One of my favorite people in all of sports is Tony Dungy. I have so much respect for him - the way he leads, the way he treats others and the way he has overcome adversity. I was so pleased to see an article in the monthly magazine put out by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in which Tony shared his thoughts on FCA's core values. I will be sharing these thoughts throughout this week.
Integrity
To me, integrity is what you are all about. It’s what is inside of you. And what’s inside is going to come out when it gets to a critical situation. In my opinion, that’s the difference between a championship team and a good team. It’s the difference between a person you really want to follow and one who is just another person in your life. With people of integrity, you know what you are going to get because that person is the same way all the time; situations don’t change them.
How integrity factors into my role as a coach:From a leadership standpoint, I want to display integrity with my players. They have to be able to count on me to be the same, no matter what. If I tell them something about my personal life and I don’t follow through on it, how can they believe anything I try to teach them on the field? To have that trust and have them follow me as a leader, they have to believe in me. Integrity goes hand-in-hand with trust. You can’t have a good player-coach relationship or a good staff relationship without trust.
The importance of a Christian’s integrity:It is very important for a Christian athlete or a Christian coach to model integrity because once I have gone out there and said, “I am a Christian. Here are the principles I live by”—if I do anything that undermines that, it hurts the cause of Christ. Once people know I am a Christian, I can’t afford to walk differently than I believe because everybody is going to see—especially in a coaching position when eyes are on you all the time.
How I handle a breach of integrity, both internally and externally:It is tough on me when I don’t follow through with what I say I’m going to do because I know that eventually it’s going to come to light and not only make my job tougher, but more than that, it’s going to cause people to question what Christianity is about. With others, I try to be a little more forgiving. It’s the world that we live in, and sometimes that’s going to happen. I try to forgive people because that’s what Christ is all about.
Tomorrow we will discuss SERVING.
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