Finding Your Path to Significance

Finding Your Path to Significance
Book Review of Uncommon, by Tony Dungy

Tony Dungy, best selling author of Quiet Strength, has penned another Super Bowl quality book in Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance. The two books cover similar terrain: how to win in life. However, Dungy’s latest work focuses especially on how young men can pursue and achieve a life of significance and success.

Dungy is eminently qualified to write such a book, given his lifetime of leadership coaching not only athletes in sports, but men in the proverbial game of life. Additionally, his own drive for success, not simply defined by wins and loses, but by other-centered relationships, is Dungy’s ultimate qualification for writing Uncommon.

Defining Success

Dungy begins by defining success, not from the world’s perspective, but from his Christian worldview. He then notes how uncommon true success and significance are, outlines many of the reasons, and prescribes practical pathways: attitudes, ambitions, and allegiances.

What Rick Warren achieved with Purpose Driven Life, Tony Dungy has accomplished with Uncommon. Both books are user-friendly, easy-reads, without being dumbed-down or simplistic. And both books, while maintaining a Judea-Christian ethic, are not preachy.

Lasting Legacy

Though focused somewhat on young males, Uncommon is for every person pursuing a life of meaning, a path of purpose, and the road toward significance. Learn from an uncommon man the uncommon art of leaving a lasting legacy.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction http://tinyurl.com/cm96x6

Uncommon Tony Dungy

Uncommon

http://www.amazon.com/Uncommon-Finding-Your-Path-Significance/dp/1414326815/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

Tony Dungy, best selling author of Quiet Strength, has penned another Super Bowl quality book in Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance. The two books cover similar terrain: how to win in life. However, Dungy's latest work focuses especially on how young men can pursue and achieve a life of significance and success.

Dungy is eminently qualified to write such a book, given his lifetime of leadership coaching not only athletes in sports, but men in the proverbial game of life. Additionally, his own drive for success, not simply defined by wins and loses, but by other-centered relationships, is Dungy's ultimate qualification for writing Uncommon.

Dungy begins by defining success, not from the world's perspective, but from his Christian worldview. He then notes how uncommon true success and significance are, outlines many of the reasons, and prescribes practical pathways: attitudes, ambitions, and allegiances.

What Rick Warren achieved with Purpose Driven Life, Tony Dungy has accomplished with Uncommon. Both books are user-friendly, easy-reads, without being dumbed-down or simplistic. And both books, while maintaining a Judea-Christian ethic, are not preachy. Though focused somewhat on young males,

Uncommon is for every person pursuing a life of meaning, a path of purpose, and the road toward significance. Learn from an uncommon man the uncommon art of leaving a lasting legacy.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction.

Quiet Strength

Quiet Strength: Book Review

Super Bowl championship coach Tony Dungy writes a tell-all book that the entire family can read. In fact, Dungy would not start his own bio with "super bowl championship coach." Instead, he would begin it with "Christian," then "husband," "parent," and "friend." Even when talking about coaching, Dungy's philosophy is on coaching the entire person--mentoring. Quiet Strength is one part autobiography, one part thrilling sports biography, one part coaching technique, one part dealing with suffering, one part family life narrative, one part social commentary, and one part Christian living teaching. Woven together seamlessly, the subtitle accurately provides the beautiful tapestry that results: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life.

Super Bowl, Super Faith

Super Bowl, Super Faith

There he was, the whole world watching. Tony Dungy did not disappoint.

Asked during the trophy presentation about the cultural significance of being the first African American head coach to win a Super Bowl, Dungy told over 100 million viewers, “I’m proud to be the first African American coach to win this. But again, more than anything, Lovie Smith and I are not only African-American but also Christian coaches, showing you can do it the Lord’s way. We’re more proud of that.”

When Dungy said “again,” he meant it. For he and Bears head coach, Lovie Smith, were the page-one story throughout Super Bowl week, discussing daily the Christian faith they share, the personal relationship they maintain, their groundbreaking success, and their motivational coaching style.

