At first blush, anyway, it looked like some sort of social science experiment playing out in real time. If you were being pursued by a man nearly twice your weight and considerably taller, with designs of driving you into the ground like a smoker snubbing out a cigarette, would it be an exercise in fight? Or in flight? For Garo Yepremian, the answer was a frantic combination of both.
Yepremian, then 28, was the leading scorer for the Miami Dolphins, who were about to apply the final bit of applique to an undefeated 1972 season. It was late in Super Bowl VII, the Dolphins leading 14–0 with a little more than two minutes left, when Yepremian was summoned to try a 42-yard field goal.
Don Shula, the Dolphins’ stoic coach, was never accused of being a gooey sentimentalist, but he was taken by the symmetry of it all. As he later told reporters: “I thought, ‘Boy, this will be great if Garo kicks this field goal and we go ahead, 17–0, in a 17–0 season. What a great way that would be to remember the game.’ And then Garo did what he did.”
