Last night, on the winning Super Bowl stage, CBS’ sports commentator Jim Nance asked Tony Dungy about the “social significance” of winning the game. He was referring, of course, to the fact that Dungy was the first African American coach to ever win the Super Bowl. Dungy’s response:
I tell you what, I am proud to be representing African-American coaches and to be the first African-American to win this – that means an awful lot to our country, but again, more than anything and I said it before, Lovie Smith and I are not only the first two African Americans but Christian coaches showing that you can win doing it the Lord’s way and we are more proud of that.
In a sport like football where excess seems to dominate the headlines and the suspicion of drug use is high and arrests are common (see, for instance, the Cincinnati Bengals who have had 9 players arrested in just the past years), perhaps it is amazing that two Christian men who very much want to win games but are more committed to building up the character of the men on their teams made it such heights.
I don’t know if God answers prayers about football games or parking spots or slot machines or the right clothes to wear in the morning. I do know that God loves to be praised and Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith (the Chicago Bears coach) do that with their lives and their work.
An important note here – when Coach Dungy says, “win doing it the Lord’s way” it is easy to think that means that he has won it by being “nice.” That would be a mistake. The Lord’s way is many things – it is not nice. By that I mean the Lord’s way is not some insipid, Wonder-bread-fluffy, kiss-a-puppy kind of nice. It is a tough journey, a brutal journey and an exhausting race.
No one knows that more than Tony Dungy who lost his son to a suicide fourteen-months ago and has said repeatedly, “God is in every thing, even the ugly things.” And there isn’t an Indianapolis Colt (or Chicago Bear) who has been through one of their coaches training camps, endured their discipline, or been taught to play football by them who would call any of that nice. They would, and they do, call it “the right way” to play and to live and it doesn’t get more socially significant than that.
posted February 5, 2007 at 9:41 pm
“I do know that God loves to be praised”. That’s something that I’d like to know more about. How do we know that? And also– accepting that God’s was are not our ways– why is that? An outsider might suspect that omnipotence and omniscience is its own reward, requiring no validation from mortals.
posted February 6, 2007 at 12:42 am
I do know that God loves to be praised and Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith (the Chicago Bears coach) do that with their lives and their work. You know that? Why don’t you tell us how you know that?
posted February 6, 2007 at 12:36 pm
If you take all the screaming and vitriol from the Lefist-Progressive rantings, you see that Dungy and Lovie Smith sound like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and especially James Dobson.And when was the last time Billy Graham called for a screaming mob protest of the President Bush and the US government, anywhere? Time to wake-up David, and those falling prey to the “progressive” idea of what a Christian is or, should be. The first thing we (Christians) should be (doing), is telling people about “The Lord’s way.” Which is that all men hear the Gospel and choose Christ Jesus. There is no other Christian way!!! (NOT that all men (people) pay high taxes and allow “anything goes,” of leftist belief-systems. Click over to Wallis’ blog here at B-net for a treatment of “bad yeast” on the Dungy and Smith happening. Dungy and Smith do not preach that “anything goes.” They deserve better than to be propped up as a tool for the goals of Leftist ideology and political power.
posted February 6, 2007 at 2:06 pm
If you take all the screaming and vitriol from the Lefist-Progressive rantings, you see that Dungy and Lovie Smith sound like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and especially James Dobson. No one said that, and it’s clear that you don’t see any distinction between politics and religion. There are those of us on the Left who profess Christ, just as there are atheists on the Right, like Ayn Rand and greedy Wall Street Republicans who do not. But to those who look to political orientation as litmus test as to whether or not one is a Christian, I have this to say to you: You are the reason why the Church is being destroyed. Your cognitive blindness and failure to look across boundaries is causing more division and strife. You swear that God would choose George Bush, but he’s already violated the commands “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness”, and “Thou Shalt Not Covet”. He has destroyed the peace and told Muslims and Jews abroad that Jesus is more a warrior of the sword than a prince of peace, rightly diving the Truth.
posted February 6, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Time to wake-up David, and those falling prey to the “progressive” idea of what a Christian is or, should be. Oh, you must mean like Jesus… a radical for peace, nonviolence, and unconditional God-love. The first thing we (Christians) should be (doing), is telling people about “The Lord’s way.” Which certainly does not include 500,000 dead Iraqis and 6,000 dead American troops. “The Lord’s way” is a way of life, when some would prefer it to be a culture of death. “The Lord’s way” cares for human beings before, during, and after their existence, not just when they’re in the fetal stages or a cellular zygote.
posted February 6, 2007 at 6:38 pm
If the Left tries to hijack Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith they are in for a disapointing ride. /// Those 500,000 Iraqi dead were killed by Muslim aggresion. Not the Lord’s way in Christianity, but clearly OK with whatever or whoever they believe in. It appears to me, that “Leftists” live in a stark and delusional world.If Dungy or Smith were white men, the cry from the Leftist-Progressives about “how Christian” the NFL has become, would deafen the roar of the Colts fans. Luckily for we Christians, the “Lord’s way” has no reference to skin tone. Now, on children and marriage, Jesus was immutable on both. Don’t harm children and don’t break up a marriage of a man and a woman in what God has joined.Tell me someone, why aren’t Liberal-Christians taking their message of peace and non-violence TO Iraq and the Muslims committing all of the violent acts? Seems a bit hypocritical of The Left, to just judge the American soldier.
posted February 6, 2007 at 6:43 pm
A great deal of what passes for current Christianity consists in denouncing other people’s vices and faults. ~Henry H. Williams
posted February 6, 2007 at 7:02 pm
“The Lord’s way is many things – it is not nice.” Ah, so thats why nice guys finish last.
posted February 6, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Pacific123, A great deal of what passes as Hebrew/Biblical prophecy has to do with denouncing other people’s vices and faults. Notice any consistency here? Now look at Leftist/Progressive/Liberal-Christianity, which only denouces people for doing the right thing.
posted February 6, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Now look at Leftist/Progressive/Liberal-Christianity, which only denouces people for doing the right thing. Calling into question the professed self-righteous is at the heart of Jesus stood for. Violence, demonization, and killing in the name of God is what the Pharisees (as it is portrayed in the Christian New Testament) stood for.
posted February 6, 2007 at 9:12 pm
I like how everyone (including me and you on this blog) are enjoying this incredible moment together. How can one be nothing but totally open and active about change when the main actors in this event are examples of someone like Jesus? Makes ya wonder what all the yocal locals were talkin-bout when they heard all the “Messiah” talk way back when. Now is the time to be bolder than ever instead of walking away with a grin on your face.
posted February 7, 2007 at 8:04 pm
I am also glad that a Christian coach was the winner of the super bowl but I don’t like the way that you used the Bengals as an example of a unchristian like team Marvin Lewis is also a very god fairing man, and as for the 9 Bengals, lets get it straight only about 3 of them have been actually charged. 2 in fact have law suits on the authorities for wrongly arrest. So lets get it straight before we throw stones (which by the way is unchristian.)
posted February 7, 2007 at 11:32 pm
He without sin cast the first stone. The Bengals have a lot of Christian people on their team so please pray for the ones who have messed up and not bash them. Christians sometimes are very hypocritical when we are looking at someone elese life. I am glad to see that we are all so god like that we can talk about and criticize but not pray and help.