Quiet Strength (18 page)

We went out and lost, 31–0. Otis Smith ran two interceptions back for touchdowns.

Guys were quiet on the flight home.

Then the pilot announced over the intercom that the Carolina Panthers had lost to the Packers, putting us into the playoffs. The guys were quietly murmuring, uncertain of whether we could start celebrating or should still be in mourning.

Before I could give it any thought, Brad Culpepper, our defensive tackle out of the University of Florida, picked up the microphone and announced over the PA: “Guys, we’re in the playoffs! We haven’t been to the playoffs in fifteen years, and we’re sure not gonna be sad about it!” I think Brad got it just right.

We finished the regular season against the Chicago Bears in Tampa. Despite the fact that we were already in the playoffs, we had a great deal riding on this game. If we won, we would host the first playoff game in Tampa, something that hadn’t happened in fifteen years. If we lost, we would have to travel.

A new stadium was being built for the Buccaneers. It was several hundred yards away from the old stadium and was scheduled to open for the 1998 season. I told the guys on the Wednesday before the Bears game that this was set up perfectly for us. We had a chance to host a playoff game for our fans and make the final game in our old stadium a playoff game. But first we had to focus on the week ahead.

We did focus, and we beat the Bears convincingly, 31–15. In the process, with ten wins, we tied the Buccaneer record for wins in the regular season.

Immediately after our game, we watched the Lions win their game, thereby becoming our opponent for the first round of the playoffs. That year, we had split our two games with the Lions, each of us winning on the road. At the home game in Tampa, in the middle of our three-game losing streak, Barry Sanders had become the first running back in
NFL
history to have two touchdown runs of more than eighty yards in the same game. He had scored all three of the Lions’ touchdowns, absolutely gashing us for big runs and gaining 215 yards on only 24 carries (the
NFL
record for rushing yardage in a game is 295). Now he was approaching two thousand yards for the season. In fact, Barry’s season total for that year is still the third highest season total in the history of the
NFL
. We had good reason to be concerned about playing the Lions again. But even so, our guys were excited. “Coach, that’s exactly who we want to play.”

The following day, Monday, Brian and Joel Glazer walked into my office and said they were going over to the stadium to give doughnuts to the fans waiting in line for playoff tickets. They invited me to go with them, and we drove to the stadium, anticipating a short visit. I imagined a line about like what you’d see at a movie box office.

We were in for a surprise. The line stretched down the sidewalk, around the side of the stadium, out to the corner of Dale Mabry Highway, and then continued even farther around. There must have been five thousand people eagerly waiting for a chance to buy a ticket for the game.

That’s when the feeling hit me.
Look what we’ve done.We’ve done exactly what we hoped to do when we came here—excite the community, win games, and create a team people are proud of and excited about.
I walked around and mingled with the fans, thanking them for waiting all night to get a playoff ticket. It was remarkable.

On Tuesday mornings, I met with several of my fellow coaches for a Bible study. We were working our way through the Bible in a year, something we’ve continued to do ever since that 1997 season. I still have my notes from our meeting the week before we played Detroit. The Bible portion we looked at that day was fairly convicting for me in light of our excitement over making the playoffs. It was a good reminder of my priorities and my belief that we should maintain our schedule to protect those priorities, regardless of the situation.

The teaching that week was from Ephesians 5:25. We promised to memorize this verse from the New International Version:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.

I have additional notes written beside the verse: “Identify ten specific ways to show love to your wife—formulate them along with her.” “Love and don’t be harsh,” which was my paraphrase of Colossians 3:19—“Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.”

Finally, my notes contained this, which makes so much sense theoretically but is always so difficult to balance: “How would your business do if you spent the amount of time on it that you spend on your wife and family?” It’s remarkable how, as we worked through the Bible that year, certain verses seemed to come up at particularly appropriate times.

