Content of their characters

When the Bears won the NFC Championship last Sunday, one of the immediate points the broadcasters started talking about was the record Coach Lovie Smith would set by being the first black NFL head coach to go to the Super Bowl. Within a few hours, the Indianapolis Colts won the AFC Championship with head coach Tony Dungy, not only another black NFL coach, but a good friend and former mentor to Lovie Smith.

Suddenly, the topic of this record of two black head coaches leading the final two teams in the Super Bowl has become the biggest story of the event. They are making history, and it has been the central story of the Super Bowl these past couple of days, all over the media.

It’s a sweet story, the close relationship and great respect between Smith and Dungy. And the remarkable history they are setting couldn’t happen to two nicer men. But that’s the point I want to emphasize, because after heralding this new day in sports history, I think we should be doing what Dr. Martin Luther King dreamed of and worked so hard for, to the death. I don’t look at Lovie Smith or Tony Dungy as black men, any more than I look at Mike Ditka or John Madden as white men. I see their style and demeanor, and how they act in the heat of a game.

In other words, I don’t pay attention to the color of their skin but the content of their character. And Smith and Dungy are loaded with character.

Yesterday, the Chicago Tribune ran this front page story about the two black coaches making history and sharing this dream. And it says Smith and Dungy agree the day will come when “their story is unremarkable.”

“That day is coming,” Smith said. “But of course we’re talking about it now, so it’s not here now. But each year we’ve taken a step, and that’s all you’re looking for. . . . We’ve taken a step in that direction by having Tony and I have our teams in the Super Bowl. In years to come it won’t be talked about, and I’ll look forward to that day.”

Why can’t we arrive at it before Sunday? These men deserve to move from color into character.

To Dungy and Smith, their story is as much about coaching style as color.

“I know the type of person Lovie is,” Dungy said. “He has the same Christian convictions I have. He runs his team the same way. I know how those guys are treated in Chicago and how they play–tough, disciplined football without a lot of profanity from coaches or a win-at-all-costs atmosphere.”

That’s what the press should be talking about. Dungy said the race issue was only one to overcome. Another was that conventional football wisdom considered him too “nice, polite and laid-back to be successful in” professional football, says the Tribune article.

Said Smith: “I would not use `laid-back.’ I think our styles are similar. We try to treat our players as men and we expect them to behave that way. We have certain standards.

“As you look at young coaches coming through the ranks, a lot of them have a [mental] picture of how a coach is supposed to act, and I think what Tony Dungy showed me was that you didn’t have to act that way. Be yourself and just believe in what you know and stay with that through the storms and you can get the job accomplished.”

Those are life lessons that go way beyond football, and the media should be focusing more on the outstanding character of these two men.

“I think we’ll probably talk this subject to death in the next two weeks, so it will get to the point where we’ll feel we’ve heard it for 100 years,” Dungy said. 

We don’t have to talk it to death, and shouldn’t. We should talk about the coaches who brought their teams to the height of football status and achievement, by putting first things first. The sport and the team is very important.

“But for faith to be more important than your job, for family to be more important, we all know that’s the way it should be, but we’re all afraid to say that sometimes. Lovie isn’t afraid to say it, and I’m not afraid to say it.”

And that’s what makes them stand apart.