MIAMI GARDENS — You’re talking music with the new head coach of the Miami Dolphins, or at least you think you are. Somewhere along the way, the thought occurs to you that a line between music and football that ought to be clear cut really isn’t.
“When this game is over, I won’t walk out a loser,” the coach says. “I know I’ll be back again.”
The words are coming out of Jeff Hafley’s mouth, but they’re not his. They belong to Bruce Springsteen, a fellow Jersey Guy whose definition of rocking the Meadowlands bears little resemblance to Hafley’s.
At 4:25 on the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 13, the lights will come on in earnest for Hafley’s close-up in the eyes of South Florida. Perhaps he’ll go three (or four) seasons and out, like his predecessors,
or perhaps he’ll be the answer this franchise has been chasing for generations.
He has already told you he won’t walk out a loser. Knock him down — and, with the youngest roster in the NFL, there’s ample reason to expect that will happen — he’ll be back again. Ever since Jan. 19, when he was hired, Hafley has talked plenty about football. On this day, the theme appears to be music, although by the time he finishes, you realize he has opened a window into who he is, why he does what he does and what inspires him.
Why he’s The Boss.
When Hafley references “No Surrender,” “Tougher Than the Rest” or “Blood Brothers,” maybe he’s talking personal Springsteen favorites, maybe he’s sending a message to his players. Maybe both.
“People in New Jersey take a lot of pride in that blue-collar toughness,” Hafley says. “Grittiness, energy, humor, sarcasm, wittiness that he has. But there’s so many different songs you could still listen to that can strike a chord with you, whether it’s a lyric or a message. That’s what just cool about him. But he’s just an inspiring guy who’s as good as there’s ever been.”
Hafley and general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan arrived fully aware that the Dolphins’ reputation, for some around the league, was anything but being, as Springsteen would say, tougher than the rest.
Grit is all Hafley and Sullivan knew in Green Bay. Even now, with the season just starting and temperatures in the 90s, it’s impossible to think of the Packers without conjuring images of Lambeau blanketed into a frozen tundra. From Day 1, Hafley said the Dolphins will play a physical brand of football. And there will be “No Surrender.”
■
Well, we made a promise we swore we'd always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender.
Like soldiers in the winter’s night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender.
■
Oddsmakers aren’t buying it. They peg the Dolphins’ win total at 3.5 games, tied for fewest in the league. So maybe this team and this coach from Jersey were meant to be.
“Growing up in Jersey, I think there’s a toughness,” Hafley says. “I think there’s somewhat of an underdog mentality. I think people look at Jersey a certain way from the outside, and I think the people in Jersey kind of stick together and think it’s the greatest place in the whole world.”
Jeff Hafley grew up in Montvale, New Jersey, 75 miles from the Shore
Hafley is from Montvale, 75 miles from Asbury Park and the piece of the Jersey Shore that Springsteen made famous. Whereas Springsteen famously hated high school enough to skip graduation, Hafley was a cum laude history student at Siena College who went on to earn a master’s at Albany.
It was on the streets of Jersey that their roads converged. While Springsteen sang of being “sprung from cages out on Highway 9,” Hafley had other reasons to wonder when flashing lights would appear in his rearview mirror.
“When I got into coaching, I made 2,500 (dollars) and I never cared,” he says. “I wanted to help people. I wanted to help change lives. And I wanted to be around people, just like a teacher.”
All noble endeavors. But nobility isn’t a currency accepted on the highway toll booths in Jersey.
“Oh, I didn’t have money to pay them,” Hafley says. “I just remember when I wasn’t making any money, I had to decide: I had to get gas or I had to have money to pay toll booths. So I picked the tolls (to not pay). And then I would roll down the window, pretend to throw money in.”
He’d mime his act to the fullest, throwing up his hands in frustration.
“And then I’d start beeping, ’cause it said ‘beep if it doesn’t work.’ ”
The scheme worked. Attendants were more concerned with keeping traffic moving than with some schlep who probably can’t hit the basket. He’d get a free pass.
“I should repay those tolls,” Hafley says, laughing.
Hafley comes from a family of educators. His mother, Ellise, taught elementary students. So does Jeff’s sister, Robyn. Jeff figured maybe he’d be a teacher or football coach. Today, he’s both.
Of teaching, he says, “I think it’s probably one of the most honorable jobs that there is because they’re really shaping the youth of our country and might not always get rewarded for it.”
When Hafley talks about molding a tough team, he’s asking no more of his players than he asked of himself. He spent the winter break of his senior year at Siena College in his parents’ basement, writing more than 100 individualized letters to college programs seeking advice and volunteering his services.
But the ground floor of the coaching profession didn’t cover those highway tolls, not even with Hafley earning a little extra at Worcester Polytechnic Institute by working the check-in desk at nightly intramural basketball games.
Springsteen made a career out of “Thunder Road,” about how he couldn’t wait to escape his “town full of losers.” Springsteen now lives 10 minutes from where he grew up. Hafley, meanwhile, has roared down Thunder Road aplenty. Aside from the year he spent on the staff at Rutgers, his career has always taken him out of New Jersey. But each offseason the family reunites for a week at Long Beach.
“We go to the same beaches and go to the same ice cream places and go to the same amusement parks and listen to Bruce Springsteen on the porch and stay up late,” he says.
Exposure to Bruce Springsteen wasn't a choice for Jeff Hafley
Hafley’s initial exposure to Springsteen wasn’t exactly by choice.
“When you’re in Jersey, you’re, like, born with a Bruce Springsteen cassette tape when you’re my age,” says Hafley, 47.
From cassettes to Sirius’ E Street Radio, The Boss was always within reach. Hafley can skip from song to song, reciting lyrics that carry meaning such as “Is a dream alive that don’t come true, or is it something worse?” from “The River.”
“That’s always kind of struck me hard,” he says. “He’s a guy who’s always had big dreams. So when I was young, I wasn’t one to listen to the lyrics as closely in songs. And so as I’ve gotten older, that’s why his songs are so awesome, because they are meaningful and you can take them a million different ways.”
Occasionally, he finds one with lyrics as straightforward as it gets.
“My wedding song was ‘Happy,’ ” Hafley says. “Which people don’t really know that Bruce Springsteen song, but you should listen to it. So my wife didn’t have a choice.”
■
And I'm happy with you in my arms
Happy with you in my heart
Happy when I taste your kiss
I'm happy in a love like this.
■
Contrary to what you might expect, the Dolphins nearly made it through training camp without hearing a single Springsteen song during practice. For that matter, Hafley doesn’t cruise into Miami Gardens with music cranked up. Instead, he’s thinking about what lies ahead on this day.
And how to lead the Dolphins to “The Promised Land.”
Hal Habib covers the Miami Dolphins for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at hhabib@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: BLOOD BROTHERS | Jeff Hafley, Bruce Springsteen connected by more than New Jersey
