Colts' Dungy is Proof that Nice Guys Can Finish First

It makes no difference to me that Tony Dungy is the first African-American coach to win a Super Bowl. Dungy is a good coach but more importantly, the soft-spoken 51-year-old is a good man, and that is why you have to feel happy for him.

Perhaps Dungy and Chicago's Lovie Smith -- Dungy's opponent in the Indianapolis
Colts' 29-17 Super Bowl victory -- represent a new breed of NFL coach. They are
humble men of dignity and quiet strength -- true leaders. They treat their players like adults, rather than trying to bully and intimidate them. Unlike many of their peers, they are not yellers and screamers. That is why their players are willing to run through walls and no one seems to have a negative word to say about them.

It's been said that Dungy never curses, which is hard to imagine. But if you watch him on the sideline and listen to him speak, you could believe it. He reminds me of former Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry -- old stoneface himself -- though Landry always struck me as distant from his players, something that Dungy
most certainly is not.

Last season before the playoffs, Dungy had to deal with personal tragedy as his 18-year-old son committed suicide. Unfortunately, folks in every walk of life must endure such heartbreak but most people do not have to confront such tragedy in as public a manner as Dungy did. Yet he handled his grief with class and grace.

While he'll never say it publicly, the victory over the Bears had to be vindication for Dungy. He was supposed to be too soft, too laid back, to win a championship. That is the reputation that dogged him going back to his days with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Dungy was a nice guy but not a Super Bowl winner. That's what they said last season after the Colts were beaten up at home in the playoffs by the eventual Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers. Well, a year later, Dungy proved that nice guys do finish first.

I'm sure there are some old-timers pining for the good old days of Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers coach who believed in iron discipline and won the first two Super Bowls. Through the passage of time, Lombardi has been romanticized as the prototypical football coach and you certainly can't argue with his results (five titles).

Lombardi's methods might have worked in the 1960s but I'm not sure they would today. Going forward, perhaps more coaches will adopt the method employed by Dungy. He is the anti-Tom Coughlin, the New York Giants' taskmaster of a coach who may be part of a dying breed.

Since football is not the only thing in Dungy's life, there had been some speculation he would retire if the Colts won the Super Bowl, but Dungy indicated
he would return for the 2007 season. That's a good thing because football and sports in general need men like Tony Dungy.