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Authors: Tony Dungy, Nathan Whitaker
Tags: Biographies
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with the great players the Steelers had then. He and John Stallworth were best friends, and both were great examples for me.
Jon Kolb and Larry Brown, two of the biggest, strongest linemen I knew, both had mild, gentle spirits. When I arrived in Pittsburgh, they were still known as the Steel Curtain and had a tough, somewhat negative image. Once I stepped inside the circle, I realized how far from the truth that perception was. It was refreshing to see how different these guys were from any other group I had ever been around.
----
As I alluded to earlier, I had always had a problem with my temper. I often earned technical fouls in my high school basketball games and was known to lose my cool in football games as well. In high school and college, I was a perfectionist, usually riding my teammates rather than encouraging them.
“Venting,” I called it.
“Dumb,” my dad called it.
Our exchanges usually ran something like this:
“Did you change the referee’s call?”
“No.”
“Did it make the situation better?”
“No, but I felt better, and then I could focus.”
“Well, you might have felt better faster if you were thinking about the next play instead of taking three or four or ten plays to ‘vent.’ You waste a lot of emotion and energy in venting or in worrying about an injustice or something you can’t do anything about.”
That was excellent advice from my dad, but I wasn’t ready to listen. It wasn’t until those Steelers invited me into their Bible study that I really began to change. There I was exposed to guys I respected who were constantly in God’s Word—always praying and reading their Bibles together. These professional players were not the weak and the meek; they were some of the biggest, toughest guys I had ever met. And yet they were drawing their strength and purpose from God.
I had known from a young age that I was going to heaven, but I had never fully engaged God and let Him direct my life moment by moment until I saw those guys doing it. I had been a good kid, by and large; I stayed out of trouble, was usually polite, and stood up for my values. Yet the concept of putting God first in everything I did hadn’t been my primary focus. Finally I understood, and I started to move from being a casual Christian to a fully committed follower of Jesus.
----
My crash course in playing safety must have worked, because I was still on the team as we headed into the final cuts before the regular season. Some of my success resulted from my efforts to absorb the defensive scheme by asking questions and watching film on my own, but a good bit of it stemmed from the fact that I bought into Coach Noll’s approach so quickly.
At the Steelers minicamp, shortly after the draft, I had taken to heart Coach Noll’s words about what it took to win in the National Football League.
“Champions don’t beat themselves,” he told us. “If you want to win, do the ordinary things better than anyone else does—day in and day out. We’re not going to fool people or outscheme them. We’re just going to outplay them. Because we’ll know what we’re doing. When we get into a critical situation, we won’t have to think. We’ll play fast and fundamentally sound.”
Chuck Noll developed much of his coaching philosophy from the legendary Paul Brown, and I got mine from Chuck. I tell people that I’m from the Paul Brown school of football.
It was the summer of 1977, and I still hadn’t made the team.
In those days, the relationship of the football clubs and the media was different. Local reporters traveled on the team charter to games. I vividly recall Dwight White, our Pro Bowl defensive end, sitting in the back of the plane, blowing cigar smoke rings while talking with Vito Stellino, one of Pittsburgh’s beat writers at the time. Vito always had good information, in part because he was good at what he did and in part because he sat in the back of the plane with Dwight White.
After training
Jon Kolb and Larry Brown, two of the biggest, strongest linemen I knew, both had mild, gentle spirits. When I arrived in Pittsburgh, they were still known as the Steel Curtain and had a tough, somewhat negative image. Once I stepped inside the circle, I realized how far from the truth that perception was. It was refreshing to see how different these guys were from any other group I had ever been around.
----
As I alluded to earlier, I had always had a problem with my temper. I often earned technical fouls in my high school basketball games and was known to lose my cool in football games as well. In high school and college, I was a perfectionist, usually riding my teammates rather than encouraging them.
“Venting,” I called it.
“Dumb,” my dad called it.
Our exchanges usually ran something like this:
“Did you change the referee’s call?”
“No.”
“Did it make the situation better?”
“No, but I felt better, and then I could focus.”
“Well, you might have felt better faster if you were thinking about the next play instead of taking three or four or ten plays to ‘vent.’ You waste a lot of emotion and energy in venting or in worrying about an injustice or something you can’t do anything about.”
That was excellent advice from my dad, but I wasn’t ready to listen. It wasn’t until those Steelers invited me into their Bible study that I really began to change. There I was exposed to guys I respected who were constantly in God’s Word—always praying and reading their Bibles together. These professional players were not the weak and the meek; they were some of the biggest, toughest guys I had ever met. And yet they were drawing their strength and purpose from God.
I had known from a young age that I was going to heaven, but I had never fully engaged God and let Him direct my life moment by moment until I saw those guys doing it. I had been a good kid, by and large; I stayed out of trouble, was usually polite, and stood up for my values. Yet the concept of putting God first in everything I did hadn’t been my primary focus. Finally I understood, and I started to move from being a casual Christian to a fully committed follower of Jesus.
----
My crash course in playing safety must have worked, because I was still on the team as we headed into the final cuts before the regular season. Some of my success resulted from my efforts to absorb the defensive scheme by asking questions and watching film on my own, but a good bit of it stemmed from the fact that I bought into Coach Noll’s approach so quickly.
At the Steelers minicamp, shortly after the draft, I had taken to heart Coach Noll’s words about what it took to win in the National Football League.
“Champions don’t beat themselves,” he told us. “If you want to win, do the ordinary things better than anyone else does—day in and day out. We’re not going to fool people or outscheme them. We’re just going to outplay them. Because we’ll know what we’re doing. When we get into a critical situation, we won’t have to think. We’ll play fast and fundamentally sound.”
Chuck Noll developed much of his coaching philosophy from the legendary Paul Brown, and I got mine from Chuck. I tell people that I’m from the Paul Brown school of football.
It was the summer of 1977, and I still hadn’t made the team.
In those days, the relationship of the football clubs and the media was different. Local reporters traveled on the team charter to games. I vividly recall Dwight White, our Pro Bowl defensive end, sitting in the back of the plane, blowing cigar smoke rings while talking with Vito Stellino, one of Pittsburgh’s beat writers at the time. Vito always had good information, in part because he was good at what he did and in part because he sat in the back of the plane with Dwight White.
After training
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