He was a tall and good-looking young man, quiet and respectful, a good student. As always when such things happen, everyone who knew him is trying to determine whether there was a sign of depression that they missed.

How does Tony Dungy go back, as he will, to coaching football? How does he convince himself that winning the Super Bowl can bring anything into his life to make it better?

Before that, winning the Super Bowl was his biggest goal, the holy grail that every coach dreams about, the trophy that validates all the effort and endless hours he has poured into a profession as demanding and unforgiving as any. A day ago, he may already have thought about having his older children on the sidelines during the Super Bowl, if he could only get there. He may have indulged a brief fantasy of the joy there would be in having family right there to share the triumphant moment.

I have no doubt he’d trade every victory in his career to have his son back. I am sure he’d trade the Super Bowl for James’ life, no questions asked.

Dungy will soldier on. He understands that the dream of a championship is shared by a team and an organization and fans, that it is not his solitary quest at stake but that of millions of people. He is a man who believes in responsibility, and he still has the responsibility to his team to help lead them as far as their will and talent can take them.

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But if the Colts win, it will be their triumph, not his. He suffered the loss that can’t be explained away by saying the other team just outplayed you. He suffered the loss from which there is no recovery. There is nothing in the game plan he can go back and fix. There is no next game, no next season, just a void where once there was a beloved child.

No victory can take away Tony Dungy’s pain. No triumph can substitute for his loss. I doubt if anyone will even take away a lesson from this. It may have made sense to James at the moment of his decision, but it remains senseless, the worst loss of all.

I wouldn’t want to be Tony Dungy. And, where once I would have wished him a victory in the Super Bowl, now I wish him and his family the strength to carry on.

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