Quiet Strength (5 page)

Initially, I could play at the elementary school until the streetlights came on. Later, they’d let me play with some of the high school kids at MSU’s intramural building even after dark. My sister Sherrie often got upset because I usually stayed later than I was supposed to and didn’t seem to get in as much trouble as my siblings did for the same infraction.

The problem I faced—which my dad understood—was that because I was so little, I rarely got picked for a team. The winning team stayed on the court to face the challengers, comprised of the guy whose turn it was to be captain (he had “next”) plus four guys he picked. If my team lost, I’d have to wait until
my
“next” came up and it was my turn to pick a team. Those were usually the times I came home an hour late, and my dad never seemed to get too mad.

After we moved back to Jackson, where I attended junior high and high school, I began playing ball with guys who could drive. We’d drive to Ann Arbor or East Lansing (both about a half hour away) to play at the intramural buildings at the University of Michigan and Michigan State. During that time, I formed a lot of friendships with guys I would later play against in high school. When I got old enough to drive, I’d go anywhere I could find an open court and a game.

It was during this time that I became friends with Bob Elliott from Ann Arbor, who later played center for the University of Arizona and the New Jersey Nets. He’d call the house with a cryptic message—“They’re playing in Romulus (Michigan, home of Detroit Metro Airport, an hour from Jackson)” or “Meet me at the MSU IM (the Michigan State intramural building)”—and I’d tell my mom I was going to play as I headed out the door. She always gave her blessing. She never thought I’d get into trouble; as the cheerleading adviser, she watched all the high school basketball games, so she knew most of the guys I was playing with.

In the summer before our senior year, Bob put a team together, and we played in the high school division of the summer league—the most competitive of its kind—at St. Cecilia Catholic Church in Detroit. A different division, open to players at every level, including the NBA, played later on. Those of us playing in the earlier games stayed to watch the likes of Dave Bing (who played in the NBA for twelve years), George Gervin, and others. Gervin was at Eastern Michigan at the time, and while most teams were pretty loaded with all-star lineups, he had surrounded himself with his high school buddies. But he carried them to wins most nights by scoring fifty or sixty points himself. When you’re the “Iceman” and go on to be third all-time in NBA season scoring titles, you can surround yourself with just about anyone, I suppose, and still win.

Bob Elliott and I have remained great friends ever since those days of barnstorming any and every game we could find. But in today’s world, I can’t picture allowing my high school son, Eric, to drive from our home in Indianapolis to Lafayette or Bloomington by himself. I don’t think he’d even ask. Times were different then, which was good for a gym rat like me.

As a kid, I wasn’t too much of a discipline problem, though I did end up sitting on the couch, not allowed to go out and play, more often than I would have liked. For me, that was much worse than a spanking. Usually my mom and dad were calm and gave us the whys and hows of the situation before they took away privileges.

All four Dungy kids were disciplined in different ways. My folks knew that certain things would change my behavior but not Linden’s. So even though I’d moan about it, they did whatever they thought would work best with each child. My parents always looked at every situation individually, regardless of what seemed fair to us. That’s something that took me a while to appreciate, but learning to view each situation by itself has helped me in coaching. I know that I can have blanket rules, but blanket rules don’t always fit every individual. I need to treat everybody fairly, but
fair
doesn’t always mean
equal.

I apply that lesson quite frequently with players. Some guys can handle more responsibility, while some aren’t ready. A rookie might simply get an explanation from me, while a veteran making the same mistake might get “torched.” The veteran should know better, while the rookie is just learning.

To whom much is given, much is required—whether it’s privileges, responsibilities, or material items. And if God has given you a lot of ability, I believe you should be held to a higher level of expectation.

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of the lessons my parents taught me—lessons that have molded and shaped me. The necessity of persistence, the value of education, the fun of athletics, and the importance of living up to your potential. However, there is one gift they bestowed that I would place above all the others: faith.

My grandfather on my dad’s side was a minister who occasionally taught courses at Detroit Bible College. Two of my father’s brothers became ministers as well.

As a kid, I understood that Sundays meant good eating. When I was three, my grandparents moved from Jackson to a two-story home in Detroit. Their church of about one hundred and fifty met on the first floor, while my grandparents lived above the church on the second floor. Each Sunday, about halfway through the service, we could smell the dinner that my grandmother was cooking upstairs. We’d wait for the service to end and then slip up the side entrance to their rooms for Sunday dinner. My grandmother always greeted us with excuses ready: “I couldn’t find my best knife” or “I couldn’t find my shortening, so I used something else” or “This rhubarb pie has been in the freezer for two weeks, but we’ll try it.” Regardless of the excuses, Sunday dinner was always good.

My mother’s side of the family also gave me plenty of godly heritage. Her parents were God-fearing people of high integrity who died before I was ten. My mother was a phenomenal storyteller, and from her I learned the importance of illustrating a lesson with a word picture. She taught Sunday school every week, and usually, as with her Jackson High lessons, she practiced her Sunday school lessons on us Thursday or Friday night. I knew a ton of Bible stories before I could even read a Bible—a rich heritage.

As far back as I can remember, I understood who Jesus was, that He died because of the things I had done wrong, and that I could go to heaven if I asked Him into my life. I’m guessing I was about five when I first learned that. Despite the Christian lifestyle my parents modeled for me, a real understanding of what it means to make Jesus the Lord of my life—number one in my life—wouldn’t hit home until many years later, when I was in the NFL in Pittsburgh.

I can’t place a value on the lessons I learned and on the faith my parents imparted day after day after day.

Actually, I can; the value is eternal.

Chapter Three: A Black Quarterback

The L
ORD
doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the L
ORD
looks at the heart.