Although we had spent our whole married life in the ultracompetitive world of professional football, Lauren and I had always tried to view it through God’s eyes. As much fun as it was to be winning, we tried not to get caught up in it. We knew that our family life and our faith walk were more important. Fortunately, we both had great training from our parents as well as from the pastors and chaplains we had been exposed to over the years. And Lauren has always made it a point to help me see what is really important and to keep my job in the right perspective. I know that’s why God brought us together.

The competing views of success in our world often create an interesting tension. Society tends to define success in terms of accomplishments and awards, material possessions, and profit margins. In the football business, winning is the only thing that matters.

God’s Word, however, presents a different definition of success—one centered on a relationship with Jesus Christ and a love for God that allows us to love and serve others. God gives each one of us unique gifts, abilities, and passions. How well we use those qualities to have an impact on the world around us determines how “successful” we really are.

If we get caught up in chasing what the world defines as success, we can use our time and talent to do some great things. We might even become famous. But in the end, what will it mean?

What will people remember us for? Are other people’s lives better because we lived? Did we make a difference? Did we use to the fullest the gifts and abilities God gave us? Did we give our best effort, and did we do it for the right reasons?

God’s definition of success is really one of
significance
—the significant difference our lives can make in the lives of others. This significance doesn’t show up in win-loss records, long résumés, or the trophies gathering dust on our mantels. It’s found in the hearts and lives of those we’ve come across who are in some way better because of the way we lived.

I will never forget my first time in the playoffs as a coach. I’ve gone other times since then, but none of the subsequent trips has been able to duplicate the feeling of that first playoff run. It was a new experience for so many on our team. We had coaches who had come straight from college football and many first- and second-year players. Most of our veterans had never experienced a playoff run. This was all new for the city of Tampa as well; the Buccaneers hadn’t been in the playoffs since 1982.

Our first playoff game was also the final game in the old Tampa Stadium. It was an unforgettable evening. Our players were eager to play the Lions again, and they were ready for Barry Sanders. Our defense swarmed all over the field—holding Sanders to sixty-five rushing yards and the Lions to only seventy-eight passing yards. As I looked out onto the field midway through the fourth quarter, I realized that with the way our defense was playing, the Lions wouldn’t be able to catch us. The player we had “settled for” in the 1996 draft, Mike Alstott, carried the ball for a thirty-one-yard touchdown run to ice the game.

We had won the last game in Tampa Stadium. After the game, our players ran around the field with Buccaneers flags. Brad Culpepper and others went up into the stands in full uniform to mingle with the crowd. It was bedlam. After I gave my interviews, Lauren drove us home, although many of the fans hadn’t yet left. Others were still in traffic on Dale Mabry Highway. Lauren rolled down our windows and began honking the horn, yelling, “We won! We won a playoff game! We’re going to Green Bay!”

I was mortified. “Lauren, stop! I’m the coach—we can’t be doing that!”

“I can, and I
will
!” Lauren kept honking and yelling, and even I started waving at the fans, who were nothing short of ecstatic. We all were—it was a great feeling.

Yes, we were headed to Green Bay, the defending Super Bowl champions, for the second round of the playoffs. The Bucs had never won a game in which the temperature at kickoff was less than forty degrees. And we had lost to the Packers four straight times. Considering all this, we certainly were a confident bunch.

When the game got underway, we started slowly. Then Trent Dilfer threw two interceptions, and we rushed for only ninety yards. We lost 21–7. What a disappointment. It was an unsatisfying, empty ending to an otherwise great year. We flew home, still proud at what we had accomplished, but our emotions were in the valley.

When we arrived back at One Buc, there were people everywhere. The Bucs fans had been awaiting our arrival for hours. Our buses actually had to park blocks away, so we walked through the crowd, interacting with our fans. It was the perfect finish to a magical year. It was a good reminder to appreciate the joys of the moment—there would be time later to focus on improvement.

We were obviously building the team the right way and could see our progress. At the end of our first year, the players dumped Gatorade on me after our 6–10 finish. This year, following a playoff loss, the crowd of fans was so large we couldn’t get into our facility. We were left to wonder,
What will it look like when we finally win it all?

