1: What were you telling me out out of thirty one years? Now? Yeah? Incredible? What time I didn't go?
00:40:16
Speaker 2: Because then on autograph signed on the same weekend and I'm gonna make some money, so I didn't go ahead year, that's right?
00:40:25
Speaker 1: Did you give us?
00:40:28
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:40:30
Speaker 4: You don't pay me? How much are you going?
00:40:32
Speaker 1: No, I didn't go doing the COVID year. I didn't go that year. That was the second time.
00:40:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's understandable. Amazing.
00:40:41
Speaker 3: Well, you've been incredibly generous with your time here. But uh, we end every episode the same way. And I know you guys like to ground and pound it, but every now and then an offense needs to run a two minute drill and score in a hurry. So we ended every podcast with what we call the fish Tank two minute drill. We're gonna throw a few fast paced, fun questions. We think they're fun. Hopefully you think they're fun. To have some fun with the answers, and then we'll get you out of here. Sound good, No problem at all?
00:41:08
Speaker 1: All right.
00:41:08
Speaker 5: So, as we've talked about, Larry, you blocked for some of the greatest backs in the in the history of the game. But if you could pick one running back to block four that you never got a chance to block with block four, who would that be?
00:41:20
Speaker 1: WHOA? Probably Jim Brown? You're the greatest backup.
00:41:26
Speaker 3: Could you imagine Larry Little run at you Jim Brown behind him, which I with Jim Brown?
00:41:32
Speaker 4: That would have worked out nice? Larry, Are you ready for it?
00:41:34
Speaker 2: I blocked for old j Simpson in the Pro Bowls, so you know I had an opportunity broke block for him. Yeah.
00:41:42
Speaker 1: But you guys like Earl Campbell you're another great one. You know, maybe even a Ricky William.
00:41:51
Speaker 2: Oh, I like that that.
00:41:54
Speaker 1: Seem by in front of Ricky with Ricky's got his hand on his back, you know what I mean?
00:41:57
Speaker 4: Like, let's go, that would have been good. That would have been really good. All right, next question.
00:42:02
Speaker 3: In March of twenty twenty three, a portion of Northwest eleventh Terrace and Overtown was renamed Larry C.
00:42:09
Speaker 4: Little Street, obviously in your honor. What did that mean to you? I want to know what that meant to you to have a street named after you, have that street named after you.
00:42:17
Speaker 3: And then if you had the ability to name a street after a Miami dolphin, who would be the next guy to get a street named in his honor?
00:42:25
Speaker 1: That was a great honor for me. That was one of the biggest honors I received in my life. You know, when I.
00:42:36
Speaker 2: Made a lot of guys making the Hall of Fame, they shared tears for making the Hall of Fame.
00:42:44
Speaker 1: That particular day, I shed tears because my mom had worn in that day for me.
00:42:53
Speaker 2: And they had videos showing different videos that day at the auditory Book of Team, and uh, when they showed a picture of.
00:43:01
Speaker 1: My mom, that got it because she wanted that for me.
00:43:07
Speaker 2: And she passed away in twenty nineteen at the age of one hundred and then she wanted around to see that. See that day the person that the next person I think, yeah, man, although you have although he have.
00:43:23
Speaker 1: The time out, man, Yeah, he took out these one Larry's timeouts.
00:43:27
Speaker 2: Man.
00:43:27
Speaker 5: We know, I know how important moms are to Larry now man, he was you know, he holds a special place in my heart, he and his beautiful wife. When I met him and my mom met him, you know, we were cruising, you know, doing some dolphin cruises, man, and they all hit it off really well, man, and you hit it all. Idea man about about moms and your mom and I really hit it off whole next cruise.
00:43:51
Speaker 2: O Jays.
00:43:52
Speaker 5: The same for you, man, especially your mom is to you, man. And may all of our moms be watching us do this podcast right now, and look at our boys go you know what I mean, look at our boys and just just shining on us right now.
00:44:05
Speaker 1: Man. So I just wanted to say that, Manic. You know, I had to say that real quick.
00:44:09
Speaker 4: That's a good use of a timeout, juice, Yeah.
00:44:11
Speaker 1: For sure, for sure, for sure. But I was gonna say the other person that I would name the street.
00:44:17
Speaker 4: After it would be that more well, juice.
00:44:20
Speaker 3: I don't know if it was a technical difficulty or if Larry got us like he got Coach Schula that day and he told he must have told somebody that he was going down before this thing ended, so he tapped out in the two minute drill. I imagine he left it up to Zonke and Kick and mrk Now we know why he brought them in the last time. But unfortunately we've lost Larry for the rest of his interview. But amazing stuff. I know you are a huge fan of his. You get to spend all kinds of great time with him and all the appearance that he does. I'm you know, he talked about how there's only two guys left and as survivors in his nineteen ninety three enshrinment class, and unfortunately he's you know, we didn't get a chance to ask him, but he's seen a lot of his teammates pass away as well, guys that he made amazing memories with, guys that will be always remembered in Dolphin's lore.
00:45:12
Speaker 4: But Larry just he just sounds great. Seventy eight years old and he's still rocking and rolling. And what a treasure for us to be able to spend that time with him.
00:45:21
Speaker 5: Absolutely, man, you know, it's truly a blessing for us. Bex Seth to have you know, Larry Little come to the games and see some of these young guys that are probably in the mid twenties still all the way up to Larry being seventy eight, and you know, be able to bless them with his presence for one, but with his knowledge and you know, know how and just you know, like a fatherhood for all of us. Man, we realize how blessed that we are when we see and hear what Larry had to go through with four days and three days, you know what I mean, and no water and all these different things, and how things have changed, you know, over time. And so yeah, he and then then the salaries, I mean, look at the salaries alone. You know, Larry was the first one hundred thousand dollars lineman in the league, you know, and that's.
00:46:06
Speaker 4: It, you know, seven and fifty dollars signing bonus right.
00:46:09
Speaker 5: Exactly right, exactly right, man. So yeah, man, it's just a just a great, great guy man. And you know, it's always an honor and a pleasure to get some guys on man. But you know that's a personal one from you right there now.
00:46:22
Speaker 3: I could tell I could tell between both of you guys, it was really special to see and just the ultimate underdog story, right A kid from from over Town goes to an HBCU, does not get drafted despite being an All American and gets traded. The nothing for nothing deal is just one of the great lines of all time and and probably one of the best football players to ever strap on the helmet and shoulder pads in the history of this game.
00:46:47
Speaker 5: I have a question, really cool y, you know we talk about the history suff could he could he play today? Absolutely? He could play today. And that's how that somebody's a all timer right there, right.
00:46:58
Speaker 4: No question about it.
00:47:01
Speaker 1: We appreciate your diving in Larry great being here. You're now diving into the.
00:47:06
Speaker 5: Fish tank.
00:47:09
Speaker 4: Just like Jew said.
00:47:10
Speaker 3: Thanks for diving into the fish tank presented by iHeartRadio. Be sure to follow us on whatever streaming platform you're using, and don't be afraid to rate the show or leave us a comment. We love your feedback, and remember you can find us as well as Drive Time with Travis Wingfield and all of our international partners on Miami Dolphins dot com.
