The Patriot Post® · Slings, Arrows, and Tony Dungy
It was a busy weekend for Tony Dungy, and a revealing one.
Dungy, 67, the former NFL player and Hall-of-Fame coach, is also a husband, a father, a black man, and a devout Christian. It’s these last two attributes that make him such a threat to Democrats and leftists everywhere. So it was sad, although certainly not unexpected, that when he sent out — and then retracted, and then apologized for, and then re-apologized for — a misguided tweet earlier this week, the haters couldn’t contain themselves.
A weekend whose focus should’ve been the 50th March for Life celebration in Washington — an event that Dungy attended for the first time — got sidetracked by the Angry Left, which took issue with the coach’s response to a Daily Wire tweet about Minnesota State Representative Sandra Feist that read: “MN House member advocates for bill requiring menstrual products in boys’ school bathrooms: ‘Not all students who menstruate are female.’”
Dungy’s response (since deleted) read as follows: “That’s nothing. Some school districts are putting litter boxes in the school bathroom for the students who identify as cats. Very important to address every student’s needs.”
The coach’s indignation is understandable. After all, he’s the son of two educators — his dad taught college physics and his mom taught high school Shakespeare — and he’s seen the deterioration of our culture and our schools over the years. And let’s face it: There’s not too much of a leap required to go from females who identify as males to kids who identify as cats.
What Dungy was referring to, though, was a debunked claim, a claim with no basis in fact. At least not yet. While it’s true that our nation’s schools are doing all manner of awful things in the classroom in the name of diversity, wokeness, gender equity, and what have you, we haven’t yet found one that’s enabling students who identify as cats.
The backlash came quickly, and the response of some obscure TV personality named “Josh Sanders (he/him)” was typical: “The tweet posted and deleted by Dungy had nothing to do with Christianity. It was based on homophobia, transphobia and a false narrative weaponized by hate. Period.”
Dungy, who’s a far better man that Josh Sanders (he/him) will ever be, responded with a classy and unequivocal apology: “I saw a tweet yesterday, and I responded in the wrong way. As a Christian I should speak in love and in ways that are caring and helpful. I failed to do that and I am deeply sorry.”
He went further, with an additional apology: “This past week I posted a tweet that I subsequently deleted. I issued an apology but not everyone saw it. So I am reposting my apology here. As a Christian I want to be a force for love to everyone. A force for healing and reconciliation — not for animosity.”
If the Left has even a shred of decency, this will be the end of it. We’ll see.
Going forward, though, we should celebrate the likes of Tony Dungy and the decent, humble, Christian example he sets for young men, and especially young black men. “As a young kid,” he says, “I had a great background. My grandfather was a minister; I have two uncles that were ministers, and so I had that spiritual background. I accepted Christ early as a kid.”
No wonder Dungy is who he is. No wonder he felt compelled to engage Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock last May, after the “pro-choice pastor” tweeted his support for abortion on demand. “It all comes down to what you believe about the organism growing inside the mother,” said Dungy. “Is it a life or not? If it is just growing tissue then your ‘choice’ makes sense. If it’s a life then it’s obviously not OK to choose to end it. What does your Bible tell you it is? Psalm 139:16.”
Indeed, Psalm 139:16 reads: “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
During his remarks at a March for Life event on Friday night, he reflected on the precious nature of life, drawing a parallel from Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who was resuscitated on the football field recently, to the unborn lives that the March for Life has been fighting for since 1974:
You know, an unbelievable thing happened that night: A professional football game with millions of dollars of ticket money and advertising money on the line, that game was canceled. Why? Because a life was at stake. People wanted to see that life saved. Even people who aren’t necessarily religious got together and called on God.
Well, that should be encouraging to us, because that’s exactly why we’re here today. Every day in this country, innocent lives are at stake. The only difference is they don’t belong to a famous athlete. And they’re not seen on national TV. But those lives are still important to God and in God’s eyes.
As long as Tony Dungy espouses such beliefs, he’ll be the target of the slings and arrows of the Left — and the recipient of the gratitude and the admiration of the rest of us.