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Black History
Tony Dungy
Oct. 6, 1955 -
Jackson, Michigan, United States
Nationality: American
Occupation: Football coach
Awards: Member of 1979 Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers; National Fatherhood Initiative, Fatherhood Award, 2002.
Individuals who coach professional sports teams for a living are a unique breed. Their personalities must be fiery enough to contend with the antics of the most pampered athletes. At the same time, they must be modest enough to credibly project the belief that it is the players, not the coaches, who are responsible for the outcomes of games. Pro football head coach Tony Dungy manages to belie both of those characterizations. Those with whom he has worked are unanimous in describing Dungy as the least excitable person ever to prowl a football sideline. And while he is the picture of humility, he is almost universally hailed as a coaching genius, capable of virtually single-handedly turning a football program around, transforming pathetic defenses into great ones, and changing losing organizations into winners.
Dungy was born on October 6, 1955, in Jackson, Michigan. Unlike many of his jock peers, Dungy grew up in a family that valued intellectual accomplishments as much as athletic ones. His father, Wilbur, is a retired physiology professor. His mother, Cleomae, was a high school English teacher for many years. Dungy's siblings include a sister who is an obstetrician, another who is a nurse, and a dentist brother. Even in a household where the focus was on academics, however, Dungy was drawn to football at an early age. Wilbur Dungy, when interviewed for a 1996 USA Today article, recalled that as a graduate student at Michigan State University, he would watch Detroit Lions football games with the six-year-old Tony. While the elder Dungy concentrated on his studies, "Tony would fill me in, telling me who handled the ball on every play and what happened."
Excelled as Gophers' QB
Dungy starred as a basketball guard and an option quarterback in football at Jackson's Parkside High School. It was his football exploits that captured the attention of University of Minnesota head coach Cal Stoll. By the end of his freshman year at Minnesota, Dungy had cracked the starting lineup. It quickly became clear that Dungy's approach to the game was a cerebral one. While his teammates hit the bars and engaged in other standard collegiate pursuits, Dungy spent his spare time watching game films and analyzing his opponents. As star quarterback for the Golden Gophers from 1973 to 1976, Dungy finished his college career ranked fourth in total offense among all players in the history of the Big Ten conference.
In spite of his accomplishments at Minnesota, Dungy's small stature and questionable throwing arm put off many pro scouts, and he was passed over in the NFL draft. He signed as a free agent with the Pittsburgh Steelers, where coach Chuck Noll quickly converted him into a defensive back. Although he lacked the size, power, and speed of other players at his position, Dungy made the team on the strength of his astute understanding of the defense the Steelers were running, and his ability to anticipate the moves of opposing receivers based on long hours of study and analysis.
Dungy soon came to play a key role as a reserve on Pittsburgh's famous "Steel Curtain" defense. In one 1977 game, he performed a rare feat by both making and throwing interceptions in the same game. In 1978, his second season with the Steelers, Dungy led the team with six interceptions — good for second in the AFC — and helped lead the Steelers to a Super Bowl championship. Eventually, however, it became clear that no amount of football smarts could make up for his lack of NFL-caliber speed. The Steelers traded Dungy to the San Francisco 49ers in 1979, and after a year there he was shipped to the New York Giants. The Giants cut Dungy toward the end of the 1980 preseason. Seeing that he had no future as an active player, Dungy retired, with a career total of nine interceptions over three seasons.
Assisted Stoll, Then Noll
Although Dungy was less than memorable as a player at the professional level, his understanding of the game apparently left a mark on some of the coaches with whom he had worked. Shortly after the end of his playing career, Dungy was invited by Stoll, his coach at the University of Minnesota, to return to his alma mater in the capacity of assistant coach in charge of defensive backs. The following year, Pittsburgh head coach Noll offered Dungy an assistant coaching spot with the Steelers. Dungy accepted the offer, and in 1981, at the age of 25 — younger than many of the players on the team — he began his NFL coaching career.
Dungy quickly began to rise through the ranks in the Steeler organization. By 1982 he was named defensive backfield coach. Two years later Dungy became the first African American to be named defensive coordinator of an NFL team. He served as the Steelers' defensive coordinator from 1984 to 1988. During that time, Dungy-led defenses became known for overachieving, particularly in the area of causing turnovers. Dungy's name began to surface in conversations about who would become the NFL's first black head coach. In spite of his success as an assistant, however, Dungy was interviewed for only a handful of head coaching positions during this period. Many insiders attributed this lack of interest on the part of owners to Dungy's famously calm demeanor, which was considered unsuited to the position of head coach, a job more often associated with those like the fiery Vince Lombardi. Others suspected racism.
