Long After His Retirement, Morris Still Making Claims

But that season will always be magic for him. He is excited the Super Bowl is in Miami this year because the NFL Network is picking the best Super Bowl team in history and has been counting down the finalists each week. Morris has inside information that it will be his Dolphins.

"Who else would it be?" he asked.

To help commemorate this and also answer the doubters who think the 1985 Bears or 1978 Steelers might be better, he wrote and recorded a rap song, which he calls "a rhyme" about the team. He did this with absolutely no musical knowledge, putting it together first with a local DJ in the bathroom at home, with towels dangling all over the walls.

Later, he found a producer, Keith Morrison, who has worked with Ricky Martin, among others. Morrison cleaned it up, added in a background singer and turned out a disc with two versions of the song that Morris calls "Do U Wonder?'

In the first, Morris bellows out the words as if he's still a player shouting in a crowded locker room. It is loud, raw, in your face, and hard to understand. The second is more refined. Morris likes the first one better.

Nonetheless, just as he is with the retirement plan, Morris is obsessed with his rhyme. He listens to "Do U Wonder" dozens of times a day. In fact, it is the only song he listens to, taking it to the gym, the car, everywhere he goes. But it must be perfect, and no matter how many times he listens, something is never right.

Morrison, a patient man with David Crosby-like hair, is asked if he regrets working with Morris.

"For about five minutes," he said, laughing. "But there are people who are a pain in the neck just to be a pain in the neck, but Gene is very sincere about what he is doing."

Morris is nothing if not that. On a day not long before the Super Bowl, he sits in a car riding back from Morrison's studio. He pops "Do U Wonder" into the car's CD player and turns the volume way up. The words crash off the ceiling and rattle off the doors.

"When you finally see the light and the truth is a must

There's not another team inside this perfect circle but us

Since we ran the table on 'em it ain't been the same

You wanna go undefeated you got to win every game

I know you wonder."

"This must withstand the scrutiny of my harshest critics," he said. "They may hate me but I want them to listen to this song and say, 'Yeah, that was all right.'"

Then he grows quiet for a rare moment.

"You know" he continued, "I'm going to win. I can't let these guys get away with it."

And then he gazes back out the window at the houses and schools passing by, lost like he is for most hours of every day, thinking about the impossible fight.