Facing the Storm with Faith

Dungy’s faith impacted how he coached his team Sunday. Speaking of their early deficit due to a Bear kick-off return for a touchdown, Dungy stated, “We took the hit early with Devin Hester. We talked about it. It’s going to be a storm. Sometimes you have to work for it. The Lord doesn’t always take you in a straight line. He tests you sometimes.”

In fact, Dungy and Smith’s faith impacts everything about their coaching. Coaching great, Bill Walsh, head coach of three Super Bowl championship teams and mentor to Dungy, noted, “Tony and Lovie are professionals, and I think that’s what players want. There are some coaches who are screamers in the NFL, but not as many as there used to be. The players just can’t see the real value of the coach if he’s continually harping at them and harping at the media and harping at everybody else. The coaches who continue to be so animated that they distract everybody are usually coaches without a lot of confidence. The confident coach can plot out what he needs, how his staff should function and people respect that.”

Walsh continued, “Tony and Lovie take a more civilized approach to it and they can reach more players that way. But I think in both of their cases they’re pretty darn firm when necessary, but they don’t go public with those things. Both are very knowledgeable about the game of football and how to deal with people. I hope this style is what survives rather than the coaches who run amok whenever they’re tested on the sideline, and the players see that they may have a madman on their hands and they may have to overcome it.”

Leonard Moore runs the African-American studies program at Louisiana State University, and he considers sport part of the curriculum. He has spent time studying coaches, including Dungy and Smith. “By them being African American men, I think Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith understand the culture of the hip hop generation,” Moore said. “They know that Bobby Knight stuff isn’t going to work in 2007, that yelling and trying to be that strict dictator. I think you’re dealing with a different generation of ballplayers that aren’t going to tolerate that stuff. “I don’t think they are trying to be players’ coaches at all. I think it’s, ‘I’m going to treat you like a man and in return I expect you to treat me like a man.’ I think Dungy and Smith see their role not only as coach but as mentor, father figure and friend. Kids of this generation don’t want to be yelled at. I think you lead by example. In the black community, we’re big on this thing: ‘I don’t care what you say. I’m going to model what you do.’ So I think by Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith being very calm, cool and collected, players realize, ‘Maybe I don’t have to be loud and go off the handle. Maybe I can have some control over my anger and my emotions.’ That's what I see from Dungy and Smith.”

Bill Cole had a strong rooting interest in this year’s Super Bowl. Regardless of the outcome, he was guaranteed to win. He’s a fan of calm coaches. Cole, a sports psychology consultant in California who works with coaches and athletes, pointed out that Dungy and Smith are both devout Christians who stress that faith and families take priority over football. “Here’s the real paradox. They’re in the Super Bowl and football is not the biggest thing in their world. They have publicly stated that. Sure, it’s important, but it’s not the end-all and they have perspective. I think when you get life perspective as an athlete or as a coach, it calms you down more.”

Calm in the storm. That’s what Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy bring to football and to life.

African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction: Super Bowl Style

African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction:

Super Bowl Style

The more direct quotes I read from the two Super Bowl coaches, Lovie Smith (Chicago Bears) and Tony Dungy (Indianapolis Colts), the more amazed I am by their coaching styles. And, the more I become convinced that their way of relating to their players follows directly in the lineage and heritage of the history of African American soul care and spiritual direction.

In “Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction,” my co-author (Karole Edwards) and I highlight the myriad ways that past African Americans sustained and healed one another. In dynamic case after case, African Americans “climbed in one another’s casket” of despair, identifying with each other’s pain. They then, on the basis of their Christian hope in Christ, brought hope to one another by “celebrating the empty tomb” and thus experiencing Christ’s resurrection power.

Coaching: Mentoring Men as Iron Sharpens Iron

Just a few current examples from the coaching lives of Smith and Dungy will suffice to demonstrate that these two African American coaches understand how to mentor others with biblical soul care and spiritual direction. Chicago Tribune writer, David Haugh, in his January 28, 2007, story entitled “The Lovie Connection” emphasizes how with Smith, “like mentor Dungy, being his player’s friend and counselor comes easily.”

