Higher Ground

Coach Tony Dungy reached the very brink of success—and then was fired: fired for not reaching the Super Bowl. What happened afterward? Sportswriter Joe Posnanski wrote, "Dungy had overcome. He stayed true to himself, to his faith, to his loyalty. He told his players: 'Men, you are going to be disappointed in life. You are not going to win every game. You are not going to win every day. The real test of a man-of a champion-is this: Will you fight when things are not going your way? And if you are willing to fight, you will win.'" (Howard Butt-Faith in the Workplace)

MIAMI For a long time, they thought this man with a heart as big as the Everglades was too nice to be a Super Bowl coach. They thought he was too conservative. Some even thought him too dark-skinned. And the thing was, Tony Dungy did not hold that against people. He expected that in time, he would change people's minds.

And there he was Sunday evening in a cool Florida rain. He sat on the shoulders of his coaches and players. He felt sticky from the Gatorade shower. He took the regular Colts hat with the blue horseshoe off his head and replaced it with a Super Bowl hat. He threw his arms in the air. Indianapolis had beaten Chicago 29-17. Yes, Tony Dungy was a Super Bowl champion.
So what was he thinking?

This is the ultimate question in all sports, the 'What were you thinking when it happened' question, and usually it does not produce a particularly interesting answer. What were you thinking when you hit the home run? Well, I was thinking he would throw a fastball. What were you thinking when you made the game-winning shot? I was hoping it would go in. What were you thinking when you were standing over the putt? I was thinking it would break a little left.
But this was different. Tony Dungy is different. There was nothing typical about his route to Super Bowl champion coach, and there was nothing easy about it. He was a star high school quarterback at a time when black kids did not play quarterback. There seemed no point. It's like the comedian Chris Rock said: 'When I was young, I knew the name of every starting black quarterback in the NFL.' That's because there was only one, Doug Williams. And Dungy came before Williams.

Dungy went to the University of Minnesota and astounded coaches there with his poise and astuteness. He learned so quickly. Dungy is the son of a teacher. He started at quarterback as a freshman. He set all the school records. He was not drafted by any NFL team. Dungy signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers as a free agent, and they immediately moved him to safety. 'Believe me, Tony wanted to keep playing quarterback,' Dungy's close friend Herm Edwards said once. 'But it just wasn't the right time for a thinking man's black quarterback. So he moved to safety. He wanted to play.'

He played three years in the NFL -- he had six interceptions and was a key player for the 1978 Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers. And Chuck Noll, the Hall of Fame Pittsburgh coach, was utterly taken by Dungy. Noll would say he had never been around a player who so thoroughly seemed to understand. Everyone who met Dungy felt that way. Noll hired a 26-year-old Tony Dungy to be a defensive coach, and he promoted Dungy to defensive coordinator at 29. It looked like Dungy was on a fast track

And then there were some dry years, disappointing years. Dungy was considered by people inside the game to be one of the brightest coordinators in football. But he could not get a job. He was too nice, they said. He was too soft-spoken. Though no one would say it out loud, there had been no African-American coaches in the NFL in almost 70 years.

In time, Art Shell would break that sad streak when he was named coach of the Oakland Raiders. But Shell was a name, a Hall of Fame player. Dungy was neither of those things. He came to Kansas City to be defensive backs coach, and then he went to Minnesota and coordinated the best defense in the NFL. He still could not get a head coaching job. Most years, he could not even get an interview. Later, when he was asked if he ever lost faith, he said quietly: 'I never lost faith in myself. But I must admit, I began to wonder if I would ever get a chance.'

Tampa Bay finally gave him that chance in 1996. The Buccaneers were so far down, it looked like a dead-end job. Dungy rammed into that job with a force of will that his assistant coaches Herm Edwards and Lovie Smith have never forgotten. 'He knew exactly what he was going to do,' Lovie Smith said. In Dungy's second year, the Bucs won 10 games for only the second time in their 21-year history. In his fourth year, he coached Tampa Bay to the NFC championship. After his sixth year and fourth playoff appearance, he was fired because he did not win enough playoff games.

That cut through him. Dungy admits that. He thought about getting out of coaching. He considered becoming a prison minister. But Jim Irsay of the Colts called -- Indianapolis was coming off a bad season, but the team had a lot of talent -- and Dungy wanted another chance. He took the Colts to the playoffs right away -- and lost 41-0 to his friend Herm Edwards. The next three years, the Colts won 12 games, 14 games, and 12 games. They lost in heartbreaking ways in the playoffs all three years. Then again, is there any other way to lose in the playoffs? Once again, people said Dungy was too nice, too conservative -- too something -- to win the big game.

'Tony kept telling us that these losses would make us better people,' Colts quarterback Peyton Manning would say. 'It's hard to believe a man when he says that after a loss. But there was always something about Tony Dungy -- you believed him. You believed in him.'

Then came this crazy season. The Colts won 12 games, but they had a terrible run defense. Terrible. They lost three of their last five regular-season games. They seemed to lack that something yet again. Few talked about them as a real Super Bowl contender. But their first playoff game, against the Chiefs, they stuffed the run. Their second game, against Baltimore, they played with guts. And the third, they came back from way down and beat the unbeatable playoff pairing of Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.

All along, Dungy coached exactly the way he had always coached. He trusted his players. He believed in keeping it simple. And in Sunday's Super Bowl, he coached nice. He settled for field goals. He punted on fourth and short to gain field position. He challenged his defense to be dominant. It wasn't much of a game to watch because Chicago's Rex Grossman flopped around and because the Colts couldn't punch the ball in the end zone and end the Bears' misery. But Super Bowls are rarely beautiful. You don't play in the Super Bowl to look good. You play to win.

Dungy had overcome. He had stayed true to himself, to his faith, to his loyalty. He had told his players, time after time after time: 'Men, you are going to be disappointed in life. You are not going to win every game. You are not going to win every day. The real test of a man, the real test of a champion is this: Will you fight when things are not going your way? And if you are willing to fight, you will win.'

He had won. So what was he thinking about in that moment? He was the first African-American coach to win a Super Bowl. He was, surely, the nicest man to win. He had proven to everyone that he had that something inside. He had a whole lot of it.

'You don't know what you're going to feel in that moment,' he said. He stuttered for a moment as he tried to come up with the right word for how he felt.

'Love,' he said.

Copyright © 2007 Kansas City Star, All Rights Reserved.

"Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize" (1 Cor. 9:24-27).