Worth a Thousand Words: Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy

Tony Dungy was a rookie head coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when he hired Lovie Smith to join his staff as linebackers coach in 1996. The two had never crossed paths before, but they met again as head coaches of the Indianapolis Colts and the Bears, respectively, in Super Bowl XLI on February 4, 2007. It was the first time that any team was led to the Super Bowl by an African-American head coach.

 

LOVIE SMITH AND TONY DUNGY BEFORE SUPER BOWL XLI.

“We’re friends, number one,” Dungy said in the days before the game. “I just have so much respect for [Smith], the way he does things. I know how their guys are coached, I know how they are treated. I am very proud of him and I am very happy to call him my friend.”

     Both Dungy and Smith went against the stereotype of the fire-breathing football coach. “When you have a coach that’s not a yeller and a screamer,” said Bears cornerback Nathan Vasher, “he gets his point across and that’s that.”

     It was Dungy and the Colts who ultimately got their point across in the Super Bowl, defeating the Bears 29-17. “I’m very proud to be representing African-American coaches in the Super Bowl, the first time it’s been done,” said Dungy. “But we also realize that there were many, many guys before us who, if given the opportunity, could have done the same thing.”

     “So in one way it’s bittersweet, but in one way, it’s a very, very proud day.”

 

 

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Almost Super

Super Bowl XLI on February 4, 2007, was the first Super Bowl played in a driving rain, the first to feature even one African-American head coach (let alone two), and the first in which the opening kickoff was returned for a touchdown.  

The Bears had rolled through a league-best 13-3 regular season. They scored 427 points (including 65 by the defense and special teams), while allowing only 255. Eight Bears were selected for the Pro Bowl: center Olin Kreutz, guard Ruben Brown, defensive end Tommie Harris, linebackers Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs, special teamer Brendan Ayanbadejo, kicker Robbie Gould, and return man Devin Hester. 

 

DEVIN HESTER TAKES THE OPENING KICKOFF TO THE HOUSE.

Quarterback Rex Grossman had excelled while leading the Bears to wins in their first seven games, but he struggled as the season went along. After Grossman committed 19 turnovers in the second half of the season, sportswriters asked head coach Lovie Smith whether he might make a change for the playoffs. Smith’s answer has lived on as a sound bite ever since. “Rex is our quarterback,” he said in his syrupy Texas drawl.

     Smith’s trust in Grossman was rewarded when the Bears squeaked past the Seattle Seahawks in overtime and then routed the New Orleans Saints to punch their ticket to the franchise’s first Super Bowl since the legendary 1985 season.

     When Smith met his counterpart and old friend, Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts, on the field at Miami’s Dolphin Stadium before the game, they shook hands as the first African-American head coaches in Super Bowl history. “I just told Lovie how proud I was of the moment,” said Dungy.

     Then the Colts’ Adam Vinatieri kicked off to Hester, and the sensational rookie who’d set an NFL record with six return touchdowns on the year did not disappoint. He raced 92 yards to the opposite end zone. After Gould added the extra point, the Bears led 7-0.

     Fourteen seconds had been played. Fifty-nine minutes and 46 seconds remained, but Hester (who eventually proved to be the greatest returner of all time) was done for all intents and purposes. From then on, the Colts squibbed every kickoff and punted the ball near him only once.

     The Colts’ first possession ended with safety Chris Harris intercepting a Peyton Manning pass at the Bears’ 29-yard line. Alas, the Bears failed to move the ball and were forced to punt. A 53-yard strike from Manning to Reggie Wayne got the Colts onto the scoreboard, but a botched extra point left the Bears ahead 7-6.

     The Bears fumbled the ensuing pooch kick (while Hester waited in vain at his own goal line), and Indianapolis recovered. The Colts returned the favor on the very next play when running back Joseph Addai coughed up the football to Bears defensive end Mark Anderson. On the next play, Bears running back Thomas Jones scampered 52 yards down to the Colts’ five-yard line. Then Grossman found Muhsin Muhammad in the end zone, extending the Bears’ lead to 14-6.

     The Bears did not score again until Gould booted a 44-yard field goal with 1:14 left in the third quarter. In the meantime, Prince delivered a stupendous halftime show and the Colts delivered a touchdown and three field goals against the Bears’ bend-but-don’t-break defense.

     At the outset of the fourth quarter, the Colts were ahead 22-17, not an insurmountable lead by any means. But then came the play of the game. Grossman’s pass intended for Muhammad was picked off by Kelvin Haynes and taken 56 yards for a touchdown. The Bears had now been outscored 23-3 since the first quarter. The ensuing kickoff was soon followed by the coup de grace, another interception of Grossman.