In 1989 Dungy left Pittsburgh to take over as defensive backs coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, where three of the players under his authority were named to the Pro Bowl. He remained there until 1992, when he was named defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings. At Minnesota, Dungy led the NFL's top-rated defense team. Still, his desire to break into the head coaching ranks went unfulfilled, even as three other African Americans — Art Shell, Dennis Green, and Ray Rhodes — reached that goal ahead of him. Dungy stayed at Minnesota through the 1995 season.
Piloted Bucs' Turnaround
The long-awaited call finally came in 1996, when Dungy was hired as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the least successful team in the history of the league. At Tampa Bay, Dungy, still fairly young for a head coach at 41, was faced with the task of turning around a team that had not enjoyed a winning season since the strike-shortened 1982 campaign. Dungy's start at Tampa Bay was not auspicious. The team lost its first five games of the 1996 season, and fans sensed yet another last place finish in the making. At midseason, however, things began to change. As Dungy's system began to sink in, the Buccaneers suddenly started showing signs of life. The team ended up winning five of its last seven games, including five straight on its home field, a first for the Tampa Bay franchise. At the end of the season, the team found itself somewhere other than last place for the first time since 1992.
Hopes were high in Tampa Bay as the 1997 season approached. Under Dungy's leadership, the team picked up where it had left off at the end of the previous season, winning its first five games. In spite of a midseason slump, Dungy was able to guide the Buccaneers to a second-place finish in the tough NFC Central Division, good enough for a playoff berth. The team won its wild-card game against the Detroit Lions. As Tampa Bay fans braced for their team's match up against the defending Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers, spirits were soaring. Very few of those fans doubted that in Dungy they had finally found somebody capable of peeling the "perennial doormat" label off of their beloved team. Unfortunately they lost the game against Green Bay.
Dungy's calm coaching style has earned him the respect and dedication of his players and coaching staff alike. "You don't want to let Tony down," Buccaneers defensive end Marcus Jones told Insight on the News. "He gives us enough space to where we can be our own people. At the same time, he's a no-nonsense guy." Defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin concurred, commenting to Insight on the News, "You don't feel pressure coaching for him. You can just be yourself instead of wondering, 'What if I do something wrong and upset the coach?'" Dungy credited his calm to his Christian faith, for part of the faith is, as he told the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, "realizing that there are things you might not ever understand and a lot of things you won't be able to control, so worrying about those things and getting frustrated is not fruitful." He also draws upon his experience as a former player, trying to treat team members as he would like a coach to treat him.
Pressured to Improve Team in 2001
Dungy spent five years with Tampa Bay, taking the Buccaneers to the playoffs three times and winning a division title in 1999. Dungy was the winningest coach in the team's history, but as the 2001 season opened with disappointing results, he came under pressure from team owners. With his job at stake, Dungy remained unflappable, telling the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, "Every week you have to go out and get the job done. That's what you're judged on."
The pressure was on, but Dungy was not about to change his coaching strategy. "People always want to know, 'What are you going to do to get to the next level? You've got to do something dramatic,'" Dungy told Insight on the News. "We want to be at the next level, but we believe that what will get us there is doing everything a little bit better, not making dramatic changes." In the previous season, the team had performed inconsistently, alternating between good and poor offense and winning three straight games, only to lose four in a row. This is what Dungy planned to work on in the 2001 season, as opposed to making sweeping changes. "He's so steady, so consistent," offensive coordinator Clyde Christensen told Insight on the News. "I've even looked to see if maybe there's some nervousness in having to change the quarterback position ... or others here and there, but it doesn't faze him. He just keeps on trucking."
In the end, composed perseverance was not enough to save Dungy's job. The season closed with a 31-9 playoff loss to Philadelphia, and two days later, he was fired. His farewell remarks, quoted by the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, were optimistic: "We did the best we could. It wasn't quite good enough, but we're going to go out very proud of what we did."
Dungy began exploring his options, seriously considering a new career in prison ministry. "It's something I've always wanted to do, and I thought maybe the time had come to try it." he told Sports Illustrated. "I wasn't sure I still wanted to be a coach in the NFL." But when Indianapolis Colts president Bill Polian offered Dungy a coaching position, he accepted. The team, which had had difficulty enacting the complicated strategies of their previous coach, were glad to have Dungy. Defensive tackle Ellis Johnson told Sports Illustrated, "I've studied film of Tampa's defense for a long time, just because it's such a beautiful thing to watch. Having it here, well, it's been like night and day."