Comment on this story
comment
It was admirable when Tony Dungy was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016, succeeding as coaches the sideline luminaries Bill Parcells, John Madden, Hank Stram, George Allen and Marv Levy, who were so honored before him in the 2000s .
It was anything but Dungy when he accepted an invitation to speak at the March for Life on the National Mall on Friday. Because at the annual and largest anti-abortion gathering in the nation, over the years he has followed Senator Jesse Helms, anti-abortion extremist Randall Terry and Donald Trump on his podium, among others.
Certainly, after leaving office in 2001, Helms was “the last prominent unabashedly white racist politician in this country,” as major Washington Post political columnist David S. Broder wrote. Terry founded the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue, which at a rally the summer before Gunn was killed in 1993 handed out a “wanted poster” for Florida abortion doctor David Gunn, who stabbed him three times in the back outside his Florida clinic was shot. And Trump did what anti-abortion Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush feared he would do because of the event’s extremist undercurrents: He spoke live at the annual march.
Nonetheless, Dungy continued his involvement as an orator, using his sporting fame combined with his religiosity as a deodorant on an issue of intolerance.
That came days after a tweet from Dungy for which he was rightly and justly denounced, embarrassed to apologize and delete his words. It had reinforced to Dungy’s nearly 1 million followers a dangerous misrepresentation by reactionaries about the extent to which schools are supposed to accommodate differences in student identities – and the need to stop them. The time-tested invention ultimately aimed to override the needs of LGBTQ kids, and even kids of color, who need the opportunity to explore their story and have them learn from others. It was a slap in the face for Tampa Bay linebacker Carl Nassib, who has been hailed by the league since he revealed he is gay, becoming the first active NFL player to do so.
A person at NBC told me Monday that Dungy apologized to the Football Night in America team, for which he is a face. And the network reminded staff in a memo that “…NBC Sports does not endorse or condone the views expressed in the tweet, and we have made that clear to Tony.” Our company has long and proudly supported LGBTQ+ rights and works hard to ensure that all of our employees are seen, recognized, recognized and respected.”
Whether the league did the same — or reacted the way it reacted after Colin Kaepernick’s protest when it imposed penalties on any team with a player on the field who didn’t stand for the national anthem — I don’t know. The league did not respond to my email asking for clarification on where they stood with Dungy’s associations.
Dungy expressed regret ahead of his participation in NBC’s playoff broadcast on Saturday: “I posted a tweet last week which I subsequently deleted. I apologized but not everyone saw it. So I’m posting my apologies here. As a Christian, I want to be a force of love for everyone. A power for healing and reconciliation – not for hostility.”
He tweeted his original mea culpa on Wednesday. It read: “I saw a tweet [Tuesday] and I reacted wrongly to it. As a Christian, I should speak in love and in a caring and helpful way. I didn’t succeed and I’m deeply sorry.”
I’m not sure what “reacted to it incorrectly” means. But that didn’t stop Dungy from using his moment to stand in front of anti-abortion activists at a podium frequented by white supremacists and bigots. And from then on he even found the gall to use the recent story of Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills player recovering from in-game cardiac arrest, as some sort of justification for revoking a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy, to quote.
“People wanted to see lives being saved,” Dungy told the March for Life flock, referencing Hamlin. “These are people who are not necessarily religious; They got together and called on God. Well, that should encourage us, because that’s exactly why we’re here. Because every day in this country, innocent lives are at stake. The only difference is that they are not owned by a famous athlete and are not shown on national television.”
I know there would be some contenders for Black head coaches in the NFL who would prefer Dungy to use that energy and his Gravitas to support their discrimination lawsuit against the league’s hiring practices, perhaps for the Black’s next coach Support Hall of Fame. But words aside, he hasn’t joined their cause in action as he fights against abortion and LGBTQ people.
It is not my intention to criticize religiosity, although Dungy has used his to pan for non-Christian religions and people who reject his version of Christianity. He is an evangelical Christian who is an outspoken opponent not only of abortion, but also of same-sex marriage, which he fought against in Indiana as coach of the Colts, and gay people in general, including those who may work as professional athletes. He infamously said he wouldn’t have Michael Sam, the first openly gay player in the NFL, in his dressing room.
This is all another reminder that sport can be, was, and often still is, a vehicle for the very opposite of what it celebrates: regression, not progress. Despite his historic achievement as the first black head coach to lead a team to a Super Bowl championship, Dungy is not at the forefront of social change in the sports world.
In fact, he is scheduled to remain as a speaker at an all-male conference called Men’s Advance 2023 through March. It is led by evangelical Christian pastor Andrew Wommack, who argued two years ago that “homosexuality is three times worse than smoking. We should stick a label on their foreheads: ‘This can be dangerous to your health.’ ”
Dungy should know that pulling off this gig could be dangerous for his career.
Comments are closed.