Tony Dungy Quotations | Page 3

I was not asked whether I would have a problem having Michael Sam on my team. I would not.

At some point in life's journey, professionally and personally, we have to be able to trust our preparation.

Everybody needs encouragement, even when things are going well.

They were unwillingly to give 100 percent if they didn't personally think it was important. What you don't understand is the champions know it's all important.

Part of our purpose in life is to build a legacy – a consistent pattern of building into the lives of others.

Anyone who's a parent dreads that call in the middle of the night. I have four grown children and I still dread it.

It's easy to lose sight of the ultimate goal when you're in the trenches.

I would want America to know our kids need us. Spend as much time with your kids as you can. Enjoy them. Be with them. Hug your children; You never know when it will be the last time.

I never wanted our players to think the Super Bowl was the ultimate. I always talk about 'Yes, we're going to win, but what are we going to do as we're winning? What are we going to do after we win?' Winning the Super Bowl is not the destination. It's not an end point. It's what you do from here.

It's just really making sure I am doing the best job I can do as a dad. I do think that is my No. 1 job.

Hard work and togetherness. They go hand in hand. You need the hard work because it's such a tough atmosphere... to win week in and week out. You need togetherness because you don't always win, and you gotta hang though together.

Gay marriage and who should be on a football team have nothing to do with each other.

I could never have pictured myself writing a book when I was 25 years old. My mom was an English teacher but I wasn't that way growing up.

What will people remember us for? Are other people’s lives better because we lived? Did we make a difference? Did we use to the fullest the gifts and abilities God gave us? Did we give our best effort, and did we do it for the right reasons?

We are all important, but we are not indispensable.

The fundamental keys to the culture of any organization can only be achieved when everyone is on the same page.

If I can't get the captains to respond appropriately and show the leadership I expect, how is anyone else going to respond?

God's definition of success is really one of the significant differences our lives can make in the lives of others.

I said all along that God is in control.

If someone needs help, I can offer advice. I'm not always right and people don't always listen.

I think I've got a responsibility to be home a little bit more, be available to my family a little bit more and do some things to help make our country better. I don't know what that is right now, but we'll see.

The further I get away from coaching, the more I know I made the right decision. You almost forget how wonderful family life is.

What you do is not as important as how you do it.

False modesty is an attempt to tear yourself down. True humility focuses more on build up others.

You need togetherness because you don't always win, and you have got to hang though together

When you're in a situation, you can complain about it, you can feel sorry for yourself, you can do a lot of things. But how are you gonna make the situation better?

I found that while life drags on when you're losing, it marches on when you're winning.

Change isn't always bad; we should always be learning and improving. But the change I was seeing involved principles, not procedures.

Once a player joins our team, our priority is to teach him, not worry about the player we didn't select.

Nothing is more deflating to morale than to have a poor outcome pinned on someone who doesn't deserve it. It lacks integrity and overvalues the outcome at the expense of the people as well as the process.

I was able to look at football as something that God was allowing me to do, not something that should define me. I couldn't take my identity from this sport.

First, there is no typical grief cycle, and second, it's not something I went through. I'm still grieving.

I've always talked to players about perception and reality. I don't worry about perception. There may be some of that, that people want to attach to a good name, but the reality is that some good things can happen.

I think there are times when I believe God welcomes the circus into our lives to give us an opportunity to show that there’s another way to live and respond to things.

Don't shed any tears for me. I got to live a dream most people don't get to live.

I can't very well preach unity and tell the guys we're all in this together and everyone's important, then cut a guy because we might improve by one percent if we bring in someone else.

God allows us to feel pain for a reason: to protect us.

I've always tried to coach people the way I would like to be coached; positively and encouragingly rather than with criticism and fear ... I've tried to be as fair as possible.

Pain prompts us to change behavior that is destructive to ourselves or to others. Pain can be a highly effective instructor.

But I know I have a son who doesn't listen to anything I say and if he hears the same thing from someone else, sometimes it has a little more impact.

I just think winners win. And guys who won all the way through high school and college, the best player at every level, they have a way of making things happen and winning games.

Did you know that nearly one in three children live apart from their biological dads? Those kids are two to three times more likely to grow up in poverty, to suffer in school, and to have health and behavioral problems.

Remember that mentor leadership is all about serving.

Your life has been intentionally designed by God to have a uniquely significant and eternal impact on the world around you.

Stubbornness is a virtue if you are right.

You never know what's going to happen. My mother was an English teacher. If someone had told her that I was going to write a book, she would never have believed that. So you can never say never.

I learned it doesn't matter how you win. You play to your team's strength.

If you're just saying, hey, I'm doing this. I'm working to make money. I'm working to increase my status. If that's all there is, I think you will find out that it's meaningless.

When things get difficult it can be easy to complain. How you respond makes all the difference

Integrity, the choice between what's convenient and what's right.

You have gifts, abilities, and dreams no one else has.

