MIAMI (AP) - Nice guys can finish first. This year's Super Bowl proves it.
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(Photo: AP / Jeff Roberson)Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, right, and Chicago coach Lovie Smith pose with the Vince Lombardi Super Bowl trophy during their press conference at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami Beach, Fla., Friday, Feb. 2, 2007. The Indianapolis Colts will play the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI on Feb. 4.
Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts and Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears made it a historic meeting because they are the first black head coaches to oppose each other in the NFL title game.
They also made it notable by proving it can be done without shouting, intimidating, bullying or humiliating players to get there.
"I really wanted to show people that you can win all kinds of ways," Dungy said in the leadup to Sunday's game. "It's a good thing to see guys have success when it maybe goes against the grain, against the culture."
They are soft-spoken, churchgoing, kindhearted men who coach players that, more or less, have followed their lead in the buildup to America's biggest sporting event.
The Colts had solid citizen Peyton Manning as their quarterback, trying to win the Super Bowl for the first time in his record-setting career. His counterpart on the Bears was Rex Grossman, who patiently answered questions all week about how his team had excelled despite his faults.
Hardly any fireworks there.
Asked what it's like to play for Dungy, Colts linebacker Gary Brackett told a story about a boy who walked past two dogs on his way home from school every day. One dog barked every time he passed; the other, only on rare occasions.
Brackett compared the second dog to Dungy.
When that dog barks, "You know it's the real deal," he said.
Bears linebacker Lance Briggs said Smith is "not capable of yelling."
"But one-on-one, he'll grill you pretty hard," he said. "Lovie, I don't think he feels he needs to say a whole lot. He feels like we understand what he's saying."
Taking cues from their coaches, the pregame revelry went off without a hitch despite the temptations that before have turned Miami and other Super Bowl cities into minefields.
As Super Bowl Sunday dawned, there had been no repeats of Cincinnati running back Stanley Wilson's cocaine binge 20 years ago in a Miami hotel on the eve of the game — or of Atlanta defensive back Eugene Robinson's arrest on sex solicitation charges 10 years ago, also in Miami, just hours before kickoff.
Nor did Smith's Bears remind anyone of the last Chicago team to make the Super Bowl.
That wildly eccentric '85 group was one-of-a-kind — the team that gave us "The Super Bowl Shuffle," to say nothing of massive defensive lineman William "Refrigerator" Perry, punky quarterback Jim McMahon and the bombastic coach he fought with, Mike Ditka.
"It was a team of characters that had character that played for a crazy man, who let them be crazy and had fun doing it and won't apologize for it ever," Ditka said. "I wouldn't want to be one of these suits walking around on the sideline today."
But it's hard to call either Dungy or Smith a "suit." They hardly fit that mold.
Dungy hired Smith when he was head coach at Tampa Bay. He was looking for people like him — not only for the color of their skin but for their beliefs and values.
Dungy recalled an owner asking him in an earlier interview if the job would be the most important thing in his life.
He said, "No."
"I didn't think I'd get that job and I didn't," Dungy said. "But I think for your faith to be more important than your job, for your family to be more important than your job, it's things we all talk about and we all know that's the way it should be, but we're kind of afraid to say that sometimes." Continue >>
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