     The final score was 29-17. “A frustrating loss,” Grossman said. “There were definitely opportunities for us to take that game, and we didn't do it.” For his part, Manning was later overheard saying that the Colts “should’ve scored 70 [points].” They had controlled the ball for 38 minutes, earning 24 first downs to the Bears’ 11 and amassing 430 yards of offense to the Bears’ 265. The Bears had lost to a superior team and to perhaps the greatest quarterback of all time.

 

 

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon. 

 

Chicago Sports Memories is Back!

THEO EPSTEIN

A lot of water has flowed under the proverbial bridge since you last heard from us at the end of 2011. Here are some highlights of the Chicago sports landscape at that time.

• The Bulls' Derrick Rose was the NBA's reigning MVP (the youngest in league history at age 22), head coach Tom Thibodeau was the incumbent coach of the year, and the Bulls were coming off a season in which they had racked up the best record in the league (62-20) and made it to the Eastern Conference finals. To say the future looked bright for all concerned would be a gross understatement.
• The Blackhawks, a year and a half removed from their first Stanley Cup championship since 1961, were in the midst of a stretch under head coach Joel Quenneville during which they would qualify for the NHL playoffs for nine consecutive seasons and capture the Cup twice more. Their core group of young players (including Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Patrick Sharp, Brent Seabrook, and Corey Crawford) would remain together for years to come.
  
• The Bears had just completed an 8-8 season which ranked as a profound disappointment after a trip to the NFC championship game the year before. Quarterback Jay Cutler remained an enigma; he had not yet attained the superstardom predicted for him, and it was beginning to look as if he never would. Head coach Lovie Smith and future Hall of Fame linebacker Brian Urlacher would both be gone a year later.
  
• The White Sox had just parted ways with blustery manager Ozzie Guillen and replaced him with the placid Robin Ventura, who had never publicly expressed interest in managing until the day he was hired. Guillen's tumultuous tenure, of course, had produced (in 2005) the franchise's first world championship since 1917, so his place in Pale Hose history was secure. Lanky lefthander Chris Sale, just twenty-two, was poised to emerge as a major star.
• The Cubs had just endured a 71-91 slog under overmatched manager Mike Quade. Shortstop Starlin Castro, twenty-one, made the All-Star team and led the National League in hits; he appeared to be a perennial star in the making. Most importantly, Theo Epstein had just been hired to lead the Cubs' baseball operations. Just thirty-seven years old, he had already been general manager of the Boston Red Sox for nine years and in 2004 had engineered their first world championship since 1918. He had joined the Cubs to try and end the world-famous drought that stretched all the way back to 1908.
  

Kindred Spirits

Lovie Smith

"We feel good about it."

Alfred E. Neuman

"What, me worry?"

1985 Bears Flashback: "Second Best Isn't Good Enough for Me"

     The Bears are about to embark on the 2010 season, and most fans are only guardedly optimistic. The triumvirate of team president Ted Phillips, general manager Jerry Angelo, and head coach Lovie Smith doesn't inspire much confidence. They talk a lot about seeing "improvement" from week to week, and when they are really feeling their oats, they mention possibly making the playoffs. They do not talk much, if at all, about winning the Super Bowl.
     Twenty-five years ago, of course, it was an entirely different story. The Bears were setting off on one of the greatest seasons in their history, in Chicago history, and in the entire history of professional sports.

MIKE DITKA

     The 1985 Bears’ journey to Super Bowl XX in New Orleans actually began more than a year before, in the 1984 NFC championship game. The San Francisco 49ers ended Chicago’s best season in two decades with a decisive 23-0 victory at Candlestick Park. As the teams were leaving the field, 49ers safety Ronnie Lott called out, “Next time, bring your offense.”
     The Bears entered the 1985 season with Lott’s taunt ringing in their ears. “I don’t know about you guys,” coach Mike Ditka said on the first day of training camp, “but second best isn’t good enough for me.”
     The Bears believed they were ready to advance to another level, but there were some questions to be answered. Could their famed “46” defense, the finest unit in the league, withstand the loss of safety Todd Bell and defensive end Al Harris to salary holdouts? Could their quarterback, the tough and savvy Jim McMahon, stay healthy long enough to realize his potential? Could their featured running back, the great Walter Payton (already the NFL’s all-time leading rusher), continue to perform with his usual brilliance for an 11th season? Could they go all the way with the youngest team in the NFL—whose 45 members included 24 with two years’ experience or less, 10 of them rookies?
     Week by week, the Bears turned every question mark into an exclamation point. Even though Ditka later famously asserted that “only cowards and losers” live in the past, we are going to relive some of the highlights of that glorious season in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.