After Tony Dungy was fired, he started thinking about his future right away. He wondered if his time coaching for the NFL was over and if it was time to move on. The Bucs moved on pretty quickly, hiring Jon Gruden as their new head coach. Dungy received no calls.
Dungy decided that he would continue with his ministry. He and his friend started going to a local prison to witness to some of the inmates there. Dungy was shocked when he saw kids at sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. He had that mindset where all the guys were older, tough, scraggly looking men. That definitely wasn't the case.
Dungy was able to connect with the guys pretty quickly. A lot of them followed football and read the Bible, so Dungy had a couple topics he could discuss with them. Some inmates would open up and tell Dungy about their hopes and dreams for when they get out of prison. To this day, inmates still send Dungy poems, drawings, and letters to express themselves.
One day, after returning home from the prison, Dungy received a voice message on his home phone. It was from the owner of the Colts. He wanted Dungy to come to Indianapolis to join the team as head coach. The voice message was fifteen minutes long and told Dungy all about the ideas and views that were wanted for the team. Dungy realized that maybe his coaching career wasn't over.
Almost at the same time, the Panthers called Dungy to see if he would come to North Carolina. Dungy evaluated both teams and found that both jobs were right up his alley. When it boiled down, Indianapolis seemed like the better fit for the Dungy family. Dungy was now the coach of the Indianapolis Colts.
For the first year in Indianapolis, the family decided to have two houses. They would keep the house in Tampa so that their daughter could finish high school and then a new house would be bought for Tony up in Indianapolis for the season. The family would reunite on gamedays and Tony would go home to Tampa as soon as the season was over.
The Colts went 10-6 during their first season. Nothing impressive happened during their first season, but they did reach the playoffs as a wild card team. They were to go to New York to face Herm Edwards' team, the Jets. Unfortunately, the Colts got blown out in a 41-0 trampling.
Dungy's former team, the Bucs, also made it to the playoffs. Dungy had no hard feelings towards his old team, so was rooting them through the post-season. The Bucs rolled through three games to make it to the Super Bowl. Tampa Bay was hopping and people were ecstatic for the top game of them all. Newspapers were headlining the game and some even went as far as to say "Thank goodness for Gruden finishing what Dungy couldn't." This was hurtful, but Dungy knew that God had a plan for him and his new team.
Gruden won the Super Bowl over the Raiders. Dungy was quite happy for the team and hoped that someday that could be him. Work was to be done and everything he believed was being stressed more and more to the players. "Continue to improve on the little things. It'll come together."
I found it interesting how the Dungy family went through their first year with Tony in Indianapolis. That would be hard to live without your family and only get to see them on the weekends. They must have a strong family, because Dungy didn't mention anything about him and his wife or him and the kids getting worried, concerned, depressed, or anything like that. My respect continues to build on Tony Dungy.
No comments:
Post a Comment