Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, & Priorities of a Winning Life

Such a touching moving memoir by one of the classiest personalities in football. While the book is jam-packed with enough college and NFL football history and stats to make it an appealing read for any football fan, it is Dungy's up front and on fire affirmation of his faith that plays center stage. I now have even more admiration and respect for this man of integrity.

I liked Dungy more after reading this than before. A good guy. One of the most amusing anecdotes concerns his Minnesota college team playing Ohio State in the '80s. OSU came out on the field for warmups and Dungy thought, "hey, they don't look so big." It turned out that those were just the skill position players, and the behemoths had not yet come on field.

I enjoyed hearing Tony Dungy’s story about his life coaching in the NFL and the importance of Christ throughout his life. He has a matter-of-fact writing style where at points, I wanted some additional emotion or thoughts to go along with what happened.

This is a biography of Tony Dungy with specific emphasis on his NFL coaching career. Tony is a religious man who was a mediocre football player, mediocre coach, and lost his son due to suicide. I did not find his story inspiring. He gives God the credit for some of the game victories. It reminds me of two sides in a war with each claiming that God is on their side. It is unclear why his son committed suicide, but Tony admits that he did not spend the quality time with his family that his father did with him. I find it interesting that the Buccaneers went to the super bowl after Tony was fired and a new coach took control of the team. He was fortunate to have a talented team in Indianapolis. I wonder if that had anything to do with the show more Colts going to the super bowl. Hmmm. I suspect Tony is a decent guy, but he doesn't seem particularly special or inspiring to me. I will take Lance Armstrong over this guy any day of the week. show less

Tony Dungy is a rather unique and inspiring person. Tony Dungy has been in the National Football League as a coach for many years. As a head coach he lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the brink of a championship before being let go. He finally got over the hump by winning Super Bowl XLI over the Chicago Bears behind Peyton Manning and the feisty play of strong safety Bob Sanders.

This memoir is about how Coach Dungy applies his Christian faith to not only his coaching in professional football, but to his life off the field as well. His approach to coaching football is certainly unique. He is no Bill Parcel’s who often demeans his players, sometimes in public, to motivate them. He is also not the stereotypical coach who screams, yells, show more and cusses at his players when they make mistakes or in an attempt to fire them up or get the best out them. His style, by all accounts, is a quiet, understated approach that has certainly worked well for him. He rebuilt the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from a lousy team to a championship caliber team but could never quite get the wins in the playoffs to reach the Super Bowl. He was, most would say, unfairly fired by the Buccaneers as they seemed to feel he was not going to get them past the playoffs and to the Super Bowl. One year after he was let go buy the Bucs, the team won Super Bowl XXXVII over the Oakland Raiders with Jon Gruden as head coach.

After being hired as head coach by the Indianapolis Colts, Dungy quietly built up the defensive side of the ball. The defensive unit had often let the team down and was clearly a weak link. While the Colts defense never became quite as good as his Buccaneers teams, it was just good enough to get a Super Bowl win.

Beyond talking about applying his faith to his role as head coach, Dungy talks about the importance of his family and his community and how he has striven to give all he can to each. And through this memoir, the reader learns a lot about Dungy’s career in the NFL and his teams, so there is plenty of football talk in the book to please fans of the game. He also talks about how his faith helped him cope with the inexplicable suicide of his teenage son.

Overall, this is an excellent book if you are a fan of football or you just want to hear the story of a devoutly religious man and how he applies his faith to everyday life. show less

Reason read: TIOLI, a autobiography of someone born in the same decade as myself. Tony Dungy was born in 1955 and he also played football for the Minnesota Gophers, coached for Vikings and that would be about all we share except religion. Tony believes that a winning life is one led for the Lord. I would say that Tony Dungy had a hard life with many job changes, and the death of his son. He never complains but always sees that God is in control of everything.

In 2007, Tony Dungy, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, became the first African-American head football coach to win the Super Bowl. Quiet Strength goes through the professional and personal career of the Super Bowl winning head coach. The book talks about the principles and values Tony instilled in his franchise and the adversity he overcame with the death of his son before he became a world champion. Although this book was north of 300 pages, I couldn’t put it down. The font was very reader friendly and easy to read. In Quiet Strength, Tony Dungy preaches the values and principles that it takes to be successful in not only football, but also in life. Some of the core values he preaches are: Be a pro, act like a champion, respond show more to adversity, be on time, execute and take ownership. It was very relatable to me in a multitude of ways. I believe following Coach Dungy’s principles and values is a recipe for success in any arena of life. This would be a good book young adults to learn about overcoming obstacles in life. show less