One former player and coach that is etched into Pittsburgh Steelers’ lore is Tony Dungy. His direct impact on the organization itself wasn’t as big as some others, but he made his first NFL roster with the Steelers as an undrafted free agent in 1977. He only ended up playing in Pittsburgh for a couple of seasons before finishing out the last two years of his playing career with the San Francisco 49ers and the New York Giants.
In a recent interview with Sports Spectrum, Dungy recalled something that was said to him by Steelers owner Art Rooney Sr. back when he first made the team as a rookie that stuck with him throughout his career.
“Then I got to the Pittsburgh Steelers as a 21-year-old rookie, and Art Rooney Sr. was our owner,” Dungy said in a clip from the interview posted by Sports Spectrum on X. “As a rookie, when you made the team, Mr. Rooney invited you in, he said congratulations, but then he said something that was really unique. He said, you’re a Steelers now, and we have high expectations of you. You’re gonna represent our family. You’re gonna represent the football team. You’re gonna represent the city. And we want you to represent it the right way.
“Whenever you do anything from now on, it’s not gonna be Tony Dungy, but it’s gonna be Pittsburgh Steeler Tony Dungy…so that’s a responsibility and we expect you to do that really well.”
After his short-lived playing career, he got his first coaching job with the Minnesota Vikings before joining Chuck Noll’s coaching staff as a defensive backs coach in 1981. He was promoted to defensive coordinator in 1984 for five seasons, and that was the foundation for his Hall of Fame coaching career with two separate tenures as head coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Indianapolis Colts.
Just like Chuck Noll gave Tony Dungy some of his first NFL coaching opportunities, Mike Tomlin was given his first NFL job with Dungy in Tampa Bay. Without fully knowing it at the time, Tomlin was indirectly getting the Steeler Way instilled in him as a coach by Dungy. In another recent interview, Dungy credited much of his coaching success to Noll and his mentorship when he was just starting out as a coach. That makes Tomlin a part of the Noll coaching tree, and explains why he fit in so nicely with the organization entering his 18th season as the Steelers’ head coach.
The Steelers have been a family-oriented organization for a very long time, and all of that started with The Chief and the Rooney family. With a vastly different culture in the present day than when Rooney would have been giving those welcome speeches, the team has still been able to maintain some of that foundation and core values. The 2024 draft class is a great example of that, with many of the players being former team captains with nothing but great reports about their character on and off the field.
