Bob Cook

It was appropriate that Martin Luther King Jr. Day was when Tony Dungy announced, after much speculation to the contrary, that he would remain the Indianapolis Colts’ head coach for one more season before retiring.

Dungy has been a role model and a pioneer as an African-American head coach. He broke through what had been, with few exceptions, a white man’s club by becoming Tampa Bay’s head coach in 1996. Last season he became the first African-American head coach to win a Super Bowl, beating one of his proteges, another African-American, the Chicago Bears’ Lovie Smith.

Though the Rooney Rule is in place to ensure minorities get interviewed for head coaching jobs, thanks to the trail blazed by Dungy, for the most part a black NFL head coach is barely a big deal anymore. Dungy’s ordained successor in Indianapolis, Jim Caldwell, is not a black assistant who is going to become a black head coach. He’s just an assistant who is going to become a head coach.

Dungy isn’t a black head coach anymore, either. He’s someone who is destined for the Hall of Fame, with a 127-65 record over 12 years, 73-23 with the Colts. Dungy has never won fewer than 10 games in a season in Indianapolis, and no team, much less a single head coach, has led his club to five straight 12-win seasons, as Dungy has.

So if any coach deserves a victory lap, it is Dungy.

The question is, will the Indianapolis Colts thrive under a lame-duck Dungy?

That question comes for some of the same, non-race-related reasons that it took Dungy nearly a decade to score a head coaching job in the NFL.

On Monday, Dungy talked about his passion for the job and for coming back, but one criticism of Dungy’s teams has been a penchant for lack of passion in the postseason, where is 9-9. Dungy has tended to take his team’s foot off the accelerator entering the postseason, playing backups to ensure his starters don’t get hurt, though in 2007 plenty of them were already hurt by the time the Colts clinched. The last two seasons the Colts clinched the AFC South division title early and received a first-round bye (2005 and 2007), they lost their first game, at home, in the playoffs.

Dungy also talked about his passion for his family, whom he said he consulted before returning to coach the Colts, moving into their new stadium. Speaking of moving, it was news that his son transferred high schools from Indianapolis to Tampa that got speculation going about Dungy not coming back. “I’m a little surprised [his possible retirement] became more followed that the previous two years,” said Dungy, 53, referring to what has become an annual rite of thinking retirement.

Colts owner Jim Irsay promised Dungy Friday nights in Florida to watch his son play football, and whatever other family arrangements might be necessary. “I love this franchise, I love this family,” Dungy said. But can he serve both?

If anyone can, it is Dungy.

First, he has Peyton Manning at quarterback, which can cover many an ill. With the Colts losing stalwarts as Marvin Harrison, Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis, Raheem Brock, Ryan Diem and Dallas Clark for chunks of this season, Manning had to throw the Colts on his back in order to ensure another stellar season. Certainly having the No. 1 scoring defense in the NFL helped, too. But in the playoff loss to San Diego, Manning had to spend most of the game overcoming his teammates’ mistakes, including two throws that became interceptions when they bounced off receivers’ hands, yet still had his team in contention until the end. For Dungy, having Manning along makes the workload much easier.

Also, Dungy’s players uniformly love him. They are not going to tune him out or otherwise mentally check out because Dungy is on his way out the door. If anything hurts their performance, it’s overdoing things trying to win one more for their beloved coach.

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Finally, Dungy is not exactly leaving the kids with a crazy young babysitter while he’s away. The Colts’ staff of assistants is experienced, and experienced with each other. Only two of the 16 assistants arrived in 2007, and only one other arrived since 2004. Eight assistants, including Caldwell, arrived with Dungy to Indianapolis in 2002. Five assistants pre-date Dungy’s tenure with the Colts, including Manning’s right-hand man, offensive coordinator Tom Moore, who arrived with Manning in 1998, and running backs coach Gene Huey, a Colts assistant who has worked for four Colts head coaches, having arrived with Ted Marchibroda in 1992.

And Dungy himself has some incentive. There is no reason to except the Colts, especially if they get healthy again, aren’t primed for at least 12 more wins next season. While Dungy doesn’t appear competitive, he is. He knows New England can’t possibly threaten to go 19-0 again (can it?), and if his team stays healthy, it’s an early favorite for another Super Bowl.

If Dungy makes it back to the Super Bowl, his greatest accomplishment won’t be that he coached two Super Bowls. It’s that in his final season, he no longer is a black coach in a Super Bowl.

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