Quiet Strength

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;
Perplexed, but not in despair;
Persecuted, but not destroyed.
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body.

—2 Corinthians 4:8-11

W
E
ARE
BLESSED
and privileged to write the foreword to a book that truly represents the power of God and the rewards of obedience to God’s Word.

On February 4, 2007, millions of people witnessed Coach Tony Dungy confirm his faith after winning the greatest award in football, the Super Bowl Championship. Coach Dungy made history as the first African American coach to win the Super Bowl. Although that is significant, it is only a small part of his journey toward fulfilling his life’s purpose.

It has been said that we get good at whatever we practice. Coach Dungy practices proactive faith. This faith is not a gimmick or magic or the will of a strong mind. It is not a short-order request to receive what we want when we want it. Proactive faith is receiving everything that has been promised to us by God’s Word for His purpose and in His timing.

Because of his proactive faith, Tony Dungy has been able to climb many mountains. Great achievements require great effort, and Coach Dungy’s greatest accomplishment is that through it all, he has stayed obedient to God’s will.

Coach Dungy’s life displays his steadfast belief in God and his submission to God’s Word. His story is a guide for basic living and a confession of his belief in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This account is proof that Coach Dungy’s beliefs have sustained him consistently throughout his life.

To follow Coach Dungy’s life from his beginnings to the present is most inspiring. For him to have been rejected, ignored, praised, and denied—yet still maintain dignity, strength, and hope—is a testament to his unwavering faith. At times his choices have not been popular, but he has stood his ground. He has remained commited to the will of God.

The payoff of such faith is far better than anything the material world can offer. In this world, one can never be satisfied. The reward of remaining patient and obedient to the will of God is that life becomes fulfilling and satisfying … complete.

Hebrews 11:6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”

We see a beautiful testimony of such faith in this man of courage.

Pauletta and Denzel Washington

By Nathan Whitaker

T
ONY
WAS
RELUCTANT
to single out people specifically, noting how many people made this book possible, both by direct participation as well as in the entwining of their very lives into Tony and Lauren’s, and thereby into the fabric of these pages. Although he’s right—we’re bound to forget people—I had far too much help with this book to not attempt to recognize those who assisted.

We are grateful for the time and memories of Jerry Angelo, Jim Caldwell, Vernon Cheek, Clyde Christensen, Jackie Cook, Mark Dominik, Herm Edwards, Leslie Frazier, Loren Harris, John Idzik, Craig Kelley, Tom Lamphere, Rich McKay, Mark Merrill, Veronica Pinto, Tim Ruskell, Donnie Shell, Alan Williams, and Ruston Webster.

Recognition is also due the pastors who have ministered to Tony and Lauren so faithfully through their married life: Richard Farmer, Charles Briscoe, Steve Gould, Ken Whitten, Abe Brown, Jeff Singletary, John Ramsey, and Clarence Moore.

D.J. Snell of Legacy,
LLC
, in his dual roles as our literary agent as well as a brother in Christ, has been invaluable with his guidance and vision for this book, as has Jim Dodson, with his assistance and encouragement on manuscript concepts.

Our faith in Tyndale House Publishers has been borne out by the work of Jan Long Harris, Todd Starowitz, Sarah Atkinson, Doug Knox, Mark Taylor, Dan Elliott, Lisa Jackson, Jeremy Taylor, Bonne Steffen, Erin Smith, Sarah Rubio, Dean Renninger, and the rest of the outstanding staff.

In addition, I have been carried by the assistance—sometimes through encouraging word or prayer, other times through more direct roles with the book—of Don Buerkle, Dom and Karen Capers, Brian and Cindy Clark, Jeff and Shaunti Feldhahn, David French, Chan Gailey, Matthew Hartsfield, John Kingston, Buddy Moore, Betsy and Mike Mularkey, Phil Pharr, Rob Rose, Heath Scheisser, Charlie Skalaski, Todd and Christine Stockberger, George Woods, and John Wunderli.

I am incredibly thankful for the assistance of Lauren Dungy, who balanced a desire to shield their already public life with the knowledge that sharing their experiences might affect lives. I pray that the Lord will continue to bless her tremendous impact through her partnership with Tony.

I couldn’t have done this without the support of my wife, Amy, who kept faith in me long after mine had started to falter; my precious daughters, Hannah, for sharing me and for finding the comma we needed on page 72, and Ellie Kate, for stopping the banging on my office door long enough for me to finish; and my parents, Scott and Lynda Whitaker, for their belief in my vision and substantial editing assistance.

Tony, you were “Jesus with skin on” throughout this process, in good times and tough. I will forever be grateful for your faith in me and this project and for allowing your story to be told so that others might be encouraged and edified by it. You are a remarkable man with a remarkable story.

Most of all, Tony and I are grateful to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for bringing us this far in the journey of our lives, a journey of hope, joy, and the promise of eternal life.

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

—Booker T. Washington

“A
BSOLUTELY
NOT
.” I have been approached many times over the last few years about writing a book, and my answer has always been the same.

In 2004 I had lunch with my good friend Nathan Whitaker in Indianapolis, and we talked about doing a book that would be more about life than about football. Could I see how such a book could help others? Yes. But still my answer was no.

And then my team, the Indianapolis Colts, won Super Bowl
XLI
in February 2007.

Still no.

