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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Telander really inserts a couple of classic in here:
"I always have wondered how religion and tolerance bed down."
I would say that the great majority of Christians are a lot more tolerant than Telander shows himself to be with that one statement.
"-- and substitute the words ''Allah,'' ''Muslim'' or ''Koran'' in appropriate spots and see if your view changes."
Totally ignorant on Telander's part considering the near-veneration of Cassius Muhammad Ali Clay, Lew Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Alcindor, Chicago's own Muhsin Muhammad, et al.
Give the "journalist" a break. He just doesn't understand personal relationships with God.
I was wondering how long it would take before this kind of crap started.....
Nothing but a lefty using "tolerance" as a vehicle to preach his own intolerance.
"The troubling aspect, of course, is simply that of intolerance. "
Pot meet kettle.
Sour Grapes and jealousy on display. Add a touch of God, and this journalist just shows his true nature. A little of Tonys religion would make a new man out of this guy.
What team lost the Super Bowl again?
The guy really has an even keel approach to everything, and believes and says some really inspirational things. Not to mention that he lost his young son a short year ago.
CHICAGOLAND PING
To put it another way, " Tony,your Christianity makes me uncomfortable so knock it off " !!!
It's not that he just doesn't understand a personal relationship with God. It's that he's completely ignorant of the role of prayer in sports for time imemorium and intolerant of those who do have a personal relationship with God.
It's a great thing that Dungy got tied in with Indianapolis and their ownership. The pair are a good match.
Tony Dungy is fantastic, he speaks from his heart and knows that all things are possible through God. How else could a man who has been through what he has push forward and achieve such success.
Have any of ya'll seen the movie 'Facing the Giants'? If you haven't go rent it, you won't be sorry. Watch it with your family, it's a christian movie with football.
Stand this telander guy right next to Dungy, and he'll be so small in comparison, and I'm not talking about comparing their physical heights.
telander is nothing more than an ankle biter.
The troubling aspect(for myself), of course, is simply that of intolerance.
This man seems to be forgetting that he is speaking solely for himself.
His religious expression even trumped his honor at being the history-setting first African-American coach to win a Super Bowl.
Now this is incredibly presumptious, "his honor" is exactly that "his honor" he may use his honor whichever way that he wishes, Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy made it crystal clear that they were Christian American not "Hyphenated Americans"
this writer seems to think that he is the arbiter of another person actions and beliefs, Tony Dungy made it perfectly clear that God led him through to win the Super Bowl, this man is trying to hijack Dungy's belief and use the victory for his own ends.
No wonder papers are going belly up.....
Tony Dungy earned his moment in the spotlight. He can say whatever he wants.
I was more than pleased to see that he can speak proper English, and doesn't manage to use 5 ,7,or 11 "you knows" in his sentances. More young men in sports need to look long and hard at his success and how much people really admire him for what he does- not who he is, AKA Paris Hilton.
Did this idiot ever comment on Islamic attitudes toward sports? Weren't some Somalis executed by the Islamic Courts for watching a soccer match? Soccer stadiums were used by the Taliban as venues for public executions. Saddam's goons would beat the Iraqi soccer team when they lost.
As for Muhammad Ali, he'd be laughed out of court today-He refused to go into the military because he claimed his religion prohibited violence IIRC.
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