Bucs to honor Tony Dungy during game vs. Steelers

TAMPA, Fla. – Tony Dungy will always be appreciative of the opportunity the Tampa Bay Buccaneers provided when no other NFL team was willing to take a chance on him as a head coach.

So long after transforming the Bucs from laughingstocks into championship contenders – only to be dismissed a year before the franchise won its only Super Bowl – the Hall of Famer is graciously returning to Raymond James Stadium to become the latest member of the club’s Ring of Honor.

“I was fired from here, but I was also hired here,” Dungy said, not a trace of bitterness in his voice. “I was hired when I never had been a head coach. None of the other 31 teams gave me a chance.”

A coaching disciple of Chuck Noll, Dungy won a Super Bowl as a player with the Steelers and later became an assistant in Pittsburgh. Dungy was the defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings when the Bucs called in 1996.

Tampa Bay hadn’t had a winning record or made the playoffs since the 1982 strike-shortened season.

“We needed a head coach who could foster a winning culture,” said owner/ co-chairman Bryan Glazer, whose father, Malcolm, hired Dungy and remained supportive when the Bucs began the young coach’s first season with five consecutive losses.

“Despite the losing record,” Bryan Glazer added, “you could see we were building something special.”

The Bucs won five of seven down the stretch to finish 6-10 in what turned out to be the only losing season Dungy would have during a highly successful 13-year run as coach of the Bucs and Indianapolis Colts. In a way it’s fitting he will enter the Ring of Honor on Monday night, when Tampa Bay (2-0) hosts the Steelers (0-1-1). Much of what he sought to do when he joined the Bucs he learned from his one-time mentor, Noll.

Dungy wanted a team that not only won games and contended for playoff berths, but in which players connected with the city, got involved in the community and were role models on and off the field – like the Steelers.

“He really shaped the identity of our whole organization,” Bryan Glazer said.

The Bucs ended their long playoff drought in Dungy’s second season. In 1999, they came within one victory of reaching the Super Bowl. Two years later, the Glazer family fired Dungy, who was unable to get the team beyond the opening round of the postseason in 2000 and 2001. A long, meandering coaching search ended with the Bucs trading four draft picks and cash to the Oakland Raiders for the right to sign Jon Gruden, who – led by a dominating defense built by Dungy – brought Tampa Bay its lone NFL title in the 2002 season.