Jim Kiick, running back for undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins, dies at 73

Jim Kiick, part of the Miami Dolphins’ three-headed monster at running back during the perfect 1972 season, has died. He was 73.

Kiick, who shared the backfield with fellow running backs Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris, had been battling dementia. The Dolphins announced his death Saturday.

The running back played seven seasons in Miami and won two Super Bowls in the 1972 and 1973 seasons. He sits at fifth on the Dolphins’ all-time rushing yards list and he was a two-time All-Star in the American Football League.

Kiick was drafted by Miami in the fifth round of the 1968 NFL/AFL Draft. He was an immediate standout — an All-Star in his first two seasons and the primary running back for his first four in South Florida. In 1972, he began splitting halfback duties with Morris to complement Csonka and started only three regular-season games, although he did start Super Bowl 7, which the Dolphins won to cap the only undefeated season in NFL history. The next year, Miami repeated as champion by winning Super Bowl 8.

Kiick spent one more season with he Dolphins before leaving to play in the short-lived World Football League with Csonka. He and Csonka, dubbed “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” — a reference to the popular 1969 film — for their off-field shenanigans, spent one season with the Memphis Southmen before the league folded and they returned to the NFL. Kiick finished his career with the Denver Broncos and Washington Redskins before he retired after the 1977 season.

Kiick finished his time in Miami with 3,644 rushing yards and his 28 rushing touchdowns are sixth on the Dolphins’ all-time list. Csonka and Morris are two of the few tailbacks ahead of him on both lists.

After retirement, Kiick went to work as a private investigator in the Broward County Public Defenders’ Office. He developed dementia and has been living in an assisted care facility the last few years. Allie Kiick, his daughter, is a professional tennis player. He had two other children: Austin Kiick and Brandon Kiick.

Kiick was born in 1946 in Lincoln Park, New Jersey. George Kiick, his father, was a former Pittsburgh Steeler and Kiick was a three-sport star at Boonton High School. He went on to play for the Wyoming Cowboys and led Wyoming in rushing in each of his three seasons, earning first-team All-Western Athletic Conference honors in all three. In 1968, he was selected to play in the College All-Star Game, where he first met Csonka. Both were drafted by Miami in the 1968 Draft — Csonka eighth overall and Kiick 118th — and they became the foundation of a dynasty.

Kiick finished his nine-year NFL career with 3,759 yards and 29 touchdowns on 1,029 carries. He led the league with nine touchdown runs in 1969 and carved out a niche as a goal-line specialist for Miami’s back-to-back Super Bowl teams. He was also an effective receiver, finishing his career with 233 catches for 2,302 yards and four touchdowns. Kiick’s best season came in 1971, when Miami went to Super Bowl 6, and Kiick piled up 738 yards and three touchdowns, plus 338 receiving yards.

Off the field, he had an even larger reputation. Miami Herald sportswriter Bill Braucher dubbed Kiick as “Butch Cassidy” and Csonka as “Sundance Kid,” because they were roommates in training camp and earned a reputation for heavy drinking. When they posed together for a Sports Illustrated cover ahead of the 1972 season, Csonka flashed a middle finger to the camera, making the cover a collector’s item. In 1973, the two published “Always on the Run” with the help of The New York Times sportswriter Dave Anderson, chronicling their intertwined careers from childhood through the undefeated 1972 season, when Kiick lost his starting job to Morris. Although the two competed on the field, they had a friendship off the field which stretched through the remainder of Kiick’s life.

“Jim and I shared that spot and we made it work,” Morris said in 2018 at a 72nd-birthday celebration for Kiick. “It was such a perfect fit.”

Said Kiick: “He and I together were the best running backs in football. We were the perfect combination. What he could do, I couldn’t. What I could do, he couldn’t. Together we could do it all.”

Kiick’s death comes less than two months after the death of Don Shula, the coach of the 1972 team. Last year, three 1972 Dolphins also died: former offensive linemen Jim Langer and Bob Kuechenberg, and former linebacker Nick Buoniconti.