Tony Dungy decides to call it quits after 13 years..
Written by The Go-To-Man Mattie T. on January 15, 2009
On Monday, Tony Dungy decided to end his 13-year head coaching career for retirement.
Dungy retires as the only African-American head coach to ever win a Super Bowl, which was done just 2 years ago against the Chicago Bears.
Tony was one of my personal favorite coaches simply due to the way he drew respect from his players & his calmness when he was on the sidelines.
Dungy got to work under the legendary Chuck Noll early in his NFL career, which is probably one of his biggest acheivements to date seeing that Noll has won more Super Bowls (4) then any other coach in league history.
Dungy’s Colts also engineered the biggest comeback in a Conference Championship Game in ’06, as they rallied from 18 points down to beat the New England Patriots in a wild 42-38 win.
With his Super Bowl XLI win over the Bears, Dungy became one of only 3 people to both win a Super Bowl as a player & head coach.
The other two? Mike Ditka & Tom Flores.
Dungy has paved the way for the development of four men who are now head coaches in the NFL. They are:
Chicago Bears’ head coach Lovie Smith.
Kansas City Chiefs’ head coach Herman Edwards.
Pittsburgh Steelers’ head coach Mike Tomlin.
New Indianapolis Colts’ head coach Jim Caldwell.
Dungy kept going strong even after he lost his 18-year old son James to a suicide attempt in December of 2005.
After that point, Dungy’s Colts won 25 of their next 32 games, but were ousted from the playoffs by the San Diego Chargers in back-to-back seasons.
Overall, Tony Dungy won 139 games & lost 69, which puts his career winnning percentage at .668%, good for 11th place on the all-time list.
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