The 1998 off-season gave us a chance to continue adding depth to our defense and speed to our offense. We added Jacquez Green out of Florida with our first pick, which was actually in the second round. We picked Brian Kelly from Southern Cal as well. He remains a defensive standout in Tampa to this day.

We also saw an opportunity to build on some of the support we had enjoyed in Tampa ever since we had first arrived. We wanted to benefit our community more intentionally. Our quarterbacks coach, Clyde Christensen, attended church with Mark Merrill, a Tampa attorney who had started an organization called Family First. Clyde and I had both grown up with very involved parents, and we were both sensitive to family issues. A year earlier, Clyde had arranged a meeting between Mark and me so we could discuss ways that
NFL
coaches could assist people in their most important coaching roles—as parents.

We were meeting in my office just before the start of the 1997 season when I realized it was time for me to pick up ten-year-old Jamie from school. I apologized for cutting the meeting short. Mark later said that seeing me head off to pick up my son was more affirming for him than if we’d met for another hour. To be fair, picking up the kids was not the norm for me. Most days, my job was dropping the kids off at school, and Lauren would pick them up. For whatever reason, however, I had to get Jamie that day—and it was the start of a great partnership with Mark Merrill.

In the summer of 1998, Family First launched a new program called All Pro Dad. Clyde and I promoted the program, and we helped Mark host an event at the Bucs training camp. Fathers brought their children and interacted with them at the camp; then we presented specific principles they could apply to being better dads.

Clyde even helped Mark design a T-shirt for the event. A few years later, Clyde was wearing the T-shirt at the office. Nate Webster, a linebacker out of the University of Miami—a refreshingly candid person—stepped back to read Clyde’s shirt. After he had read through the “10 Ways to Be an All Pro Dad,” including things like “Love Your Wife,” “Be a Role Model,” “Show Affection,” “Eat Together as a Family,” and “Pray and Worship Together,” Nate said to Clyde and me, “I need one of those shirts. I don’t do
any
of those things with my kids!” He really took the message to heart.

I hope All Pro Dad has touched many fathers and, by extension, their wives and children. I hope we’ve been faithful in using our platform as professional football coaches to strengthen our community.

If the 1997 season was my favorite, the 1998 season might be the one I found most frustrating.

The year started with great promise. We were coming off the magical 1997 season, and the new Raymond James Stadium was spectacular. Before the season began, I had the privilege of participating in its inaugural event. Even today, one of my favorite memories of my time in Tampa was Bryan Glazer’s excited phone call informing me that the stadium’s first event had just been scheduled: a Billy Graham crusade. He knew I would be excited too, and I became even more excited when I was asked to share the stage with Dr. Graham and welcome the crusade to Tampa. Hearing Dr. Graham speak was awe-inspiring.

Dr. Graham’s messages are always so straightforward and to the point—I think that’s why they’re so powerful. God’s gift to us is free and can’t be earned. If you believe that Jesus died for your sins, you can live forever with Him in heaven. No matter what has happened in your past, that free gift is offered to you. That was it. So simple. So clear.

When Dr. Graham finished, he invited everyone in the stadium to come and accept God’s free gift of a life-changing relationship with Christ. People began streaming down every stairwell—they kept coming and coming and coming. I had never seen anything like it. Watching what God can do through a simple message shared by such a humble man, I was overwhelmed almost to the point of tears. It wouldn’t be the last time that happened to me in that stadium.

As for football, we had improved from 1996 to 1997, and we should have kept improving in 1998. Instead, we finished 8–8 with the most inconsistent playing of any team I’ve ever fielded. We’d play well one week and badly the next. Our problems weren’t only on one side of the ball. Our defense alternated between hot and cold performances. Our offense scored in bunches one week and then suffered through droughts. We had lost to Green Bay six times in a row, then finally broke that streak by causing eight fumbles and sacking Brett Favre eight times. We handed 15–1 Minnesota their only regular-season loss. But we also lost to a 6–10 New Orleans team, twice to Detroit, and to Jacksonville when we blew a fourth-quarter lead.