Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy, Nathan Whitaker Read Free Book Online Page A

coaches do the coaching.
    Coach Stoll held a meeting with the freshmen every year. During the course of our meeting, he asked, “Every one of you thinks you are going to play in the NFL, right?” Every head in the room nodded. He pulled out a photograph of the freshman team from five years prior. The guys who made it to the NFL were circled.
    “Him. And him,” he said, pointing to the picture. “Two of them made it. Out of thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-five, whatever we’ve got this year, one of you will go on to play in the NFL. Or if you’re lucky, two. You’re going to have to outwork everybody in this room and then catch a break in order to make your living in the NFL.”
    Of course, we each thought we were going to be that one, but I must admit, this did make an impression. Coach Stoll went on to talk about our education and preparing for the rest of our lives—lives without football. Since I was just days removed from my parents’ home, that message resonated with me.
    He continued, “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.”
    Listening to Coach Stoll, I knew I had a greater chance of becoming uncommon by my efforts than I did by my natural gifts. Some players are uncommon because of their God-given natural abilities, like being blessed with the height of Yao Ming or the vertical jump of Michael Jordan. Others have to work to become uncommon. Steve Kerr of the Chicago Bulls shot five hundred free throws a day to make himself uncommon.
    The truth is that most people have a better chance to be uncommon by effort than by natural gifts. Anyone could give that effort in his or her chosen endeavor, but the typical person doesn’t, choosing to do only enough to get by.
    That lesson was still fresh in my mind a few weeks later when we took the field in Columbus for Minnesota’s season opener against Ohio State. As we warmed up, Coach Stoll assured us that we could win even though we were heavy underdogs. After a few minutes, the Ohio State players emerged to a big roar from the crowd. I turned to Larry Powell, a highly touted freshman running back, and proclaimed, “Powell, we can get these guys. Look at ’em. They’re not as big as I thought they’d be.”
    Five minutes later, Ohio State’s offensive and defensive linemen came out of the tunnel to join the rest of the team, and I realized that those initial fifty guys were only their skill-position players.
    Larry turned to me and spoke slowly, drawing out every word. “Tony . . . I don’t know how we’re going to do today.”
    The halftime score was 35–7, on the way to a final of 56–7, Ohio State. Coach Stoll calmly confessed after the game that he didn’t have a speech for that situation.
    So much for my spectacular introduction to college football. I did get in the game for a few plays toward the end, but most people were watching an Ohio State sophomore running back who started making history that day. Archie Griffin began his thirty-one-game streak with at least one hundred yards rushing in each game. Incidentally, his last game in that streak also came against us, in 1975—my junior year.
    I got hurt late in my sophomore year of football, and that caused me to give up basketball after only one season. It was actually a good decision; the demands of playing both sports at a high level while keeping up academically were really more than I could handle.
    Although most of my college football memories are positive, some of the clearest include close losses in games that we had a chance to win—later games against Ohio State and Michigan immediately come to mind. In addition, it was during these years that I realized I needed to make some decisions about my own personal values.
    Like most underclassmen, I wanted to fit in. Many of the guys I played football with went out for a few beers at night or went to campus parties, which always included