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Thirty Minutes with Tony
By Zoe Sandvig|Published Date: November 03, 2009
Inside Out’s Zoe Sandvig with Coach Dungy in October.
The quiet football giant slides into the back of the pickup, his lanky frame filling up the backseat where clothes and sports paraphernalia are strewn. “This reminds me of my truck,” he comments sonorously, fastening his seatbelt for the 25-minute drive to the Atlanta airport.
More than a year after retiring from his post as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, Dungy hasn’t slowed his pace. Today he spoke to 12,000 Christian leaders in Atlanta, but he seems more excited to get home to Tampa, Florida, and to the hugs and kisses waiting for him from his three youngest kids, all adopted.
Dungy comes by his paternal instinct honestly. His own father, the late Wilbur Dungy, a college professor, poured character, excellence, and godliness into his children—the same qualities that would one day position Dungy to become an outspoken Christian, an NFL legend, and a family man.
It’s been a bumpy road to this point. As a hotheaded high school freshman on the basketball court, Dungy remembers getting worked up about bad calls.
“Venting,” he would call it.
“Dumb,” his father dubbed it.
Today the cool, unruffled 54-year-old version of himself has transferred his own father’s wisdom beyond his biological and adopted children. All of his former players are his kids, too, in a way. And so are the guys he meets in prison.
With his hand resting on the back of the seat and 20 minutes till reaching the airport, Dungy explains how he found his way to prison ministry.
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