Quiet Strength (9 page)

I filed that away, not realizing how often I would draw on that thought later when I had teams of my own to guide through a pregame setting.

I had gained those eight pounds by lifting and running and preparing in ways I had never had to as a quarterback. I was headed into the 1978 training camp with a year of playing defense under my belt. I was still watching as much film as possible and absorbing everything I could from Woody Widenhofer and the guys on the defense. Physically and mentally, I knew it was going to be a much better year for me.

But then I started dragging a little, feeling a little tired as camp approached. I headed over to camp a couple of days early, and the team doctor checked me out. Mononucleosis. If you had known me and my dating habits back then, you’d know that mono isn’t always the kissing disease. I was focused on my career as much as anything, but I was also pretty shy. I did know a few girls, and I enjoyed being around them, but before I got too involved with someone, I wanted to be sure she was someone I could see myself marrying. Because of that, I never really had a serious girlfriend. I was probably looking for someone like my mom. Up to then, I hadn’t found her.

The doctor put me on antibiotics, just in case I had some other infection in addition to mono, and told me he would check on me every few days. I would be allowed to take the field when my white blood cell count dropped back to normal levels.

I started to improve quickly, but day after day . . . after day after day . . . my white blood cell count was still too high. After missing three weeks (preseason lasted just about forever back then), I was really frustrated and was getting difficult to be around.

Late one evening in our room, I told Donnie Shell, “I don’t know that I’m going to make this team. By the time I get back, my conditioning level will be down, and there are other new guys who are looking to do what I did last year—take somebody’s spot. This is just not going according to plan.”

“Tony, I think you’re at a crossroads,” Donnie said. “You know what life is all about. You profess to be a Christian, and you tell everybody that God has first place in your life. Now, when your career looks like it’s teetering, we’re getting a chance to see what
really
is in first place for you.”

I thought about that all day and then came back to the conversation with Donnie.

“You’re probably right,” I told him. “I feel like I’ve been learning from you guys and growing, and I’m feeling better about my faith and thinking that I trust the Lord. I’m trying to understand what you guys have. But all of a sudden, I come to a crisis point, and I begin to panic. My thoughts turn to ‘What am
I
going to do?’”

Donnie paused and measured me squarely. “All the Lord is trying to do is find out what’s in first place in your life, and right now, it looks like football is.” I immediately knew Donnie was right, and I felt convicted. I think that was the point at which I really began to understand what it means to be a Christian, and I began making an effort to start changing and growing as a person. It was the first time I was able to look at football as something that God was allowing me to do, not something that should define me. I couldn’t take my identity from this sport; I had to consciously make sure that God was in first place. Now that I’m older and have gone through many much more difficult crises than those three weeks of mono, I look back at that time as key to my maturity as a Christian.

Several days later, I still wasn’t better, but I had begun to simply pray that whether I sat out the entire year, came back immediately, or was cut, I would keep God first. About two weeks later, as we were getting ready for our first preseason game, I was finally able to start practicing again.

It was one of those miracle years. I was healthy, and it seemed like every time I took the field, the ball was headed my way. We went 14–2 and won the Super Bowl over Dallas, 35–31. I led the team in interceptions and was tied for tenth in the NFL. I was one interception behind Herm Edwards, who would coach with me years later (though I think he would gladly trade that interception for being able to fish as well as I can).

Despite all the good things that occurred that year, I can still look back and say that 1978 was the first season in my life in which sports weren’t the most important thing to me. I finally realized that how I lived on earth was just as important as my salvation. God had me here for a reason, and it wasn’t just to play ball. It was then that the words of Matthew 16:26 really started to sink in:
“And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?”

Chapter Five: Leading to Lauren

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end,“
Thy
will be done.”

—C. S. Lewis

AFTER we won THE SUPER BOWL in Miami, the summer of 1979 was much the same as the one before. I was lifting and running, hanging out with Steelers and Pirates, and growing in my faith. That fall, I arrived at camp in fantastic shape. I was healthy, too—no mono, thank goodness. I breezed through the initial cuts and reached the weekend of the biggest cut of camp.

All the cuts had been made but one—the coaching staff still had to get rid of one more player in order to reach the required number. We were hanging out in Joe Greene’s dorm room—Donnie Shell, Mel Blount, Franco Harris, Terry Bradshaw, Joe, and I—trying to figure out what the coaches were going to do. It was apparent that the coaches were having difficulty deciding or working out a trade, because it was taking longer than usual. Finally, there came a knock on the door.

I looked around the room: Shell, Blount, Harris, Bradshaw, Greene . . . and Dungy.

I stood up. “Well, it’s got to be me,” I said, laughing as I left the room.

As it turned out, I had not been cut, but I had been traded—from the best team in football to the worst. I was headed to the San Francisco 49ers. And in spite of my attempt at humor, I was sorry to go. After doing so well in 1978, I had fully expected to be with the Steelers for many years. I had even bought a house during that off-season, so this move was a shock. But this was the NFL; trades and cuts were always a possibility.

The previous year had really shaped my attitude, though. If this had happened even one year earlier, I probably would have been devastated. Now, however—as would happen many more times in my future—I saw it as God moving me to where He wanted me to go.

I had really enjoyed my time in Pittsburgh. More than being the best team in the NFL, the Steelers were a great organization in which to grow up as a player and a person and, as it turned out, to grow in my faith.

Art Rooney, the Steelers’ owner, was unlike any other owner I would ever meet again. If people were visiting the club and he was around, they would have no idea that he owned the team. He didn’t put on airs or expect recognition. He walked to work every day from his home near downtown Pittsburgh, and even when the neighborhood changed for the worse, he refused to move out.

