Free Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy

Now that I’m older and have gone through many much more difficult crises than those three weeks of mono, I look back at that time as key to my maturity as a Christian.
    Several days later, I still wasn’t better, but I had begun to simply pray that whether I sat out the entire year, came back immediately, or was cut, I would keep God first. About two weeks later, as we were getting ready for our first preseason game, I was finally able to start practicing again.
    It was one of those miracle years. I was healthy, and it seemed like every time I took the field, the ball was headed my way. We went 14–2 and won the Super Bowl over Dallas, 35–31. I led the team in interceptions and was tied for tenth in the NFL . I was one interception behind Herm Edwards, who would coach with me years later (though I think he would gladly trade that interception for being able to fish as well as I can).
    Despite all the good things that occurred that year, I can still look back and say that 1978 was the first season in my life in which sports weren’t the most important thing to me. I finally realized that how I lived on earth was just as important as my salvation. God had me here for a reason, and it wasn’t just to play ball. It was then that the words of Matthew 16:26 really started to sink in:
“And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?”

Chapter 5
Leading to Lauren
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end,“ Thy will be done.”
    —C. S. Lewis

    A FTER we won THE SUPER BOWL in Miami, the summer of 1979 was much the same as the one before. I was lifting and running, hanging out with Steelers and Pirates, and growing in my faith. That fall, I arrived at camp in fantastic shape. I was healthy, too—no mono, thank goodness. I breezed through the initial cuts and reached the weekend of the biggest cut of camp.
    All the cuts had been made but one—the coaching staff still had to get rid of one more player in order to reach the required number. We were hanging out in Joe Greene’s dorm room—Donnie Shell, Mel Blount, Franco Harris, Terry Bradshaw, Joe, and I—trying to figure out what the coaches were going to do. It was apparent that the coaches were having difficulty deciding or working out a trade, because it was taking longer than usual. Finally, there came a knock on the door.
    I looked around the room: Shell, Blount, Harris, Bradshaw, Greene … and Dungy.
    I stood up. “Well, it’s got to be me,” I said, laughing as I left the room.
    As it turned out, I had not been cut, but I had been traded—from the best team in football to the worst. I was headed to the San Francisco 49ers. And in spite of my attempt at humor, I was sorry to go. After doing so well in 1978, I had fully expected to be with the Steelers for many years. I had even bought a house during that off-season, so this move was a shock. But this was the NFL; trades and cuts were always a possibility.
    The previous year had really shaped my attitude, though. If this had happened even one year earlier, I probably would have been devastated. Now, however—as would happen many more times in my future—I saw it as God moving me to where He wanted me to go.

    I had really enjoyed my time in Pittsburgh. More than being the best team in the NFL , the Steelers were a great organization in which to grow up as a player and a person and, as it turned out, to grow in my faith.
    Art Rooney, the Steelers’ owner, was unlike any other owner I would ever meet again. If people were visiting the club and he was around, they would have no idea that he owned the team. He didn’t put on airs or expect recognition. He walked to work every day from his home near downtown Pittsburgh, and even when the neighborhood changed for the worse, he refused to move out.
    I only played for the Steelers for two years and was never more than a backup when I was there.