reached number one on the New York Times Best Seller list in 2007<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nI just began reading Dungy’s new book, “The Mentor Leader:\u00a0 Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently<\/em>.”\u00a0\u00a0Broken into nine chapters, each nicely alliterated (pastors everywhere would be coveting Dungy\u00a0and co-author Nathan Whitaker’s outlining abilities), Dungy discusses what it takes to be a “mentor leader”:<\/p>\n“Mentor leaders seek to have a direct, intentional, and positive impact on those they lead.\u00a0 At its core, mentoring is about building character into the lives of others, modeling and teaching attitudes and behaviors, and creating a constructive legacy to be passed along to future generations of leaders.” (“The Mentor Leader,” page XVI)<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nBecause I have not finished reading the book, this post is not necessarily a review of the “The Mentor Leader,” <\/em>but rather my interaction with one portion, namely Coach Dungy’s proposition that “Mentor Leaders Strive For Significance In Life.”\u00a0 <\/em>In illustrating this principle, Dungy\u00a0turns to former\u00a0Atlanta Falcon and current Philadelphia Eagles star quarterback, Michael Vick.<\/p>\nThose who follow professional football (and when I write “football,” I mean football, not soccer) and\/or who love animals, particularly dogs, are not only well aware of Vick’s\u00a0football prowess\u00a0(his Virginia Tech Hoakies lost to the F.S.U. Seminoles in BCS Championship at the end of the 1999 season), but also his participation in an illegal dog-fighting enterprise in Virginia\u00a0for which he pled guilty and served 21 months in federal prison.<\/p>\n
After\u00a0Michael Vick’s\u00a0release from prison, Tony Dungy\u00a0began mentoring him.\u00a0 From reading his current book and listening to interviews, it is clear that Tony Dungy\u00a0likes Mike Vick.\u00a0 So why did Coach Tony Dungy, a man of faith regarded by many to be one of professional football’s finest ambassadors, agree to work with Mike Vick, a man disliked by football fans and dog lovers the world over?\u00a0 Dungy answers:<\/p>\n
“I accepted the responsibility to perhaps provide a moment of significance in his (Vick’s) life — a moment that would help him get his life back on track.\u00a0 I did what so many others had done for me — the things that have helped me become more the person I am and the person I want to be than I ever could have done on my own.\u00a0 You never know how these things will turn out, but you’ve got to be willing to try.\u00a0 My goal was to build into Michael Vick’s life what I believe is important, things that Michael himself says he wants in his life — being close to his family, modeling good values for kids, and even speaking out against the animal cruelty that he now knows is wrong.” (“The Mentor Leader,” \u00a0page 9)<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\nNo one — not Dungy, Vick, the Philadelphia Eagles, or the New York Giants — could have known<\/strong><\/span> how this “odd-couple” mentoring relationship would work out.\u00a0 After signing with the Eagles in the summer of 2009, Vick was (unsurprisingly) reinstated to the NFL by Commissioner Roger Goodell in Week 3 of the 2009 Season.<\/p>\nNow, at the end of his second regular season of football following his suspension, Michael Vick is back.\u00a0 With a vengeance!\u00a0 He has led\u00a0a\u00a0resurgent, post-Donovan McNabb\u00a0Eagles to the NFC East Division Title and into the playoffs.\u00a0 Along with Tom Brady, Vick’s name has been bandied about as deserving to receive this year’s NFL Most Valuable Player Award.<\/p>\n
There’s no question that Michael Vick –the master of miracle football comebacks — has made the ultimate comeback.\u00a0 At perhaps the top of his game, he has many people to thank for where he is today, not the least of whom is Coach Tony Dungy.<\/p>\n
As a pastor, I love stories of forgiveness and redemption.\u00a0 Certainly, the story of Michael Vick — star\u00a0quarterback turned dog killer turned\u00a0felon turned star\u00a0quarterback — and his special mentoring relationship with Tony Dungy is one for the ages.\u00a0 Talk about someone going from law to grace!<\/p>\n
But — and you knew there was a but coming — that doesn’t mean that I have to like the star\u00a0quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles.\u00a0 I like Tony Dungy, but don’t get me started about Mike Vick.\u00a0 I hope Vick strives for significance in life — just as long as his striving doesn’t involve winning the Super Bowl.\u00a0 Go Colts!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I like Tony Dungy.\u00a0 There is no question that he has been one of the most inspirational coaches that the National Football\u00a0League has ever seen.\u00a0 As a fellow Christian, I particularly liked his approach to the game of football and to the game of life.\u00a0 I am an Indianapolis Colts fan today, not necessarily because…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23,35,38,1],"tags":[84,317,451,518,3389,652,701,722,779,3392,976,991],"class_list":["post-1435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grace","category-religion","category-sports","category-uncategorized","tag-altlanta-falcons","tag-dog-fighting","tag-grace-2","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-law","tag-michael-vick","tag-national-football-league","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-religion","tag-the-mentor-leader","tag-tony-dungy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-n9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2661,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1435\/revisions\/2661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}