I only played for the Steelers for two years and was never more than a backup when I was there. But when I was traded, Mr. Rooney wrote a letter to my parents, telling them how much he had enjoyed my playing for him and his getting to meet them when they came to games. He wrote that I had been a big part of their Super Bowl win and asked them to continue to come back to Steelers games any time they were in the area.

Mr. Rooney saw everyone who came through his organization as one of his kids. Everything about the Steelers was first-class and all about integrity. In that respect, Mr. Rooney set the tone for the entire organization. He cultivated an environment of caring and closeness, and Chuck Noll reinforced that with his coaching.

With those benefits, however, came responsibility. When new guys arrived, Mr. Rooney always brought them in and explained that they were now Steelers and that they were going to win and have a great time. But then he would continue. “We have a great group of guys here. But you have to understand that this is Pittsburgh. It’s a tight-knit community, and you are now
Pittsburgh
Steelers. Wherever you go, you’re going to represent us as a team and as a community, so govern yourselves accordingly.”

He was the most supportive man I could imagine. When we won, he would come into the locker room and shake everyone’s hand until he had moved all the way through the ranks. When we lost, he’d come into the locker room and sit down and talk with us for a while. He was even known to give cigars to Joe Greene and other guys who smoked them and to shoot the breeze with Terry Bradshaw about horses.

It had been a privilege to play for Mr. Rooney, and I knew I would miss my time in Pittsburgh.

I played the 1979 season in San Francisco. In the meantime, the Steelers represented Pittsburgh just fine on the field, doing the ordinary things better than anyone else and winning their fourth Super Bowl in six years.

In San Francisco, we went 2–14. We opened the year with a seven-game losing streak, beat Atlanta, and then ended our second long streak of the year—six consecutive losses—by drilling the Buccaneers 23–7.

While San Francisco was a different environment from Pittsburgh, it was no less valuable for my career development. It was Bill Walsh’s first year as head coach, and he was beginning to lay the foundation for the Super Bowl teams he would eventually field there. Joe Montana was in his rookie season at quarterback, and other pieces were being added in order to build the team. Years later, I would often draw on Coach Walsh’s teachings as I tried to build the Buccaneers.

Even a 2–14 team wouldn’t have me, though, and I was traded before the 1980 season to the New York Giants. I was traded along with Mike Hogan in exchange for Ray Rhodes and Jimmy Robinson, a trade that would soon launch several coaching careers. Within a couple of seasons, Ray and Jimmy were out of the league as players and into coaching.

As for me, I lasted for most of training camp with the Giants before being released. Three teams in two years. The end of the line for me as an NFL player had obviously arrived. Now I had to figure out what I wanted to do next.

Giants head coach Ray Perkins spoke to me as I was leaving training camp in New York.

“Tony, you’re very smart, and you have a good approach to the game. I think you’d make a very good coach someday.” I figured that was his way of getting me out the door without too much conversation, but later I would learn that Coach Perkins just wasn’t the type to make small talk.

I had spent parts of summers working at various Pittsburgh businesses, like Mellon Bank and Heinz, but I hadn’t found anything that I loved. So I headed back to the University of Minnesota to work out and stay in shape in case another team called, volunteering as a defensive backs coach for the Golden Gophers for the rest of the 1980 season. Finally the Denver Broncos called, late in the year, but I had missed so many games by then that I figured I wouldn’t do anyone any good. I declined and effectively ended my playing career.

Immediately after the season, Coach Perkins followed through on his earlier comments, calling to offer me a coaching position. I was very interested, and after talking with him, I figured I was destined to go to New York. In the meantime, Wellington Mara, the owner of the Giants, mentioned to his close friend Art Rooney of the Steelers, that it looked as though they would be hiring a former Steeler—me—as one of their coaches.

Mr. Rooney called Coach Noll, who called me. “If you’re really interested in coaching, I think we can create something for you right here,” he said. I accepted the offer and became a Steeler once more.

In taking that job with the Steelers at the age of twenty-five, I became the youngest coach in the NFL. The situation could have been a disaster, but the Steelers made it easy for me to break in as a coach. Even though I was younger than most of the players, and they had seen me come in just three years earlier not knowing anything about defense, those guys were professionals. So many of them were locked into the idea of living for Christ that it didn’t matter who was coaching them. They worked hard and honored God through it because that’s just what they did. Before I knew it, I was doing odd jobs, breaking down film, and essentially acting as an assistant to the head coach.

Chuck Noll always reminded us that “Football is what you are doing right now, but it’s not your life’s work. You’ve got to continue to prepare for your life’s work.” Occasionally it occurred to us that he had been in football for such a long time that it certainly seemed to be
his
life’s work, but I don’t think anybody ever had the guts to say it.

Chuck often preached the importance of time away from the office, and we knew it wasn’t just lip service. Chuck lived out his message. He loved to cook, drive boats, and fly planes. He never wanted to just hang around the office, especially if the work was done. His philosophy was “Get the work done so you can enjoy the other parts of your life.” I was single at the time, so the other parts of my life in Pittsburgh did not include family. But the Steelers organization was certainly a great place for me to learn and to shape a philosophy.

Even though I never did work for Coach Perkins, I have always been grateful for the encouragement and direction he planted in my mind. He had been around me for only a few weeks of camp, so for him to say what he did carried a great deal of weight, despite the fact that he was cutting me at the time. As a coach with the Steelers, I looked forward to going to work my second day on a job—for the first time ever.