Tony Dungy: Difference between revisions

Tony Dungy

Career history
Pittsburgh Steelers San Francisco 49ers
Record at Pro Football Reference
Stats at Pro Football Reference

Anthony Kevin Dungy (born October 6, 1955) is a former professional football player and the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts of the NFL. From 1996 to 2001, Dungy was the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Early life

Tony Dungy was born, in Jackson, Michigan to Wilbur and Cleomae Dungy, both of whom were educators. They encouraged a focus on academics early on in their children's lives. Tony Dungy attended Parkside High School, where he played the guard position on the basketball team and the quarterback position on the football team.

College career

Dungy was recruited by University of Minnesota coach Cal Stoll, and played for the Golden Gophers from 1973 to 1976. He entered the starting lineup as a quarterback during his freshman year, and in four years, finished as Minnesota's career leader in pass attempts (576), completions (274), touchdown passes (25), and passing yards (3,577). He also finished fourth in career total offense in the Big Ten Conference. He received Minnesota's Most Valuable Player award twice.

Professional career

Following college, Dungy entered the National Football League as a free agent playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he played as a backup safety during Pittsburgh's Steel Curtain dynasty. In the Steelers' Super Bowl winning season of 1978, he was promoted to starter and led the team with six interceptions.

After defeating the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl XIII (Dungy forced a fumble that set up a Steelers touchdown in the game), Pittsburgh traded Dungy to the San Francisco 49ers in 1979, where he played one year. The 49ers traded him to the New York Giants at the beginning of the 1980 season, but he was cut during training camp. Subsequently, he retired from the National Football League.

In his three NFL seasons, Dungy recorded nine interceptions, which he returned for 132 yards. He also recovered nine fumbles and returned eight punts for 52 yards.

Coaching career

Assistant coaching positions

Following his retirement, Dungy was invited to become an assistant coach for his alma mater, the University of Minnesota in 1980. After one season in charge of defensive backs, he was asked to come back to the NFL as a coach. He was hired as an assistant coach with the Steelers by Chuck Noll, his former coach, in 1981.

In 1982, he was named defensive backfield coach, and was promoted in 1984 to defensive coordinator. His defenses achieved success, and he was often projected to become the first African American head coach. He left the Steelers in 1989 to become the defensive backs coach for the Kansas City Chiefs, and took over the defensive coordinator position for the Minnesota Vikings in 1992. While at Minnesota, Dungy's defense was ranked first in the NFL.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Although he was not the first African American to do so, Dungy finally achieved his dream when he was hired as head coach by Rich McKay to reform the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team well-known for its lack of success, in 1995. In 1997, the Buccaneers finished second in the NFC Central division, Tampa Bay's first winning season since 1982, and defeated the Detroit Lions in their first playoff game, losing the next game to the defending champion Green Bay Packers.

Under Dungy's watch, the Buccaneers went to the playoffs three times and won its division in 1999 only to lose to the St Louis Rams in the NFC Championship Game. Despite the team's progressing success, Dungy was fired by the team in 2001 due to the club's repeated losses in the playoffs — most notably, two lopsided defeats (in 2000 and 2001) to the Philadelphia Eagles— and because it was determined by the team's higher management that the conservative offense that Dungy ran was too inconsistent against NFL teams. The following year, the Buccaneers easily defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the 2002 NFC Championship game under coach Jon Gruden en route to the club's first Super Bowl appearance and victory.

Indianapolis Colts

On January 22, 2002, Dungy was hired as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, a team that at the time was very potent offensively, but very weak defensively. He installed his "Cover 2" defense immediately and ever since has set about retooling the Colts' defense to his liking. Since joining the Colts, Dungy has left the high-powered offense previously installed there by Jim Mora, in both playing style and in personnel, virtually unchanged. Dungy would be reunited with Tom Moore, who was retained as offensive coordinator. Moore was the offensive coordinator when Dungy was a college player at Minnesota.

Since his arrival in Indianapolis, Dungy had struggled to fix the Colts' defense, and has had mixed results in the postseason. In his first season at Indianapolis the Colts were shut out 41-0 by the New York Jets in a first-round playoff game, and the team lost postseason games to the New England Patriots in both 2003 (in the AFC championship game) and 2004 (in the second round of the playoffs). Dungy signed a three-year contract extension in 2005 for US$5 million per year.

