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Dave Hyde: How this former Dolphins draft bust became a success story

Dave Hyde, South Florida Sun-Sentinel on

Published in Football

The new head coach of Eureka (Ill.) College finished the football team’s laundry earlier in the day. He vacuumed the coaches’ offices. The financial-aid office is closed for the weekend, so he didn’t constantly deal with players’ paperwork, like on most days.

So, he sat at a school wrestling match, representing his Division III football program, as he talked.

“I don’t know anything about wrestling,’’ Dion Jordan said. “I’m still adapting to it all — the small town, the Midwest, the cold.”

Yes, that Dion Jordan.

But not that Dion Jordan.

He’s 35 now and on his second act, the one with such a good and organized direction you can untether him from those struggles as a Miami Dolphins defensive end.

Just like he has.

“I’m not 24 years old anymore,’’ he said. “I don’t hold myself to the mistakes and the things that happened to me in a different time. I moved on. I’m an adult helping raise and mature college kids now. That’s where my mentality is, where my life is right now.”

It’s approaching NFL draft season, that period of hope and harvest with a language all its own: risers and fallers, hand sizes and 40 times, combines and pro days and, ultimately, the bests and busts separated by a flimsy vowel.

No one busted more for the Dolphins than Jordan in recent years. He tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs three times and was suspended for the 2015 season. But you can look at it with perspective all these years later.

The Dolphins, not Jordan, traded up from 12th to draft him with the third pick in 2013. The Dolphins, not Jordan, whispered how his size and disruptive game were reminiscent of Jason Taylor.

The Dolphins’ front office, in a recurring problem, also didn’t do their background work on Jordan to understand a physically gifted player had some issues he needed to grow out of. Just as says he has after retiring from a three-sack season with San Francisco in 2020.

“I ended up going back home to Arizona, and got involved with the Arizona Burn Foundation (for victims of fires) and working with youth,’’ he said.

He got his degree in sociology from Oregon (he’s looking into his masters degree). He answered the phone two season ago and his former Dolphins mentor and defensive linemate Randy Starks said: “Get your butt on a plane to Eureka College. I need some help.”

Jordan’s google search showed a Eureka in California.

 

“I was excited for a second,’’ he said.

Starks’ Eureka, the alma mater of Ronald Reagan, was in central Illinois.

“I’ve found what winter is like,’’ Jordan said.

Jordan became the defensive line coach, special teams coordinator, assistant head coach, office cleaner, field liner, laundryman …

“At this level, you wear a lot of hats,’’ he said. Eureka’s total undergraduate enrollment is less than 600 students.

Starks and Jordan inherited a troubled program. They brought in big recruiting classes the past two seasons. They went 2-8 playing that youth last season. The hope is these rising sophomores and juniors have developed into better players, even as Starks left to be a University of South Florida assistant coach.

“Randy said to me, ‘If you want to continue coaching, you’re ready to be the head coach,’ ” Jordan said. “I talked to my family in Arizona, talked to the athletic director, Sarah Shaw. I took a deep breath and said, ‘Let’s do this.’ ”

He’s hiring a staff. He’s recruiting. He’s also on school committees to help student retention and the black student union.

“It’s not just football here,’’ he said. “I can give more back to the youth. I don’t have a problem working to help these kids with their studies and their direction.”

When he looks back on his four Dolphins years, he talks of the strong veterans on the defensive line like Starks, Cameron Wake and Jared Odrick.

“They told me what it took to be a pro,’’ he said. “(Dolphins owner Steve Ross) supported me however he could. All I can say is I was a young 24.”

Everyone has a story. Sometimes you meet people in the wrong chapter.

“I’m most proud of my will to fight for myself and always feel like there’s something on the other end,’’ he said.

Coach Jordan’s newest chapter has found that something.


©2026 South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Visit sun-sentinel.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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