Tony Dungy (born October 6, 1955 in Jackson, Michigan) is an African-American former professional football player and current coach in the NFL.
After playing safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1977 and 1978 and for the San Francisco 49ers in 1979 (he had played quarterback in college, at the University of Minnesota), Dungy became an assistant coach for the Steelers in 1981 at the age of 25 (being promoted to defensive coordinator at age 28), then moved on to assistant posts with the Kansas City Chiefs (defensive backs coach, 1989-1991) and Minnesota Vikings (defensive coordinator, 1992-1995), and in 1996 was named head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He remained in that capacity through the 2001 season, after which he was fired by the team on account of the club's repeated losses in the playoffs — most notably two lopsided defeats (in 2000 and 2001) to the Philadelphia Eagles, the same team the Buccaneers easily defeated in the 2002 NFC Championship game (after Dungy had left) en route to the club's lone Super Bowl appearance and victory.
On January 22, 2002, Dungy was hired as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, and the same pattern of his teams falling short in the playoffs resumed: In his first season at Indianapolis the Colts were shut out 41-0 by the New York Jets in a first-round playoff game, and the team lost postseason games to the New England Patriots in both 2003 (in the AFC championship game) and 2004 (in the second round of the playoffs). Dungy's history of futility in postseason play has prompted some critics to assert that he "can't win big games," this taken to be a euphemism for saying that his teams "choke."