I’ve been an admirer of Tony Dungy for years. I liked his quiet, but firm style of coaching. Dungy brought the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the brink of the Super Bowl (they won it the next year after Dungy was fired–Jon Gruden got the credit). Fortunately, the Indianapolis Colts hired Dungy and he took them to the playoffs and finally to a Super Bowl win. Tony Dungy’s The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently holds plenty of great football stories. Dungy talks about helping Michael Vick rebuild his career and his life. He also talks about the huge effect Chuck Noll, coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, when Dungy was a player (and later a coach) had on his life. The chief secrets Dungy shares is that leaders must be teachers and role models. Nothing earth-shattering, but execution is everything. GRADE: B
I think I am incapable of being roused to success. Too cynical, I guess.
Tony Dungy believes in inspirational leadership and mentoring as a foundation for success, Patti. Like you, I’m cynical about a lot of rah-rah tactics to try to motivate people. But honest inspiration, that’s something I can believe in.
And why, exactly, aren’t you a success, Patti? Leaving aside your aid to those around you, you’re an established writer doing well, particularly for someone who has other matters to attend to professionally and personally. Behind most successful writers is someone or some number doing Everything Else, at least for length of the day, so they can write. Not all, to be sure, but a whole lot. Most don’t get published in anyone’s best of the year volume, nor do they publish anthologies…modest benchmarks in some ways, perhaps, but not inconsiderable.
Looking for the NYTBR to stop publishing William Vollmann’s onanism and instead to trumpet you? That doesn’t always help enough…even though it would certainly help the NYTBR.
Meanwhile, George, I wasn’t above a grim electrocution joke when Vick recently got seriously hurt on the field.
After reading what Tony Dungy says about Michael Vick, I have new compassion for him, Todd. Yes, Vick committed some horrific acts with those dogs, but Dungy seems to have turned him around. NFL football is a brutal sport. Yes, the players make obscene amounts of money, but they risk permanent disabilities every time they step out on the field.
Yes, it’s a terrible sport, just as boxing is, and that’s its appeal, even if it also has certain elegances when done well, even as boxing does…and it’s way out of tough times for many of its stars, and even the merely professional folks. I hope Vick has turned around, and I’ll believe he suffered well before his first broken bone on the field…but I must admit that I suspect thuggish football players haven’t been the rare exception for as long as the sport has existed. And it was a grim joke…I don’t really wish him any harm. Maybe some really bad nights wherein he realizes the stupid cruelty of what he was doing. At least the football players have a choice, and are paid (unlike the high-schoolers who are killed and maimed every year in their pursuit of whatever glory they’ll gain).
Yes, NFL players are well paid, Todd, but it seems like way too many of them go broke just a few years after they leave the League.
They are too often easy targets, as well as foolish on their own ticket.
And clearly, I’m the grumpiest cheerleader in the world.
You may be a grumpy cheerleader, Todd, but I’m sure you’re impressively loud.
What gave me away?