Several years ago, during an offseason when an NFL player seemed to be getting arrested every day, Tony Dungy was asked what he thought contributed to the rise in off-field problems.

"There is no rise," Dungy replied in his understated way, then interrupted the call for a few seconds to fetch some papers from his desk.

"I've got it right here," he continued. "The rate is the same as it always is. For the last 10 years, it's about 19 to 23 players in trouble in the offseason. Right now, we have 17."

That is Tony Dungy. Most coaches think only of the small world within their practice facility and stadium. Dungy thinks of the fate of the entire world.

During a period when most coaches are worried about player meetings and workout regimens, he was assiduously tracking the off-field problems of NFL players, something he has done for years.

So is it any surprise that one of his priorities during his retirement will be seeking ways to mentor troubled teenagers?

He is not St. Tony and doesn't want to be viewed that way, although his religious convictions are deep and often expressed publicly. Nor is he the only elite NFL coach with concerns outside of football. But Dungy is different because he has forever broken the stereotype of a coach.

"When I grew up, I viewed an NFL coach as a middle-aged white man, a Vince Lombardi or a Tom Landry with stern look on his face walking up the sidelines," he said during Super Bowl week two years ago, when he and his friend and protege, Chicago's Lovie Smith, were the first two black men to coach in football's biggest game.

"Now you can't say that."

White coaches know that, too.

"He's changed the way coaches view the position and how they relate to the players and the types of values they put in place for the football team," said Baltimore's John Harbaugh. "I think he's changed the face of the league in some ways, and it's ever-changing that way right now for the good because of Tony Dungy."

Nor is everything about race.

Dungy talked constantly to his players about being targets, once describing to a visitor the specifics of how he counsels them to avoid the wrong people, the wrong places and the perils of driving in the early morning after a few beers.

"In other words," said the visitor, "young black men out in expensive cars late at night."

"Young white men, too," said Dungy, who as an assistant coach in Kansas City once was stopped by police in what was later described as a "DWB" — driving while black. He won't discuss it.

In truth, race will always be part of Dungy's legacy — at age 33, when he already was a defensive coordinator, he started to be mentioned as a potential head coach. No one that young got head coaching jobs in those days, but the NFL was under pressure to push minority hiring and Dungy was so talented that he stood out even at that young age.

As it turned out, he didn't get a head coaching job until 1996 in Tampa Bay. He was 41.

Dungy turned around a historically bad franchise, then used his success as a platform to speak out on minority hiring. When he left the Colts, he had a 148-79 record as a head coach and a record 10 straight playoff appearances in Tampa and Indy.

But it was more than the idea, it was that he identified and mentored talented young African-Americans. Of the six other black coaches in the NFL this season, three are from the Dungy "tree" in Smith, Kansas City's Herman Edwards and Pittsburgh's Mike Tomlin.

Dungy also has firsthand knowledge of troubled young people — three years ago, his son, James, committed suicide at age 18. That winter, he began to think about retirement, which finally came at 53, an age when many get their first job as a head coach.

His retirement coincides with the inauguration of president-elect Barack Obama, whose election was applauded by Dungy as a history-making step in race relations. Dungy will attend the inauguration.

This week, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh said he would recruit Dungy to help promote responsible fatherhood.

Bayh added that when he broached that idea to Obama, the president-elect said of Dungy: "I love that guy."




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