Mike Celizic

A day ago, if someone told you that you could have Tony Dungy’s life, you’d probably have taken it.

Dungy was enjoying one of the best years imaginable. The job he had worked so hard at all of his life was providing rewards that few of us ever experience. He had five wonderful children and a loving wife to whom, by all accounts, he was very devoted. Money would never be a problem. In a business and profession in which few escape criticism, jealousy and envy, he was as universally admired as it is possible to be.

But you don’t want to be him now. Only one thing has changed, but it is enough to turn the greatest of years into the worst.

Recently, he got the call that every parent dreads. It was from Tampa, where his second son, James, was attending college. James had been found dead. Police said it appeared he took his own life. An autopsy will pinpoint the cause of death.

Anyone who has children and a shred of empathy aches for Dungy. It is said there’s nothing worse than burying your own child; it’s supposed to work the other way around. But some deaths can at least be rationalized and dealt with. A son or daughter who gets killed in combat was fighting for his or her country. An accidental death was horrible bad luck. Disease, at least, frequently gives advanced warning and a chance to prepare emotionally.

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Suicide offers no consolations. Inevitably, the person who suffered the loss almost immediately must wonder what he or she did wrong in raising a child who would fall into such despair as to take his own life just when it is really beginning.

By all accounts, Dungy did nothing wrong. Football coaches can be so wrapped up in their jobs they couldn’t pick their own kids out of a line-up. Dungy, reports say, wasn’t that way. He is a presence in his home and actively involved in trying to raise children who would become good and well-educated citizens.

James sometimes traveled with the team and stood on the sidelines during games. But he had to earn that privilege by getting good grades in school. That was Dungy teaching his kids about the importance of school and the reality that, in life, hard work is rewarded.

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