Tony Dungy: A Journey of Perseverance, Faith and Triumph
By Movieguide® Contributor
Former NFL coach Tony Dungy appeared on I Am Second’s video series to talk about how he kept his faith throughout his turbulent career.
“You can glorify the Lord in every circumstance. How you respond to failure, how you respond to disappointment says a lot more than how you do in successes,” Dungy said.
“If I see someone who wins the Super Bowl and they give credit to God, I’m going to say, well, that’s normal. That’s a natural thing. How is that person going to be when it doesn’t go well? For me, that was always convicting. I have to model my behavior and model my dependence on Christ even when we don’t win,” Dungy previously told Religion News Service.
Dungy had a lot of ups and downs in his NFL career. After five years with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, his first appointment as head coach ended. The team’s administration fired Dungy when the Bucs didn’t take home the Super Bowl in 2001.
Dungy said:
That’s to me one of the hardest things in life, when you have an idea of the way things are going to go, or what you hope for, what you dream about, what you pray for, and it doesn’t come through. That’s when it’s easy to get disappointed with God. Why didn’t it work? Why didn’t it pan out the way I thought it would?
It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life because I did feel like the Lord had brought me down to Tampa. And I had to realize that it worked out; it just didn’t work out the way I had planned it. I didn’t know at the time when I got fired what I was supposed to do.
Was I supposed to look for something in Tampa outside of football? Or was I supposed to look for another job, another city? And Jim Irsay, the owner of the Colts, called me, and he said, ‘We’re making a change at head coach with the Indianapolis Colts, and you’re the guy that I want to be our coach.’”
“My favorite passage in the Bible is where Christ says, ‘What would it profit a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul?’ ” Dungy said. “That was the thing I always wanted to tell my players. Don’t put this game first. Don’t make football everything in your life. How we relate to each other, how we live, what you have in your heart for eternity, how you respond to the Lord—that’s the most important thing. This game will take care of itself.”
Dungy served as head coach of the Colts for five years before the team finally won. He became the first African-American head coach to ever win a Super Bowl.
“As soon as you win, the celebration starts… [The players] said, ‘Coach, we’ve got to finish this one like we have every other game. We’ve got to have the team prayer.’ And we asked that reporters shut their cameras down and let us pray.” Dungy continued, “And I was so proud of the guys for hanging in there and saying, this is what we want to do; we want to honor the Lord in this victory.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Dungy and his wife Lauren’s obedience to God:
For Tony, understanding God’s calling starts with prayer.
“We just have to get used to listening and hearing and that’s where prayer comes in. One thing Lauren and I talk about amongst ourselves is, is it something that is glorying God? Is it something that we’re passionate about? And if both of those are yes, then there’s a good chance we are hearing from the Lord,” Tony said.
When Dungy retired from his head coach position, he dedicated himself to charitable work. He currently occupies his time with the Dungy Family Foundation, which helps women, youth, crisis pregnancy centers, children with cancer, and Christian education programs. He also serves as a spokesman for All-Pro Dad, a national fatherhood program, and as an analyst on FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA.
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