When Bear’s player Tank Johnson lost his best friend, Willie B. Posey, in a nightclub shooting, more than anything, Johnson needed to know that he wasn’t alone. As Haugh says, “That’s when Lovie Smith picked up the phone to pick up his defensive tackle’s spirits.”

These two men of quiet strength, bonded by five years together on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ staff and by similar Christian convictions, hope that the necessary focus on their skin color doesn’t overlook a shared coaching style evident in Smith’s phone call to a troubled Johnson.

“He’s a Coach Who Listens a Lot”

As Johnson records of Smith, “He called me and said, ‘Hey, Big Guy, how are you doing? I’m going to call you every day through this process to make sure you’re OK,’” Johnson recalled. “That means a lot when you’re on pins and needles about a lot of things in your life. But it’s that kind of thing that makes Lovie different. He’s a coach who listens a lot.”

Wow! This is classic soul care. An empathic concern for how another human being is doing in the midst of a struggle. A consistency of follow-up (not just there in a crisis, but there day after day). Listening a lot.

Unfortunately, the two most negative sports writers in Chicago, Jay Mariotti of the Sun Times and Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune, just never got it (and they rarely do). When Smith and the Bears stood behind Tank (not for his unwise choices or foolish behavior, but behind the person, the man), they tried to tank Smith. Morrissey falsely and foolishly accused Smith of having “no concept of right and wrong.” It is Morrissey and Mariotti who have absolutely no concept of sustaining and healing, no concept of humble empathy for another human being’s plight and pain. No concept of biblical, historical soul care and spiritual direction.

Lovie’s Love

But enough about them. Back to Lovie’s love.

When Bears’ rookie safety Danieal Manning started feeling a little lost in the big city and the bigger world of an NFL starter, Smith related his own small-town Texas upbringing to the Corsicana native and helped pull him through. “Coach Lovie understood me,” Manning said. “He understands us.”Whenever Rex Grossman sought reassurance during a very trying season, Smith invited him into an office that doesn’t require appointments.“One of the first things Lovie said to me when I got here last year was he wanted to be involved with the players’ lives and wanted to know how they’re doing so he has an open-door policy,” wide receiver Rashied Davis said. “Some coaches, it’s us against the coaches. You just don’ feel that here.”

Another “Wow!” Pastors and counselors have much to learn from Lovie’s love. Understanding. An open door policy (as John Piper would say to pastors, “Brothers, we are not professionals, meaning, drop the CEO office concept and be a caring human being). Equality. Universality (we’re all in the same boat). Humility.

The Mentor of the Mentor

In Indianapolis, Colts’ players who have described similar experiences with Dungy this week feel the same way. And from whom do you think Smith adopted his mentoring style?

On January 26, 2007, another Chicago Tribune sports’ writer focused on Tony Dungy in an article entitled “Indianapolis: Strength in Sorrow.” Terry Bannon’s subtitle says it all: “Colts Band together When a Teammate Suffers Family Tragedy.”

Colts’ player Reggie Wayne lost his brother in a car accident on September 24, 2006. Who was there for Reggie? Tony Dungy, of course.

“The thing about coach Dungy is his office is always open if I ever need him,” Wayne said. “He’s never too busy for us. I always knew if I had a problem, I could go to him.” Sound familiar?

“How You Get through Problems”

“Football is lifelike, but just because our guys are on television they’re not bigger than life,” Dungy said. “They go through all the things that everyone else does, all of us do. You’re not immune to it.”

“That’s one of the things that has helped me be there and counsel our guys when they do have problems. I believe God has me here for a purpose. I have a strong Christian inner faith. That’s what drives me and I use that to help those guys.”Dungy is known as a coach who treats his players as people first, which shapes his approach to their personal lives. “I tell guys all the time they’re not immune to it, they’re going to have problems,” Dungy said. “It’s how you get through them that’s important. That’s how I was raised, and I’m glad I was raised that way.”

A third “Wow!” Always available. Human. Honest. Christian counseling. Inner faith. Driven to help others. Treating people as people. Facing problems and finding hope.

