Staying faithful: Tony Dungy's path to Hall of Fame began at Minnesota

It's 795 miles from the front stoop of the Bierman Building at the University of Minnesota to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Tony Dungy completes that journey Saturday night when he joins the Class of 2016 with an acceptance speech about a man who wasn't always accepted.

In fact, Dungy didn't become one of Minnesota's most beloved sons through birthright. Born Oct. 6, 1955, in Jackson, Mich., Dungy grew into a star athlete who chose Minnesota because of Sandy Stephens, a pioneering black quarterback who had blazed trails before him. While every other major college coach was telling Dungy he had to switch positions because of stereotypical assumptions, Gophers assistant Tom Moore recruited Dungy as a quarterback.

"Minnesota didn't try to change who I was," Dungy said. "I've never forgotten that."

Dungy arrived in 1973. Thirty-four years later, on Feb. 4, 2007, he became the only black head coach to win a Super Bowl when his Indianapolis Colts defeated the Chicago Bears. Moore was Dungy's offensive coordinator. And Lovie Smith was the Bears coach because Dungy had paid it forward by reaching down years earlier in Tampa to lift another black man into the NFL coaching fraternity.

Dungy's Hall of Fame journey began in earnest on that front stoop at the Bierman Building. As an 18-year-old freshman, he'd arrive early every morning and be waiting for coach Cal Stoll to unlock the door so he could study more film before classes started.

"Finally, Cal just gave Tony his own key," former teammate and lifelong friend Ron Kullas said on the eve of that Super Bowl nine years ago.

Dungy became a record-setting quarterback and a Williams Scholar before joining the Pittsburgh Steelers as an undrafted safety in 1977. He spent two years in Pittsburgh, learning the game from Chuck Noll and life lessons from Donnie Shell, his Hall of Fame presenter and a hard-hitting safety who taught him that soft-spoken Christians didn't have to hide their faith out of fear of being perceived as soft in a macho man's world.

Dungy also had a team-high six interceptions as a backup on the Steelers' Super Bowl-winning team in 1978. But, as fate would have it, he was traded to San Francisco in 1979. He lasted only one season, but his special teams coach was Denny Green, who would become Dungy's boss in Minnesota and a key mentor as a pioneering black coach himself.

"More than anything, Denny said, 'I'm going to show you how to be a head coach,' " Dungy said. "When I got the job in Tampa, we're in the same division. But I would call Denny and say, 'Hey, that Monday night schedule, how did we do that? What did we do after a bye?' And he would tell me because he wanted me to be successful."

Patience pays off

Dungy was Gophers defensive backs coach in 1980 before going back to Pittsburgh. He coached defensive backs from 1981-83 and was promoted to defensive coordinator at 28 in 1984.

Dungy left Pittsburgh for Kansas City in 1989 before becoming Green's defensive coordinator with the Vikings in 1992. A year later, with seven head coaching openings and the Vikings sporting the league's No. 1-ranked defense, Dungy's phone never rang.

"I think that was a time the Lord was testing my patience and my perseverance," Dungy said on the eve of his Super Bowl win. "For me, 1993 was a time when I wondered if it would happen."

Dungy's brother, Linden, a dentist in Farmington, thinks race played a role. But anger wasn't an emotion passed down to the four Dungy kids by their late parents, Wilbur, a World War II pilot for the Tuskegee Airmen and then a college professor; and Cleomae, a high school teacher in Jackson.

"Your response could be to complain about it or go out and do it better," Linden said in 2007. "Our parents were instrumental in telling us the last thing you need to do is play the race card."

Tony Dungy called it a "subconscious barrier" that kept him from becoming a head coach until 1996, when the Buccaneers hired him at age 40.

"The head coach of a successful team, to many people, looked like Vince Lombardi," he said. "It was a white, middle-aged coach who screamed fire and brimstone."

Faith and football

Minnesotan Tom Lamphere is one of Dungy's best friends. He has been the Vikings team chaplain for most of the past 31 years. His only time away came from 1998-2004, when he helped Dungy start and develop a faith-based NFL Coaches Fellowship.

"Tony is such a great spokesman for how to walk in faith," Lamphere said. "He does it in a very gentle, reverent way.

"When he got to Tampa and addressed the team for the first time, he said, 'I'm going to speak in this tone of voice. If I get angry or upset, I'm going be quieter.' Then he said, 'If you need a coach to cuss and swear and scream at you, let me know and I'll put you on another team.' "

Vikings Hall of Fame defensive end Chris Doleman said Dungy didn't need to yell and scream to get the players' attention because he already had it.

"He was so calm and such a great teacher who just had a feel for what the other team was going to do," Doleman said. "His humility, his faith, principles, and his success … what he did was pretty doggone good."

Dungy's coaching fellowship, one of many faith-based projects he tends to in addition to being a studio analyst on NBC's "Football Night in America," is still going strong. It meets every year in Minnesota for summer fishing vacations on Lake Mille Lacs. Former Vikings coach Leslie Frazier, a Dungy disciple and now an assistant in Baltimore, raised the trophy for biggest walleye caught earlier this summer.

"Tony has helped so many coaches by staying true to who he is," Frazier said. "He got passed up for a lot of jobs because people couldn't see how someone like him could lead a group of men in the National Football League. There's such quiet strength and integrity to him that most people perceived the opposite way.

"He has a fire in his belly just like any other coach. It's just that his is not volcanic on the outside. And now he's going into the Hall of Fame. That says it all."