Quiet Strength
On Sunday, I started reading Tony Dungy’s (the coach of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts) memoir, “Quiet Strength: The principles, practices, and priorities of a winning life.” I thought I’d share with you some of the highlights of the book:
Intro, pg. xiv – “It’s the journey that matters. Learning is more important than the test. Practice well, and the games will take care of themselves.”
“Success is uncommon and not to be enjoyed by the common man. I’m looking for uncommon people because we want to be successful, not average.” (by his football coach, Coach Stoll at U of Minnesota) “The truth is that most people have a better chance to be uncommon by effort than by natural gifts.”
pg. 29
“Winning would create greater potential than talk alone.” pg. 95
“Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else.” (Coach Chuck Noll, Pittsburgh Steelers) pg. 105
“I told them we expected several things of them:
*Be a pro.
*Act like a champion.
*Respond to adversity, don’t react.
*Be on time. Being late means either it’s not important to you or you can’t be relied upon.”
*Execute. Do what you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do it. Not almost, all the way. Not most of the time. All the time.
*Take ownership.”
pg 116
“Excellence that feels it has to be proclaimed. by the mere fact of its proclamation admits the doubt of its existence.” (his mother, CleoMae Dungy) pg. 151
“Parents, hug your kids-every chance you get.” (at the funeral of his 18 year old son, Jamie)
“Leaving the game plan is a sign of panic, and panic is not in the game plan.” pg. 267
“People will tell you that in the playoffs we have to ‘raise our game to another level’ whatever that means. The perception is that New England does this, and that they have such success in the playoffs because they do something special or better. But here’s the reality: New England does so well because in the playoffs they play exactly like they play in the regular season. Smart. Energetic. Passionate. Disciplined. And then when the other team gets uptight and self-destructs, New England keeps doing what they do.” ( to his players before the 2006 AFC Championship Game) pg 282-283
“And so we press on. We press on with our memories, our hearts buoyed by a God who loves us and wants us to know Him deeply. We press on with our sense that life’s not always fair. And we press on with the knowledge-and assurance-that even though we can’t see all of God’s plan, He is there, at work and in charge, loving us.” pg. 297
What’s the memoir that you’ve read that I “have to read”?
This is a part of Randy Elrod’s Watercooler Wednesday.
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I’m surprised you haven’t gotten any comments on this one, Marty! I think it’s a fantastic post. I have believed for quite some time that many, many life lessons can be learned through sports. In fact, I have been quoted as saying pretty much every lesson one needs to learn about life, can be learned in football. Seriously. Last year I introduced my 7 year-old boy to Pop Warner football… our boy is a “special needs” boy, but he’s not mentally retarted or anything like that. Let’s just say he has a mood disorder. But that mood disorder got him kicked out of a very nice Montessori school we had sent him to – at the age of 3! And we were afraid he was going to get kicked out of first grade because of weekly behavior problems… I mean, every week we were getting calls about him beating some kid up or doing something to someone.
And the kid has/had a bit of perfectionism, too… if he can’t do something perfectly or get very good at it very quickly, he tends to get frustrated and quit trying. And he wasn’t very good at listening to his teachers, either. All in all, very obstinate and very difficult to deal with.
But you know what? Football helped him a lot. He had a USMC major for a head coach who drilled the team pretty hard…. lots of running, lots of full-contact (with pads) drills…. and the team was divided by weight AND by age, with weight being the more important factor. What this basically meant was Logan wound up on a team with 7, 8, and 9 year olds (as of July 31)… some of these kids turned 10 during the season and were in like their fourth season of Pop Warner. Then there was Logan, a big 7 year-old in his first season. Well, the first time in full pads doing a tackling drill, one of the SMALLER but more experienced kids hit him so hard his chin strap broke and his helmet went flying. That same kid was routinely knocking the wind out of other kids in different drills.
But you know… Logan learned that he wasn’t the toughest kid out there! That was a lesson he really needed to learn. Then he had to learn how to get knocked down, then get up and keep trying. Logan managed to earn a lot of respect from his teammates over the course of the season because he kept coming back for more punishment. And by the end of the season he was dishing it out pretty good, too.
All of this did wonders for his self-esteem. And the practices were tough.. not like little league baseball, which we just finished up. No, football practices were 4 times per week in August for 2 solid hours per day… only a few minutes break here and there. Then it went to two times per week when school started, with games on the weekend.
Mentally, Logan learned to follow the ball pretty well. He played mostly defensive line positions – mostly nose tackle. He learned to follow the ball even when the offensive lineman in front of him was blocking… to focus on that ball and follow the runner. I noticed opposing teams were occasionally double-teaming him on the line by the end of the season… new lesson he had to learn: while being double-teamed, he got shut down, sure, but that left another defender unblocked. So he had to learn to view that as a good thing for him.
All in all, I can’t say enough about the importance of team sports to the development of a kid.
Oh yeah.. Logan and I are going to Matt Light’s football camp at the end of June, too… I’m a camp counselor there, and he’ll be a camper getting tips from the pros on how to improve his defensive line play. Should be fun!
Wow UR, this is an amazing comment! Thankss for sharing some parenting insights as to the effectiveness of the development of your kids through athletics. I feel the same way, and love being inspired by great champions like Tony Dungy and Larry Bird, who have written about their lives and I’ve learned some huge lessons from them. Thanks again.
p.s. I was pretty shocked when no one responded too. I guess I have to say something wrong to bring out some thoughts. Maybe I’ll tick people off tomorrow.
Don’t change a thing Marty, this is a great post. As the mother of three extremely athletic boys as well as an athletic husband, I speak in a lot of sports analogies. They understand me quickly and clearly when I do this. I love Tony Dungy. I really love his blurb about being on time. If you’re not, you look like you think you’re the most important person in the world. “To be early is to be on time”. I’m tryin’, goodness knows I’m trying.
Hey, is this a new look for your website? I really like the colors and layout!
My favorite quote “And so we press on. We press on with our memories, our hearts buoyed by a God who loves us and wants us to know Him deeply. We press on with our sense that life’s not always fair. And we press on with the knowledge-and assurance-that even though we can’t see all of God’s plan, He is there, at work and in charge, loving us.” pg. 297
That pretty much says it all and is very timely for me on my journey right now. Thank you for taking such great notes and sharing!! My sons and husband are all football fanatics and I tried to buy this book for my youngest son for Christmas but it was out of stock at Barnes & Noble and I ended up buying something else. I will definitely purchase this book for myself and probably get the CDs for my husband…I wonder if it’s on itunes audiobooks?????
Dungy rules.