But then cards and letters and e-mails started to roll in.

“Thank you for your witness before the game… .”

“My son and I watched your comments after the game together. I could take him to church twenty times, and it wouldn’t have opened up a chance for us to talk the way watching the Super Bowl did… .”

“My husband moved out three weeks ago but heard one of your comments about putting your family first. He has since called and wants to come talk… .”

I like the saying, “Life is hard, but God is good.” It’s because of God’s goodness that we can have hope, both for here and the hereafter. And it’s the desire to share that hope that finally changed my no to yes.

But before we begin, I want to make sure we’re starting at the same place. The point of this book is not the Super Bowl. In fact, it’s not football.

Don’t get me wrong—football is great. It’s provided a living and a passion for me for decades. It was the first job I ever had that actually got me excited about heading to work.

But football is just a game. It’s not family. It’s not a way of life. It doesn’t provide any sort of intrinsic meaning. It’s just football. It lasts for three hours, and when the game is over, it’s over.

And frankly, as you’ll see throughout this book, that fact—that when it’s over, it’s over—is part of football’s biggest appeal to me. When a game ends, win or lose, it’s time to prepare for the next one. The coaches and players really don’t have time to celebrate or to stay down, because Sunday’s gone and Monday’s here. And no matter what happened yesterday, you have to be ready to play next Sunday.

That’s how it works—just like life.

It’s the journey that matters. Learning is more important than the test. Practice well, and the games will take care of themselves. Whether you’ve been kicked in the teeth or life just couldn’t get any sweeter, it keeps rolling on … and then there’s another game.

If football were the only thing that mattered to me, I would have left coaching after the 2001 season, when I had finished with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers—or when they had finished with me. At that time, I thought God might be moving me into some other walk of life. There were a lot of things I had always wanted to do “someday,” and my family certainly wanted to stay in Tampa. I figured God was simply telling me that “someday” had arrived.

If it were all about football, I would have left after the 2005 season, when I was reminded—in the most painful context I can imagine—that football really occupies a spot far down my list of priorities.

If it were all about football, I would have moved on after the 2006 season, when the Colts won Super Bowl
XLI
, accomplishing the ultimate team goal in the National Football League. After all, if football were all that mattered, what else would be left to do?

It would have been easy enough to do: “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve achieved the ultimate victory. I’m stepping down.” Everyone would have understood.

But winning the Super Bowl is not the ultimate victory. And once again, just to make certain we’re on the same page, it’s not all about football. It’s about the journey—mine and yours—and the lives we can touch, the legacy we can leave, and the world we can change for the better.

I’m still not totally comfortable putting my story in a book, but here’s how I see it: although football has been a part of my life that I’ve really enjoyed, I’ve always viewed it as a means to do something more. A means to share my faith, to encourage and lift up other people. And I see this book as a way of expanding the platform that football has provided.

Despite my day job, I am by nature a very private person in a very private family. So you won’t see a whole lot about my children in this book. I love them dearly, and it’s impossible to tell my story without mentioning them. At the same time, a tension exists because my wife, Lauren, has worked very hard to make our kids’ upbringing as normal as possible with a father who is the head coach of an
NFL
team. So with one notable, obvious exception, you won’t find much discussion of my children in this book. I hope you, as well as they, understand and appreciate why.

This book is not only about me, either. It’s about the priorities, choices, approaches, and habits that lead to being a winner, to experiencing true success. It’s about you and me and our journey in this world together. It’s about the things I’ve learned, the mistakes I’ve made, and the heartaches that have made me lean into the Father’s presence. I hope that when it’s all said and done, you’ll see that it’s really all about Him.

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.

—2 Corinthians 4:8-9

I
T
WAS
TIME
. I figured I had waited long enough. Darkness had fallen on that winter evening, two days after our team’s business had concluded for the season. The building was otherwise deserted as I pulled up and parked at the small wooden shack guarding the entrance to One Buccaneer Place.

One Buc, as we all called it, stood quiet. The one-story, stucco and concrete block building was located on the edge of the Tampa International Airport. The color of butter pecan ice cream, this was the original building that housed the newly formed Buccaneers in 1976. Rather than expand the building as the organization exploded in size over the years—as personnel were added for coaching, scouting, marketing, public relations, ticketing, and other functions—the Bucs had simply added a series of trailers on the other side of a small parking lot in the late 1990s. The trailers were collectively known as Two Buc.

Oscar, the guard on duty, escorted me through the locked gate on the side of the building; my security code no longer worked. Silently I gathered six years’ worth of my professional life from my office—three-ring binders with notes, play diagrams, and play-calling sheets; various books and photographs; my sons’ video games; and a couple of Buccaneers hats, although I’d never wear them again. I was lost in my memories as I placed these things rather haphazardly in cardboard boxes thoughtfully left out for me by my administrative assistant.
No,
I realized,
Lora is somebody else’s administrative assistant now.

I stopped to contemplate a wood-framed picture in the stack. It had been taken our first year in Tampa, and we were all beaming: my daughter, Tiara; my sons, Jamie and Eric; my wife, Lauren; and me. The stadium grass behind us was a vibrant green, the shade of an Irish meadow, sliced into five-yard increments by crisp, white stripes. A teeming throng of humanity, dressed in orange and red and squinting in the unforgiving Florida sun, filled the stands in the picture’s background.