Dalton Coach Matt Land Reflects on Winning Don Shula Award

The NFL was saddened Monday by the death of coaching legend Don Shula.
In 20-10, the league created the Don Shula high school coach of the year award, and last season, Dalton’s Matt Land was the recipient. Land was presented the trophy at the Super Bowl in Miami, where he also got to meet the winningest coach in NFL history.

Imagine being a high school coach like Matt Land, and you’re accepting an award from an NFL legend like Don Shula.
Said Land:”It was so funny. Here’s coach Shula calling me coach. Right? That is in and of itself something crazy.”
Nothing crazy about Land’s conversation with Shula.
Just sometimes amusing.
Said Land:”He told me a story about going to look at a player one time at the University of Tennessee, and he pulled off at Dalton. Had lunch or dinner at a little restaurant. We spent two minutes trying to figure out the name of the restaurant. We were just talking about the restaurants in Dalton, and I even think I made a comment something about Cracker Barrel, and that’s what kind of got him cackling there in that one picture.”
Land admired the reverence Shula’s former players had for him.
Said Land:”I mean I saw 75-year-old guys like Larry Csonka come up and hug him and talk to him like I have with 15 and 16-year-old boys come up and hug me and talk to me. My name being attached to Coach Shula’s name is probably one of the greatest professional recognitions I think I could ever get in this profession.”
Besides getting the award, Land was treated like royalty at the Super Bowl parties, meeting plenty of celebrities.
Said Land:”They had given us these passes to go to the tailgate. It’s a whole different level of clientele. Instead of sliders, you got the full burger. That was the other thing. There weren’t samples back there, and Pitbull is the private entertainment on the stage, and he’s literally 25 or 35 feet from us. We actually. We got to meet a lot of neat people. I met Shaq, Shaquille O’Neal. You feel like a hubcap. That’s about how big you are compared to him. I talked to Roger Goodell about 20 minutes, and it was neat. He was one of the judges on the award. He knew so much about Dalton football and about our community. He actually got really deep in the weeds. Tell me how you are reaching these kids that speak a different language.”