Don Pierson

MIAMI - The story of the Tony Dungy coaching tree will outlast the story of two African-American coaches in a Super Bowl.

The Bears’ Lovie Smith and the Colts’ Dungy have passed a significant milestone, but that’s just an event, an inevitable one at that. Dungy’s influence on other coaches he has introduced to the NFL will be his legacy.

Someday, they will be talking about all the coaches Dungy hired and somebody will ask, “Wasn’t he also the first black coach in a Super Bowl?” And somebody else will answer, “Yes, he was.” And somebody else will correct, “No, it was Smith by about four hours.”

The coaching tree has roots all its own. The branches will spread and continue to grow and produce.

As happy as Dungy was to get into his first Super Bowl, he called the simultaneously hiring of Mike Tomlin by the Pittsburgh Steelers “unbelievable.”

“That’s the place where I started,” Dungy said. “To have Mike, who started with me, to go get that job is kind of an unbelievable thing for me. And I’m really excited for Mike and the city of Pittsburgh.

“He’s a tremendous young coach, a great communicator, an exuberant personality. And he’s not going to find any better organization in the NFL for a young coach to be supported.”

Somebody might notice someday that Dungy’s tree is not all black. Or maybe they won’t notice at all.

“When the day comes when they’re talked about the way (Eric) Mangini and (Bill) Belichick are talked about with (Bill) Parcells, without the color description in front of them, then we know we’ve won,” said John Wooten, chairman of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, the group that has helped NFL owners identify black coaching candidates.

What distinguishes Dungy’s tree more than color so far is something Chicago Bears’ general manager Jerry Angelo recently noticed. Angelo headed the Tampa Bay personnel staff when Dungy coached the Bucs.

“There’s so much being made now about that coaching tree down there in Tampa, but the irony of that coaching tree that hasn’t been said is all those coaches were on defense,” Angelo said. “Usually those trees start and end with offense, so I think that’s pretty special in itself given all the coaches that have gone on.”

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Smith, Kansas City’s Herm Edwards, and Detroit’s Rod Marinelli all were on Dungy’s first Tampa Bay staff in 1996. Dungy brought Edwards from Kansas City’s personnel department and hired Smith from Ohio State and Marinelli from USC. In 2000, Dungy brought Tomlin from the University of Cincinnati.

That’s another component to Dungy’s tree. It consists of primarily teachers. He likes to promote college coaches accustomed to teaching young athletes quickly. Because NFL free agency has shortened the length of time teams have to bring young athletes up to speed, college coaches who have only two or three years themselves can be more adept at communicating quickly. Smith followed the same pattern in Chicago, hiring a staff that was the least experienced in the league in 2004.