When Tony Dungy was looking for a defensive backs coach in 2001 to replace Herm Edwards, who had just been hired as the head coach of the Jets, he went looking for something in particular as a replacement.
He wanted a communicator, motivator and teacher and he didn't care where that person came from or who he was.
Enter Mike Tomlin.
An assistant coach at the University of Cincinnati, Tomlin, who was just 29 at the time, wasn't that far removed from his playing career as a wide receiver at William & Mary. But he had made an impression in the NFL scouting community.
"I went to our scouts and asked them if they knew of anyone," Dungy told me Wednesday morning. "They said there was this young defensive backs coach at Cincinnati whose players always seemed to play above their talent level. They kept turning out good players. They were well coached and prepared. That's what we were looking for."
Dungy knew almost immediately he had his man. He had taken a similar career path with the Steelers, going from a player in 1978 to being an assistant coach under Chuck Noll from 1981 through 1988.
"That was not an easy group to go into," Dungy said of his defensive backs. "We had a mix of older guys and younger guys like John Lynch and Ronde Barber, some of which were older than him. But he had a way of talking to people that commanded their attention."
Still does.
Last Sunday, Tomlin, now 48, won his 139th career regular season game as an NFL head coach, some 20 years after that fateful meeting in Dungy's office. That 27-24 victory over the Titans not only improved the Steelers to 6-0 for the first time, it allowed Tomlin to match Dungy's regular season career victory total.
The student caught the master.
"I'm just so proud of him. That's what you hoped for when you hired him," said Dungy, 65, who owns a 139-69 career record. "If he wants to, he's going to pass a lot of guys. He could even pass Don Shula."
Shula's 328 career wins are the most in NFL history and the former Colts and Dolphins head coach accomplished that feat in 33 seasons. Dungy and Tomlin's 139 career victories are 22nd on the all-time list. Dungy has already been voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Tomlin seems on track to follow him there.
But that's nothing new, either.
Dungy, who also coached the Colts, won his 139 games in 13 seasons. He won a Super Bowl, becoming the first Black head coach to do so. Tomlin followed suit a couple of years later with the Steelers in 2008.
It seems he is always following his mentor.
Tomlin's record of 139-74-1 has been accomplished in six games into his 14th season. His next victory will make him the winningest minority head coach in NFL history, perhaps as soon as this Sunday when the Steelers travel to Baltimore to take on the Ravens (5-1).
Dungy and Tomlin were only together for that one season. Dungy was fired at the end of the 2001 season after the Buccaneers went 9-7.
But the two still talk from time to time, especially given Dungy's current job as an NFL analyst for NBC. Had Dungy gotten his way, Tomlin might not have ever been the head coach of the Steelers, a position he got after spending one season as the defensive coordinator for the Vikings in 2006.
Dungy wanted to take the young coach with him when he was hired by the Colts after being let go by Tampa Bay.
"I wanted to make him my defensive coordinator and they said no," Dungy said with a laugh. "I said, 'Look, just give me one coach. I'll take the youngest guy.' They recognized that he was a good, young coach as well. They said no.
"There was no question he was destined to be a head coach. I very much knew it and the Bucs knew it, too."
That was on a staff that included a number of future NFL head coaches such as Lovie Smith, Rod Marinelli, Leslie Frazier and Jim Caldwell. Tomlin's record with the Steelers has outperformed them all.
Had that happened, Tomlin might have gotten his chance as a head coach in the NFL before the Steelers came calling in 2007 when they were looking for a replacement for Bill Cowher.
Such is the way things go in NFL circles, such as that meeting between Tomlin and Dungy in 2001.
"I knew after spending 10 minutes with him that he was the guy I was looking for," said Dungy. "But I don't know that he necessarily felt the same way at the time. His first impression of me was that he had to step over my son, Eric, who I believe was 8 at the time, sitting on the floor playing video games.
"But I think that showed him that you can do your job and still take care of the important things in your life."
Tomlin, who has balanced raising a family of two boys and one girl while the head coach of one of the NFL's premiere franchises, certainly took that to heart. But, he learned a lot of important lessons from Dungy in that one season they spent together.
They are things he keeps with him 20 years later.
"We don’t have enough time to chronicle the things I learned from Coach in a very short period of time, I might add," said Tomlin, who also won a Super Bowl in 2002 as an assistant coach with the Buccaneers, the year after Dungy was fired.
"I only worked for him for one season just his approach to business, the thoroughness, the clean communication particularly in difficult times, the clarity of thought, his commitment to a style of play and a plan are all things I have really held onto over the years and think about often."