The Colts focused on defensive improvements during the 2005 offseason, signing five-year defensive tackle Corey Simon. Widely expected to be a Super Bowl contender, the Colts won their first 13 games, prompting much speculation about the possibility of the Colts becoming the NFL's first team to finish the season undefeated since the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

However, this dream was shattered when the Colts lost their 14th game to the San Diego Chargers. The Colts did manage to obtain home field advantage throughout the playoffs. With the Colts seemingly on their way to the Super Bowl, they were defeated in the divisional playoff series against the Pittsburgh Steelers. This loss made the Colts the first team to ever start a season 13-0 and not reach the Super Bowl.

On January 21st, 2007, the Colts defeated the New England Patriots to become AFC Champions and advance to Super Bowl XLI.

Coaching style

Dungy's coaching strategy involves a conservative, ball-control offense based primarily around running the ball and short, high-percentage passes, combined with a stifling "Cover 2" style zone defense, which is usually based out of a 4 lineman, 3 linebacker, 4 defensive back formation. While coaching the Indianapolis Colts however, most of the offensive planning has been handled by his offensive coordinator.

The "Cover 2" defense Dungy uses involves having his linemen rushing the passer, the cornerbacks covering the passing flat area, the linebackers covering the middle of the field, and the safeties providing deep coverage on each half of their respective zones. While the Cover 2 defense is not a new concept, the personnel that Dungy uses in this defense is very specific, and as a result, his style of defense has earned the moniker of the "Tampa 2" around the NFL .

The personnel Dungy uses in the Tampa 2 are specific in position and required abilities. All positions in his defense place a premium on speed, and often the result is that they are all undersized by league standards. The defensive linemen in his scheme have to be quick and agile enough to create pressure on the quarterback without the aid of a blitz from either the linebackers or the secondary, with the defensive tackle in the nose position having above-average tackling skills to help stop the run.

The three linebackers and two cornerbacks are responsible for covering the middle of the field. The outside linebackers general zone is between the cornerbacks covering the area of the field from the line of scrimmage to 10 yards back. The middle linebacker must have better-than-average speed, and additional skills to be able to read the play and either maintain his central position to help the outside linebackers cover short passes, drop behind the linebackers in coverage and protect the zone of the field behind the outside linebackers from 11-20 yards out, or run up to the line of scrimmage to help assist in stopping the run. The cornerbacks protect the sidelines of the field from the line of scrimmage to anywhere between 15-20 yards out. An additional requirement for all of Dungy's linebackers and cornerbacks is to be above-average tacklers, as they are usually the primary tacklers in the defense.

The two safeties are responsible for covering their respective halves of the field from 20 yards out and more. The safeties in Dungy's system are expected to be above-average cover men with the ability to break up passes, but each safety also is expected to have additional specific skills. The strong safeties, while not expected to be great tacklers, are expected to be hard hitters. The hard hitting strong safety protects the middle of the field from being exploited by small, fast wide receivers, and running backs on 'Wheel' routes, by intimidating them to not run their routes in that direction. The free safety in Dungy's system will be called upon to do one of two things in certain situations, either blitz the quarterback, requiring him to have the skills necessary to beat a blocking running back or fullback, or to assume the coverage zone left by a blitzing cornerback.

When executed properly, Dungy's Tampa 2 defense is difficult to beat, which speaks for its longevity that it has fundamentally not changed since first introduced when he came to Tampa in 1996. Teams that have been successful against his defense have managed to run the ball up the middle past the defensive tackles, or throw passes in the seams between the outside linebackers and the cornerbacks (often the most effective receiver against a Tampa 2 defense is a Tight End, since they often line up against this seam).

Other tactics that have shown to be effective on occasion are misdirection plays that take advantage of the defensive speed and rely on the defense 'overrunning' the play (such as the middle linebacker rushing to the line of scrimmage on a play-action pass), or overloading the safeties by having multiple receivers running deep routes, creating more targets in a zone than defenders. Recently, certain teams have also been able to exploit the seam between the cornerbacks and the safeties, when the quarterback can throw a pass to a receiver in that seam faster than the safety can rush up to close it and cover the receiver.

Coaching tree and philosophy

See also: coaching tree

Like Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, Bill Walsh, Mike Holmgren and Marty Schottenheimer, Dungy is also credited with supporting and fostering the development of defensive-minded coaches, especially African Americans, during his tenure with the Bucs. His contributions have had a great affect on the diversity of the league and helped lead to the institution of the Rooney Rule by Steeler's owner Dan Rooney, requiring teams to interview minority coaches.

