NFL Notebook | Dungy’s leadership impacts entire NFL
In the early 1980s, 20-something football coaches were rare, 20-something black coaches rarer still. That was the NFL landscape when the Pittsburgh Steelers made a 25-year-old Tony Dungy the youngest assistant in league history in 1981.
At the time, Dungy received one piece of advice: to succeed in the conservative NFL, his beard had to go. But before he picked up a razor, he walked down the hall to the owner’s office.
“Dan Rooney said, ‘No, here at the Steelers we want people to be themselves,’ ” Dungy said. “It was a simple statement, but I never forgot it.”
With that, Dungy, in a quiet manner so unusual in the NFL, embarked on a remarkable career, one with achievements that have made him among the most influential figures in the league.
Dungy has the highest winning percentage (.650) among active coaches; his signature defense has become widely copied; and he has played a large role in diversifying the current coaching fraternity.
Today, he will lead his 7-0 Colts, the defending Super Bowl champions, against the 8-0 New England Patriots in the most highly anticipated regular-season game in years.
Dungy was responsible for starting the professional careers of three of the NFL’s five other black head coaches: Lovie Smith of the Bears, whom the Colts defeated in the Super Bowl last season; Herman Edwards of the Kansas City Chiefs, and Mike Tomlin of the Steelers.
After Steelers coach Chuck Noll gave him his start, Dungy toiled for 15 years as a defensive assistant before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers hired him as the coach in 1996. When the Steelers hired Tomlin, he had been an NFL assistant for only six years.
The expansion of the coaching pipeline for minorities - and the shortening of their apprenticeships - might be the biggest change since Dungy became an assistant.
NOTES
• Jaguars rookie LB Justin Durant and second-year OT Richard Collier were arrested in separate incidents early Saturday, and neither made the trip to New Orleans. Jacksonville police arrested Collier for driving under the influence, and Durant was charged with resisting arrest without violence. The Jaguars placed Collier on the reserve/suspended list.
• The 49ers waived LB Hannibal Navies and signed FB Zak Keasey from the practice squad for the third consecutive week.
The Associated Press
contributed to this report.