Posted on 02/11/2007 7:48:24 AM PST by Chi-townChief
Everybody thinks Indianapolis Colts coach and Super Bowl XLI champion Tony Dungy is a great guy. Including me.
His calm, considerate approach to the violent game of football is a refreshing departure from the manic, brutal skill set of so many other coaches.
Yet there is a part of Dungy's philosophy that troubles me -- and, I believe, many others -- and that is his insistence upon making proper coaching not just a matter of good heart but of religious zeal, even dogma.
God, he said, was responsible for the Colts' 29-17 victory against the Bears.
Indeed, in the relatively brief trophy-presentation ceremony and news conference that followed the Super Bowl victory at Dolphin Stadium in Miami, Dungy, a devoutly conservative Christian, used the word ''Lord,'' ''God'' or ''Christian'' 10 times while referring to the Colts' success.
He made it clear he was more interested in speaking about his Christian values than about his no-huddle offense.
His religious expression even trumped his honor at being the history-setting first African-American coach to win a Super Bowl.
Both he and Bears coach Lovie Smith were not only black coaches, Dungy stated, ''but Christian coaches showing you can win doing it the Lord's way. We're more proud of that.''
It always has seemed peculiar and disconcerting to me that religious beliefs -- mainly fundamentalist Christian ones -- have been so closely aligned with football, especially at the highest levels.
Dungy might believe there is something novel about a Christian coach winning the Super Bowl -- or any major football crown, for that matter -- but it seems more the rule than the exception.
The troubling aspect, of course, is simply that of intolerance.
To wit: Where does the sports teaching end and the proselytizing begin? Where do the religious beliefs of those in authority become standards for those underneath, and when and how does ostracism for those in disagreement kick in?
Would someone like Dungy, for example, be less or more inclined to keep a devout Christian player over, say, a devout Hindu?
We are an overwhelmingly Christian nation. But that is not by design, law or decree, and it seems we sometimes forget this.
Take these post-Super Bowl Dungy statements -- ''The Lord gave me the opportunity,'' ''I think the Lord tests you sometimes to see if you're going to keep the faith,'' ''I think the Lord has really worked on this team,'' ''I wanted to show that you could have Christian principles ... and still be successful,'' ''I'm proud as a Christian coach,'' ''There are a lot of Christian men who can do the job'' -- and substitute the words ''Allah,'' ''Muslim'' or ''Koran'' in appropriate spots and see if your view changes.
Dungy is set to be the honored speaker at the Indiana Family Institute's ''Friends of the Family'' banquet March 20 in Carmel, Ind. There are large Internet posters of him in his Colts coaching garb advertising the event. Tickets cost $75 and will help fund IFI, which is a nonprofit conservative Christian group that recently filed a brief to the 7th Court of Appeals asking that prayer be allowed to start each day on the floor of the Indiana legislature.
IFI is affiliated with Focus on Family, a conservative Christian organization that is gay-repressive and is holding a conference about homosexuality this weekend in Phoenix that will be protested by gay- advocacy groups.
''We will be presenting the truth about homosexuality,'' Focus on Family spokeswoman Melissa Fryrear said in a statement, adding that her group will show gays ''it is possible to walk away from homosexuality.''
It is perhaps ironic that former NBA player John Amaechi just ''came out'' and said he is gay, adding that he didn't think an openly gay player could survive in the pros because of prejudice.
I always have wondered how religion and tolerance bed down.
And I long have wondered if preachers such as Dungy should stick to X's and O's.
• • This might surprise you, but there are now 4,000 wolves in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Once an endangered species that had been hunted nearly to extinction, wolves have been removed from the endangered list in those states.
Having come face to face with a wolf on a dirt road in Michigan's Upper Peninsula in late fall a couple of years ago, I can tell you it is a hair-raising experience.
It's always nice to be in a car with a big windshield.
• • Mike Tyson has checked himself into an inpatient treatment program near Phoenix for ''various addictions'' while awaiting trial on drug charges.
It will be interesting to follow this guy with the nutty face tattoo and the ruined boxing reputation to the very end.
I just think the odds of it finishing happily ever after are so bad that they wouldn't even be taken in Las Vegas.
• • Prince's phallic guitar display at the Super Bowl has faded from memory like purple rain in the Everglades.
Now why was it that Janet Jackson's momentarily exposed nipple shield at the Super Bowl two years ago was so horrifying?
• • Sacramento Kings star Ron Artest recently had his Great Dane, Socks, taken from him by authorities because the animal was starving.
Maybe it's just me, but people who abuse pets seem particularly low on the scale of decency.
I guess it's because the animals are always subservient and essentially powerless, and treating them badly shows, in microcosm, how you would treat unimportant human beings.
I wonder how a wolf pack would treat Artest if the tables were turned.
mailto:rtelander@suntimes.com
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What a bunch of sore friggin' losers.
That's why I'm kind of wondering if this guy Telander has some misplaced anger. It sucks here in Chicago that the Bears lost but Dungy's Christianity certainly shouldn't be attacked because of it.
I agree. He should just be grateful that the Bears even went to the Super Bowl(unlike the Browns who never will).
The Browns will make it one day although probably not in my lifetime. '64 will have to be enough, I'm afraid.
you may be right....but we can still hope
Dungy was a Steeler - the mark of the beast
but it's really hard not to like the guy - he's stand up all the way
Amen to that!
BFD. There are a whole lot of Americans who are Christian first ... and all other things second. Self included. Perhaps if Mr. Telander came to understand that by the Grace of God he can to can be delivered from his sins and gain eternal life in Christ, it wouldn't seem so odd to him.
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