Former Auburn linebacker
Mike Kolen, nicknamed “Captain Crunch” for his tough tackling, died Wednesday at the age of 76.
A 1985 Alabama Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Kolen led Auburn in tackles in 16 of the 25 games he started from 1967-69, earning All-SEC honors as a junior and senior.
Kolen was selected by Miami in the 12th round of the 1970 NFL Draft and spent eight seasons with the Dolphins, winning back-to-back Super Bowls in 1972 and 1973. For decades, Kolen returned to his alma mater each spring to present the Mike Kolen Award at A-Day to Auburn’s top tackler from the previous season.
“It’s been a real thrill for me,” Kolen said in 2016. “You’re congratulating a player from the previous year who had a great impact on Auburn’s defensive side of the ball. Being there at Auburn, being out on the field, kind of reminds you of some old memories. It’s just a really next experience, and something I’ve thoroughly enjoyed over the years.” Kolen arrived at Auburn in 1966 after starring at Birmingham’s Berry High School.
Kolen expressed appreciation for Coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan in his 2016 book, The Greatest Team: A Playbook for Champions. I liked everything about him. He was extremely structured and would have been an excellent CEO in business. Kolen wrote: “His expectations were high.” “It was an outstanding opportunity for a young man like me to be exposed to such a quality and disciplined program.”
The title of Kolen’s book refers to the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the NFL’s only unbeaten Super Bowl champion.
Kolen arrived in Miami in 1970, the same season the Dolphins hired Don Shula as head coach.
Like all teams, Shula’s Dolphins focused on the fundamentals. While tangibles were important, Kolen said intangibles were even more so.
“I’m totally convinced that a big part of our success was TEAM as an acronym,” Kolen said, elaborating on the meaning behind the letters in a 2016 interview with AuburnTIgers.com.
After his professional football career, Kolen enjoyed success in real estate, fitness center ownership and financial services.
Lessons learned at Auburn, in lecture halls and practice fields, benefited Kolen for a lifetime, he said.
“Coach Jordan had such a solid program for so many years,” he said. “Paul Davis, his defensive coordinator during the years I was there, was an experienced head coach at Mississippi State before he came over to Auburn. We had two great coaches who we could draw from and look up to who were truly champions.
“They knew what they were doing and they were enthused about it. Totally committed to it. And I think as a result of playing under such quality coaches it did prepare me for eight years of professional football.
A man of deep faith, Kolen in 1969 became the first recipient of the National Christian Athlete of the year Award.
“Mike Kolen is one of the finest men I’ve ever known,” said former Auburn athletics director and sports information director David Housel. “Being a football player was secondary to Mike Kolen. He’s one of the greatest football players Auburn ever had, but he was much more. A rock, a beacon.
“When I think of Mike Kolen, I think of toughness, competitiveness, and a quality of goodness. He was a great football player but he was a better man.”
Kolen displayed that competitiveness at Legion Field before and during the 1969 Iron Bowl. A team captain, Kolen determined to help his team end Alabama’s five-game rivalry win streak.
“His teammates never heard him curse,” Housel recounted. “That day at Legion Field, when they were about to leave the locker room, he remarked, ‘All right, gentlemen. Let us go out there and beat the crap out of them. “The players claim that really revved them up because when Mike Kolen was fired up enough to say that, they knew he meant business. It gave them all a spark.”