Passing the Baton of Soul Care

You read what Dungy said about where he learned his “soul care.” He was raised that way. Smith got it from Dungy, Dungy got it from his parents. His parents got their soul care philosophy and practice not from school, but from the school of hard knocks. They got it from the beautiful and powerful heritage of African American soul care.

How does one learn to help others to move “beyond the suffering?” By facing one’s own life suffering, as African Americans have, and then by living face-to-face with Christ in order to move beyond suffering to healing hope.

In the Bigger Picture of Life: Super Bowl, Race, and Faith

In the Bigger Picture of Life: Super Bowl, Race, and Faith

All the buzz in Chicago is about “Da Bears!” The Chicago Bears are headed to the Super Bowl headed by Coach Lovie Smith. There are so many intriguing story lines in this match-up of the Bears and the Colts.

One of the most intriguing is the solid relationship that Smith shares with the Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy. Best friends, they are now pitted against each other: the Windy City versus the Indy City.

Making History in Black History Month: “It Means a Lot”

As many have noted, with both men being African American, history will be made in Black History month in February. And historic it is. In the bigger picture of life, Smith and Dungy form a social triumph of major proportion.

''It means quite a bit for me being the coach of the Chicago Bears and being able to lead our team to another Super Bowl,'' Smith said. ''But being the first black coach to lead his team to the Super Bowl, of course our players knew about it and they wanted to help us make history today. So I feel blessed to be in that position.”

''It means a lot,'' Dungy said after the Colts' 38-34 victory. ''I'm very proud to represent African American coaches, but more than that, it's about the Indianapolis Colts.''

The Bigger Picture of Life: Christian Faith

What has been conspicuously missing in the national media attention is the main element in each man’s life. In fact, in their own words, it is ultimately what makes them who they are—their Christian faith.

At a Chicago news conference on Monday, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama noted that Smith and Dungy present "a good lesson for all of us. To see two African-American coaches go to the Super Bowl when it has been historically difficult for black coaches to break into the NFL is terrific," Obama said. "But what makes it even better is that they are both men of humility, they are both men of God. They never trash talk. They are not yellers and screamers on the sidelines. They are a couple of class individuals."

Indeed, they are both men of God, men of Christ.

Dungy recalls one of his first interviews for a head coaching position. "One guy did ask me, 'If you get this job, is this going to be the most important thing in your life? Are you going to treat my team as the most important thing?' "No, I'm not," Dungy said. "I didn't think I was going to get that job and I didn't. 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."

"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."

Dungy told an audience of more than 1,200 at the Convention Center last year that his Christian walk is even more important than sports. "That is really the main element in my life. Athletics is important, but without the Christian part it is kind of empty," the famed coach said.

Lovie Smith is a Christian and has made no attempt to hide his beliefs. Smith says that he relies on his Christian faith, which was cultivated in him during his childhood. "Everything that I am is based on my faith. It has been a big part of me," he says. "At a young age, I called on God to help me, and He was there as a comfort for me. That is something that I have leaned on ever since."

Faith Active in Life: "Staying with It Through the Storms"

In an era when many often ridicule men of faith as weak and incapable of making it successfully in the “real world,” it is empowering to understand how Smith and Dungy have been energized and guided by their faith. Their Christianity impacts everything they do as coaches and has enabled them to treat their players with a respect that has produced loyalty and productivity.

For years Dungy couldn't get a coaching job, not only because there were so few blacks in the NFL but also because conventional football wisdom considered him too nice, too polite, too "laid-back" to be successful in a cutthroat, demanding business.

Dungy said he shares more similarities than differences with Smith, adding, "Lovie's probably a little smarter than I am."

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."

Super Bowl Champions: Winners in the Game of Life

As a “Chicago kid,” I have to root for the Bears in this one. But as a “Christian man,” I’m rooting for both Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy. They have what it takes to be winners in the game of life. They have Christ, and He has them.

One will come away a Super Bowl Champion. However, both will come away winners in the game of life.