Entering the hospital, the man takes an elevator to the second floor and asks for directions at the nurses' station. His face is solemn as he walks down the hallway toward the designated room. He enters and moves toward the bandaged figure on the bed. The patient sees him, smiles wanly, raises an arm from which tubes dangle.
"Thanks for coming, Coach."
"How you doing?'
"Oh, okay." The mournful look in the sunken eyes tells a different story.
There is a long pause. Finally the visitor leans in, his jaw jutting close to the face of the patient.
"Listen, Mike. I need you in training camp in July - on the field, ready to go. We're going all the way this year."
Later Mike Westhoff, recovered from bone cancer and still the special teams coach for the Delphine, would say of Shula, "I thought he would tuck me in, but he didn't. He treated me the way I could be, not the way I was."
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