As of January 23, 2007, four members from Dungy's coaching staff are head coaches of other NFL teams:

• Herman Edwards for the Kansas City Chiefs (Assistant head coach under Dungy at Tampa Bay)
• Lovie Smith for the Chicago Bears (Linebackers coach under Dungy at Tampa Bay)
• Rod Marinelli for the Detroit Lions (Defensive line coach under Dungy at Tampa Bay)
• Mike Tomlin for the Pittsburgh Steelers (Defensive backs coach under Dungy at Tampa Bay)

Moreover, Joe Barry, Linebackers coach under Dungy at Tampa Bay, is the defensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions.

Contrary to the coaching styles of using profanity and intimidation, getting up at 3 a.m., not living at the complex or sacrificing their families or their faith, the coaches under Dungy do not belittle his players or scream at them and like Dungy, they are calm when things get worse. They guide instead of goads, and Lovie Smith found that perhaps the most instructive thing of all. “We talked about how to do it, being a teacher instead of screaming and yelling, all that stuff,” Smith said.

Smith also said, "I think as you look to young coaches coming up in the ranks, a lot of us have a picture of how a coach is supposed to be, how he is supposed to act...And I think what Tony Dungy showed me is you don't have to act that way."

Dungy said, "I really wanted to show people you can win all kinds of ways. I always coached the way I've wanted to be coached. I know Lovie has done the same thing. For guys to have success where it maybe goes against the grain, against the culture ... I know I probably didn't get a couple of jobs in my career because people could not see my personality or the way I was going to do it ... For your faith to be more important than your job, for your family to be more important than that job ... We all know that's the way it should be, but we're afraid to say that sometimes. Lovie's not afraid to say it and I'm not afraid to say it."

Personal

Dungy's tenure in Tampa Bay as the head coach of the Buccaneers brought greater attention to his personal accomplishments outside of sports. Tony Dungy has earned widespread respect both on and off the field due to what many see as strong convictions and high personal standards of ethics and behavior, which affect his behavior as both a coach and as a member of his community. He has been active in many community service organizations in the cities in which he has coached. While in Tampa Bay, Dungy worked as a public speaker for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Athletes in Action.

He began a mentoring program for young people called Mentors for Life, and provided Buccaneers' tickets for the participants. He also supported other charitable programs in the area such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Club, the Prison Crusade Ministry, foster parenting organizations, and Family First. His community involvement and care continues in Indianapolis where Tony helped launch the Basket of Hope program which aids children at Riley Hospital for Children. He continues to assist Big Brothers/Big Sisters and the Boys and Girls Club in Indianapolis. He also supports the Black Coaches Association National Convention and Indiana Black Expo.

Dungy is a devout Christian and at one point in his coaching career considered leaving football for the prison ministry. Throughout his career, he has remained involved with community service organizations.

Dungy is married to Lauren Dungy and has two daughters, Tiara and Jade, and three sons, Eric, and Jordan, and the late James Dungy.

Dungy's 18-year-old son, James, was found unresponsive in his apartment in Lutz, Florida, by his girlfriend on December 22 2005. CPR was performed, but he was pronounced dead upon arrival at University Community Hospital. A preliminary coroner's report indicated that James committed suicide. He had been treated for a prescription drug overdose on October 21 of that year.

The game against the Seattle Seahawks on December 24 2005 was coached by assistant coach Jim Caldwell..

Trivia

• Dungy is the first African-American AFC coach to make it to the Super Bowl, and is one of the two African-American coaches ever in NFL to make it to the Super Bowl (along with Lovie Smith, head coach of the Chicago Bears, who also made it to the Super Bowl XLI in 2007.)

• Dungy is the only NFL player since the AFL-NFL merger to intercept a pass and throw an interception in the same game. Dungy was the emergency quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers in a 1977 game against the Baltimore Colts when both Terry Bradshaw and Mike Kruczek went down with injuries on October 30, 1977. He played safety on defense.

• Dungy is the first NFL head coach to defeat all 32 NFL teams.

• Dungy was the youngest assistant coach in NFL history (age 28)

External links

• "NFL.com - Indianapolis Colts Coaching Staff". Retrieved 2005-12-24.
• "The Official Website of the Indianapolis Colts". Retrieved 2005-12-24.
• "Gale - Free Resources - Black History - Biographies - Tony Dungy". Retrieved 2005-12-24.
• "ESPN.com - NFL -Smith: Faith, family then football". Retrieved 2005-12-24.
• "ESPN.com - NFL -Tony Dungy Amazing Grace". Retrieved 2006-06-18.