—1 Samuel 16:7

I WANTED TO BE A SPARTAN. My dad may have been a Wolverine when he was an undergrad, but after my parents finished earning their graduate degrees in East Lansing, I returned to Jackson as a huge Michigan State fan.

Both as a sophomore and as a junior, I started at quarterback on the Parkside High School varsity football team, and I had very good seasons both years. As a team, we were fairly good, although when I was in tenth grade, we lost our last game of the year to Jackson High School, my mom’s school. We remedied that loss by beating them my junior year.

Although basketball was my favorite sport and I hadn’t given much thought to playing football in college, it wasn’t out of the question. And if I ever did play in college, I knew it would be for Duffy Daugherty at Michigan State.

But then, following our win against Jackson at the end of my junior season, I quit the high school football team. I was seventeen years old and pretty sure I knew more than my high school football coach, and I was prepared to take a stand.

Quitting wasn’t a devastating blow for me. After all, basketball was my primary sport, and we were having a great season. Besides, sometimes making a statement means personal sacrifice, and I was prepared to make mine by quitting the football team.

Today I have a tremendous relationship with Dave Driscoll, my high school football coach. But it wasn’t always that way. And if it weren’t for an assistant principal who took an interest in me, I’m sure my life would have unfolded quite differently.

Leroy Rocquemore was an African American administrator at our predominately white junior high school. Although he took a personal interest in all the kids, he seemed to pay special attention to the African American boys. He wanted to make sure that we grew as people, not just as athletes. He often took us to basketball games and to movies, or sometimes he simply had lunch with us. Many times he brought us into his office to talk about things other than school. In short, he cared. For two years at Frost Junior High School, I got to know Mr. Rocquemore as more than just an administrator. He was a friend, and when I moved up to Parkside High, he continued to keep tabs on my friends and me.

One of my closest buddies was Bobby Burton, a receiver. The two of us had been starters on the varsity team since our sophomore season and were the leading offensive players on the team. We had just finished the football season of our junior year at Parkside, and it had been a pretty good year, all in all.

Coach Driscoll’s policy was for the team to vote for the following year’s captains at the end of the season. The winners would be announced at the fall sports banquet in November. That year, I was elected as a team captain. Bobby wasn’t.

I just couldn’t understand this. It seemed obvious to me that both of us should have been the captains.I could only think of one explanation: for some reason the school didn’t want two black captains. It seems impossible now, but at the time it didn’t. Parkside’s football team had never had two black captains, and no one could convince me that those votes had been counted correctly.

I was hurt and felt certain that a race-based injustice had been done. Reacting to the hurt I felt for Bobby—as well as for myself and for all of the black players—I quit the team. I told Coach Driscoll that I was just going to play basketball my senior year. Basketball was my favorite sport anyway.

Of course, I was a fairly good player, a popular student, a newly elected captain, and the quarterback, so the other African American players decided they were going to quit the football team too. I hadn’t really thought about that possibility when I decided I wasn’t going to play, but it didn’t bother me at the time. I figured everybody had to make his own decision.

My dad, of course, said I had to do what I thought was best. But, as he always did, he wanted to know what I was going to do to improve the situation. He wanted to know what I could do to make things better, rather than just reacting. But I was seventeen, and I didn’t care if the situation got better or not. My feelings were hurt. Bobby’s feelings were hurt. And I was so focused on playing basketball in college that I didn’t think I would miss football in the least.

The player walkout began after the postseason banquet in November and continued through the rest of the school year. At the end of the summer, when the team was preparing to go back to practice, Mr. Rocquemore invited me to his house. He had already talked to me a couple of times about my decision to quit football, but I think he wanted to give me one more chance to reconsider.

“Tony, you enjoy playing football, and these other guys enjoy playing football. You should have your senior year to play, and so should they. At the end of the day, what are you really upset about, anyway?”

I began to answer, but he continued, talking over me without waiting for a response. I hadn’t realized his question was rhetorical. “Even if the issues are that important, should they spoil the fun that all of you should be having playing football as seniors? Thirty years from now, you don’t want to look back and say that you missed out on something you really loved doing.” Then he asked the question he really wanted me to answer. “Why would you let
anything
stop you from doing what you have the ability to do?”

Although by then I was convinced he was right, I had always had quite a temper, and my pride just wouldn’t allow me to back down. Practically speaking, I could understand Mr. Rocquemore’s point, but from a moral standpoint, I was still pretty sure I was in the right. Plus, at seventeen (and even at fifty-one) pride and hurt feelings can be pretty overwhelming emotions.

Mr. Rocquemore knew I would have trouble asking Coach Driscoll if I could return, so he said he would talk with him and do his best to smooth everything over. “I’ll tell him you want to play and make everything all right. Don’t worry about it.”

After he spoke with Coach Driscoll, Mr. Rocquemore arranged for the three of us to meet. Coach was a very principled guy, and he set the tone for the meeting.

“Tony, you can come back, but you’ve missed winter conditioning, and you’ve missed our summer workouts. So you guys”—he knew if I came back, the others would also come back—“are going to have to do some extra stuff to earn your way back.” He mentioned extra running, washing the dishes at camp, and so forth, as his requirements “if I’m going to let you back.”

When he had finished, I think the only thing I had heard was, “if I’m going to let you back.” I was getting mad, thinking, If
he’s going to let me back?
I started to get visibly upset, and Mr. Rocquemore gave me a look—it was the same look I would later give John Lynch during a press conference before the 1999 NFC Championship Game in St. Louis—that kept me quiet and in my seat. But all the while, even Mr. Rocquemore was thinking,
Now why did Coach have to go
there
?