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Book Bears Witness To Dungy's Strength

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By MICHELLE BEARDEN, The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 10, 2007

It wasn't anything he sought. Although he's a public figure, 'I'm private by nature.'

It's one thing to talk about your pro football team, it's another to talk about your family. But after coaching the Indianapolis Colts to the Super Bowl championship in February, Tony Dungy conceded the timing was right. He would write a book about his life.

Even if it meant delving into painful subjects, such as the December 2005 suicide of his eldest son, Jamie.

'I thought there were things that could be positive,' he said in an interview last week. 'And things people could draw from and be encouraged by.'

Tyndale House Publishers agreed. 'Quiet Strength' will be heavily distributed and promoted in the general market, which is not typical of books by a Christian publisher. The Carol Stream, Ill.-based company is banking on Dungy's broad appeal. Just two months ago, Time magazine named him one of 'The 100 Most Influential People In the World.'

This week, his normally whirlwind schedule kicked up a notch. On Monday, he spoke at the opening session of the International Christian Retail Show in Atlanta. He is scheduled to appear Wednesday on NBC's 'The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,' which starts at 11:35 p.m.; on Fox News Channel's 'On the Record' with Greta Van Susteren at 10 p.m. Thursday; and on 'Fox & Friends' at 7 a.m. Friday. At 9 p.m. Sunday, he will be seen on ESPN's Espy Awards, where he's a nominee for coach of the year and the Colts are up for team of the year.

It's a good thing Dungy, 51, doesn't have to report to work for preseason camp until July 24.

'I'm learning that this book business isn't as easy as it appears,' said Dungy, who maintains a home in Tampa. 'It's more than just having a good story. It's all the stuff that comes after. Like how to dress for television or showing up everywhere they need you to show up.'

Collaborator Helped Write Book

Although his late mother had a master's degree in English, Dungy claims he's neither a reader nor a writer. His co-author, Nathan Whitaker of Tampa, disagreed.

'He's very intelligent. He didn't want to dumb it down, but he didn't want to put on airs, either,' Whitaker said. 'He was very easy to work with.'

It was Whitaker's first book, too, but it wasn't the pair's first collaboration. Whitaker, a lawyer who works as a coaches' representative, was the Bucs' director of legal affairs for three years. The two worked together during Dungy's last season here, before he was fired in 2002.

'I wanted his story to come out in 2004, given all that had happened to him up to that point,' Whitaker said. 'But Tony wasn't ready then. And he was right: So much has happened since then.'

Start to finish, the men completed the book in 24 days. It opens with one of Dungy's most jarring experiences: the rainy January night when he was abruptly fired after a heartbreaking playoff loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.

'It wasn't really the firing itself that was a shock but rather the thought that God was allowing this great experiment to end,' Dungy wrote of that dismal evening when he had to pack up six years of memories from his office at One Buc Place. 'Hadn't we tried to do things right?'

Reopening such wounds, sharing those memories, was a prospect that was daunting at first, Dungy said.

The publishers 'wanted 50,000 words. I went back to the days when my English lit teacher wanted 250, and that seemed impossible,' he said.

In the end, it was easier than he thought. 'We ended up having to condense it. I guess we had a lot more stories that I originally thought.'

Son's Death Difficult To Relate

One of the toughest was 18-year-old Jamie's suicide not long after Dungy buried his parents, which, although traumatic, followed a natural order. The middle-of-the-night call Tony and Lauren Dungy got about their son did not.

'As the nurse was speaking to me I frantically began to pray for Jamie,' he wrote. 'But as her words sank in, it became increasingly clear that we were beyond that point. Jamie was gone.'

A fog descended and it wasn't until several days later, as he stood over his son's casket, that he realized, 'I'm never going to see him again.'

Whitaker said he and Dungy didn't discuss that chapter until they got to it. They both knew it was going to be tough. What they wrote the first time wasn't enough for the editors.

'Tyndall wanted more,' Whitaker said. 'And Tony understood that. That didn't make it any easier. But he approached it as a way to help others. Their experience and how they handled it touched so many others.'

Knowing Jamie had accepted Christ as a young child and was baptized at Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa was a comfort, Dungy wrote. 'Because of that, we know his salvation was unchanged regardless of the demons he may have faced. We took comfort in knowing that his soul was in heaven even as we made our preparations to donate his organs and bury his body.'

The Dungys, who have five surviving children - three adopted and two biological, ages 13 months to 22 years - still grieve for Jamie.

'Jamie's death will never make sense to me,' Dungy wrote. 'But in the midst of it all, I truly believe that hope is available to all of us - for joy in today and peace in the certainty that heaven's glory awaits us.'

When his team won the Super Bowl, Dungy took advantage of those precious post-victory moments before a worldwide television audience to proclaim his faith. He considers the book another witnessing tool. Each of the 28 chapters in the 298-page book opens with a Scripture he has relied on.

In the book, Dungy focuses on lessons he learned from people in his life beginning with his childhood in Jackson, Mich.: his late parents, coaches, teammates, pastors and friends. The foreword is written by friends Pauletta and Denzel Washington, who noted that following Dungy's life from beginning to the present is 'most inspiring.'

'For him to have been rejected, ignored, praised and denied - yet still maintain dignity, strength and hope - is a testament to his unwavering faith,' the couple wrote. 'At times his choices have not been popular, but he has stood his ground. He has remained committed to the will of God.'

For now, Dungy has to be committed to his book tour, which brings him next week to Tampa, where he plans to return permanently one day.

He remains characteristically modest about all the fanfare.

'It's one thing to stand up and talk about your team. The focus is on the guys, not you,' he said. 'But seeing my face on the cover of a book and on all those displays, that takes a little getting used to.'

Reporter Michelle Bearden can be reached at (813) 259-7613 or mbearden@tampatrib.com.

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