The Titans, the Rams and the Bucs all have something in common they’d rather not share – they are all winless for the season.  And while their fans may be insisting on change, sometimes, staying the course can actually pay off.

It can be tough being a head coach in the NFL – for many reasons.  One of them is that everything you say or do comes under scrutiny.    Tennessee Titans Coach Jeff Fisher, recently had one of those scrutinizing experiences.

Where does midlife start?   It doesn’t really matter at what age you think midlife begins, you can start making the most of your “post-youth” years anytime.

Put yourself in this scenario: You’re the head coach of an NFL team; a star player gets in trouble with the law, or breaks a team rule.  Now what do you do?  Here’s what I did.

Some NFL players are standouts from game one; others come into their greatness over time.  Children are the same way.   And just like an astute coach, astute parents recognize that children develop on their own timetable.

The Indianapolis Colts are playing some great football.  After beating the Tennessee Titans on Sunday night, and running their record to 5-0, the Colts look like Super Bowl contenders again this year.  Hot starts are becoming the norm in Indianapolis.  This is the fifth time in the last seven years they’ve started the season with five consecutive wins.  Winning in September and October has become a Colts tradition. 

Another tradition with the Colts has been supporting the Carson Scholars Fund.  Carson Scholars is an organization started by Dr. Ben Carson and his wife Candy.  Dr. Carson is a world renowned pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and his foundation awards scholarships to outstanding students from 4th to 11th grade. To qualify, a student must have a 3.75 grade point average and be actively involved in community service. The Colts began supporting the Carson scholars when I was there, and new coach Jim Caldwell has continued to do so.  The Indianapolis chapter had their banquet on Monday night and there were 82 scholarship winners present.  

Congratulations to the students and thanks to the Colts for their continuing support of the Carson Scholars Fund.  It’s one of the reasons I really enjoyed my time with the Colts – it’s an organization that not only wants to provide great football for its fans, but also one that reaches out to the community as well.

It’s something I’ve told men over and over – having an affair is wrong, and it’s definitely not worth the hurt it will cause everyone involved.

Last week I spoke to a couple of groups with Mark Merrill, the president of Family First.  We went to Atlanta for the Catalyst leadership event for young people, where we talked about how important it is for young people to have good role models, starting with parents, but going beyond that; and how we all can help by mentoring in our communities. 

Mark and I also addressed the management team of The Melting Pot Restaurants.  We talked about leadership and navigating your business through tough economic times.  I likened that task to a football season where very seldom do you go undefeated, but more often you have to make adjustments and bounce back from losses.  I gave the managers some quotes that had helped me over the years. 

I highlighted many of those quotes in my two books, Quiet Strength and UnCommon, but I think I’ll periodically include some in this blog as different situations bring them to memory. 

“Success is uncommon, therefore not to be enjoyed by the common man.” 

That is from my college coach, Cal Stoll.  Coach Stoll told us that there were two ways you could be uncommon; you could have a talent so rare that others couldn’t do the things you could do (having talent like that can certainly help you succeed, but it only includes about 1% of the population), or for the other 99% of us, you can have an attitude and a desire that lets you do things that others could do, but won’t.  That is what I’ve always relied on.  

“Expectations and execution.  No excuses, no explanations.” 

This was from Denny Green, my boss when I was with the Minnesota Vikings. I picked it up from him in 1992 and I’ve used it ever since.  It stresses that you have to think and act; those are much more important than what you say. 

“Champions are champions, not because they do extraordinary things, but because they do the ordinary things better than everyone else.” 

Coach Noll was my first NFL coach.  He led the Pittsburgh Steelers to four Super Bowl wins in the 1970′s.  We had a lot of great players on those teams, including nine who are now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.  But coach Noll always emphasized that it wasn’t the great players or the highlight film type plays that would win for us, it was the practice, the fundamentals and paying attention to the little details that would make the difference in the long run. 

“”Success that feels it has to be proclaimed, by the mere fact of its proclamation, admits the doubt of its existence.” 

This one is from my mom, CleoMae Dungy.  She was big on humility and just doing your job.  She always felt if you did your job well enough, you wouldn’t have to say anything about it – other people would do the talking for you.  The bible puts it another way – “Pride goes before destruction,” which is another one of her favorites I’ve quoted to my teams many times over the years. 

Those are four quotes that I shared last week, and I’d like to leave you with one more that I got from my high school football coach, Dave Driscoll, when I was 14 years old.  If there’s any one thought that I’ve carried with me through all my years of playing and coaching it’s this: 

“Talent is God-given.  Be Thankful.
Praise is man-given.  Be humble.
Conceit is self-given.  Be careful!” 

Good words to live by from people who were great role models for me.

My wife Lauren and I have been married for 27 years.  Thankfully, God was with me when it came time for me to choose a wife.   Now my prayer is that our children will make wise choices about who they will marry.  I try to remind them that, although it may sound like a cliché, what’s really important is what a person is like on the inside.

I think one of the toughest things for men is trying to give our family the same amount of attention and energy that we give our job.