We talked about some of our experiences, focusing, hanging together down the stretch, important games. It's not necessarily who has the most talent but what team sticks together and executes their fundamentals the best.

Keeping ridiculous hours doesn't mean you'll be successful.

Football is a vocation and an opportunity for ministry. But it's not a life.

If we do what we do without panicking, we can accomplish great things.

We wanted guys who had been productive in college, and we made it a point to pick performance over potential.

We spent our whole married life in the ultra-competitive world of professional football, Lauren and I had always tried to view it through God's eyes. As much fun as it was to be winning, we tried not to get caught up in it. We knew that our family life and our faith walk were more important.

I needed to do my current job well, keep preparing, and wait on God's timing. I needed to trust His leadership rather than try to force an outcome I wanted.

There are certain bridges that are not worth crossing, no matter what others think. Loyalty and relationships are important.

At the end of the day, the only people a One Voice doctrine silences are those who should be the most loyal.

And if God has given you a lot of ability, I believe you should be held to a higher level of expectation.

What's important is not the accolades and memories of success but the way you respond when opportunities are denied.

I hired top-notch people, trusted them to do their jobs, and then came to grips with the fact that I wouldn't be coaching as much.

We believed it was not our formations that made us good, but rather how we played.

There's a difference between making incremental improvements and making sweeping changes that take you away from your core values.

Others first. Whatever your corporate mission, paint a clear and compelling picture that others can understand and embrace. State your mission in terms that appeal to your team's best instincts. Persuade and empower as if you are leading and mentoring volunteers.

Life is challenging. I wish I could tell you that you’ll always be on top of the mountain, but the reality is that there are days when nothing will go right, when not only will you not be on top, you may not even be able to figure out which way is up. Do yourself a favor, and don’t make it any harder than it has to be. In those moments, be careful how you speak to yourself; be careful how you think of yourself; be careful how you conduct yourself; be careful how you develop yourself.

Avoidance doesn’t solve anything; it merely serves as a temporary salve.

(Offensive Coach) Paul Hackett realized that Joe Montana knew more about the offense than he did, but when the meeting was over, Paul saw that Joe had taken three pages of notes. He documented exactly how Paul wanted to run the play, as well as all of the basics of it and its details. That's what a professional does.

Once we had become locked in on a schedule, he (Coach Denny Green) often created a disruption (artificial adversity) to that schedule just to see how guys would respond.

I guess I'm flattered that people think I can help get things done.

I had 10 to 12 close buddies who I played ball with all the way from elementary to high school. That is where I learned to compete.

We only wanted to pay significant sums to keep truly special players.

That's the difference between the NCAA and the NFL right now. They've got to step up and say, 'We're going to do the right thing. We're going to hire qualified people. We're going to hire the best man for the job regardless of what boosters or anyone else has to say.'

I just don't think you pass on a great quarterback if you have the opportunity. If need be, you can trade it away.

He's probably the hardest-working guy I've been around who has great ability. Overachievers work hard because they have to. Peyton has rare talent, but chooses to push himself like he doesn't.

I enjoy talking to young people, and talking to people about helping young people. That part is not a chore. It's pretty fun, and something I like to do because I think it's important.

I learned from Chuck Noll in Pittsburgh that speed and explosiveness on defense is the way to build a team. Both are difficult for your opponent to assimilate in practice and then in games it is even harder to match.

For some reason the football coach of a major college program is seen as one of the leaders of the campus. And some way we have to let our young people know that that leader can look like anyone.

Who really benefits from discouragement? More often than not, encouragement is exactly what is needed.

And one game, as we know, can cost you a lot.

Don't worry about your platform; focus on your impact.

The biggest thing you need to be successful with it is a quarterback who wants to be involved in the decision-making process and not just merely want to execute plays sent in to him.

I always liked to be fairly simple because you could get more players ready to play quickly. If you lose players to free agency, injuries, etc., it is easier to get young players ready to play in a less complex system.

There are two schools of thought. You can be basic and spend all your time on what your opponents are going to do. Or, you can be very multiple and complex, put a lot of doubt in your opponents' minds and create problems for them with the volume of things you do.

When I was younger I only read sports books. I loved the biographies that told how athletes developed. When I got into coaching, I did start to read more instructional books, but I was always more interested in the people behind the ideas.

When I was young, I didn't like to read. I would have much rather been outside doing something than been inside reading about it.

If you want to be an athlete, then getting good grades, going to college, and developing your intellectual skills are important.

I do not think being a coordinator is a requirement, but it does give you some advantages. You get used to working with half the team and you go through the game-planning and decision-making processes.

I enjoy watching football on TV. Many times I can visualize the whole field, even on the TV screen, because I still know enough about what the teams are doing.

The game has changed since the '70s as more coaches have looked at ways to make it tougher on defenses. But I'm glad my career turned out the way it did - I would have never gotten a chance to learn the defensive side of the ball.