Dungy reaches summit without sacrificing values

You’d hate to reduce a man’s life to two words, to think that they could replace 51 years of living, lessons and even losses, but it fills me with joy that these two applied to Tony Dungy on Sunday night: “Winning Coach.”

They were written in white letters on a blue sign, next to a dais Dungy earned the right to ascend by virtue of the Indianapolis Colts’ 29-17 victory over the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI.

Dungy climbed up and smiled. He brought his son Eric next to him, and they posed for pictures, Dungy’s smile growing even larger. When he finally moved to the microphone, he opened with “I just have to say how sweet this is.”

Actually, he didn’t have to say it. The smile already told us. Not that the audience needed to be told, because the crowd of supporters might have been savoring this moment even more than the coach.

Sportswriters cover so many jerks, egomaniacs and sometimes even criminals that when a person of such high quality as Dungy finds success we can’t help but enjoy it.

Dungy is fair, he is candid, he is helpful, he is genuine. He is a man who repeatedly talks about his Christian faith without seeming overly preachy, nor hypocritical. He lives his life exactly according to the values he espouses.

“You see that soft-spokenness,” Dungy’s wife, Lauren, said. “The calmness, the humbleness, the man that’s in control, a man that has a job and wants to do it and do it well. Not necessarily to get credit for it, it’s a family coming together to make a championship team.

“The way he has done it, that’s to play a game with intensity, to play without compromising. To go out and play on the field and not have to compromise with the cussing and carrying on that often happens, we often see with coaches.”

In the twisted world of the NFL, those qualities were sometimes seen as detrimental, that he wasn’t tough enough or mean enough or inspirational enough to get his team to the Super Bowl. A string of playoff disappointments were all it took to make the case, a mediocre 7-8 postseason record in Indianapolis and Tampa Bay.

That’s why when Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri came down the sideline to hug Dungy in the final minute it looked more like a congratulation than a shared experience. This was about vindication, not Vinatieri, since he already secured his legacy as part of New England’s dynasty in the first half of the decade.

Of course, this is also vindication for Peyton Manning, the quarterback whose stellar statistics were practically negated by a glaring zero in the category of Super Bowl appearances before this season.

Manning was selected most valuable player, completing 25 of 38 passes for 247 yards with a touchdown and an interception, but this game felt more like classic Dungy ball than one of Manning’s masterpieces.

Under a steady rain, the Colts established control based on the running game with Dominic Rhodes and Joseph Addai gaining a combined 190 yards. They played it safe, such as a running play on third and goal from the Bears’ 10-yard line. The defense recovered three fumbles and intercepted two passes and held the Bears to 265 yards. That’s the style Dungy’s teams used in Tampa Bay, where, according to Leonard Levy, the head of the city’s committee for Super Bowl XLIII, “There isn’t a person in town who isn’t rooting for Tony Dungy.”

That speaks volumes for the way he handled himself there, even after the Buccaneers unceremoniously dumped him. Here’s something else that illustrates Dungy, a little moment that was a defining part of the playoffs to me. When the Colts were losing to the Patriots, 21-6, at halftime of the AFC championship game, Dungy stopped to answer a couple of questions from a TV reporter. How many coaches would have been so gracious under the circumstances?

That’s Tony Dungy. And that’s one of the reasons he’s a worthy recipient of the distinction of being the first African American coach to win a Super Bowl, even if it should not have had to come to him. Proud as he might be, as he stood on the stage to receive the Lombardi Trophy, Dungy said his thoughts were of longtime black assistant coaches such as Jimmy Raye, Sherman Lewis and Lionel Taylor, “Great coaches that I know could have done this if they would have gotten an opportunity.”

It’s disgraceful that it took Dungy so long to get his opportunity. He said during the week that the biggest blow came in 1993, when he was Minnesota’s defensive coordinator, the Vikings had the No. 1 defense in the league, seven head coaching jobs came open and he didn’t get a single interview. Not one.

But he never became bitter, never let it get to him. We’ve seen him show the same strength in his personal life with a string of heartbreaks over the last few years that included the death of his parents and the suicide of his oldest son. He managed to pull himself together and keep coaching because, as Lauren Dungy said, “Football is his first love.” That’s quite a statement coming from a wife.

After all of the recent sadness, Sunday was the time to celebrate, which is why when he asked if there were any tears Dungy said, “No tears at all. No, it’s complete joy and just so proud. I guess that’s the main thing. Pride in our organization because I think we have won, but we do things the right way.”

For a change, the right way and the winning way were one and the same.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read more by Adande go to latimes.com/adandeblog.

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Momentous

Tony Dungy became the first black head coach to win a Super Bowl. Black coaches who were the first to win championships in other major sports:

*--* LEAGUE NAME TEAM YEAR OPPONENT NFL Tony Dungy Indianapolis Colts 2007 Chicago Bears NBA Bill Russell Boston Celtics 1969 Lakers MLB Cito Gaston Toronto Blue Jays 1992 Atlanta Braves NCAA John Thompson Georgetown 1984 Houston

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