Generally speaking, Jesus freaks love publicity. They take to it like gay guys at the club take to amyl-nitrates, cocaine and anonymous sex in the bathroom. If publicity were cock, Christian fundamentalists would chug it ‘til the break of dawn even if they had to slaughter and sell off their own children as prime rib to get that warm, tasty, well-hung God-meat in their mouths.
Face it, according to Christian mythology that’s just what The Lord did with his own kid for fuck’s sake. According to myth, He had the little bastard nailed up on a cross as a reminder to everyone that he loves us so much that he would have his own son brutally tortured and killed to save all of our souls. With an example like that to follow would you expect anything less from Tony Dungy?
When we last left Tiny Dingy, he was staring in disbelief as his nuts shrank to the size of rabbit turds on national television when Peyton Manning waved him and the punt team off the field on a crucial fourth down play. Prior to that, Dingy was making the rounds talking about how everyone needs to hug their kids more in the wake of his own son’s grim suicide. Between us, taking advice from Tiny Dingy on child rearing is the equivalent of allowing the Marquis de Sade to take your 14-year-old daughter out on her first-ever date. She’ll come home loving the taste of her own ass and Dingy will tell you to trust everything to a magical, jealous god who will test you by asking you to sacrifice your son on a rock in the desert.
Let’s turn the clock back though. Not content to simply hog the spotlight in the immediate aftermath of his son James’s death, Dungy ate up the press at the child’s funeral. He made sure to soak in the warmth that was bestowed upon him by his team and literally bathed in the frothy jizz that the press spewed for him as he was lauded as a fantastic father, husband, man, human being, all-around-great-guy and divine presence in the world of professional football. He was every jock-sniffing, pole-smoking sports columnist’s wet dream come true; a safe-for-prime time black man with a God-fearing sensibility so lacking in shame, common decency and good taste that he used his own dead son to garner good press for himself and proselytize for The Faith.
Months later and hungry for more deification from the sporting press, Dingy was back doing what he does best; cashing in on tragedy to burnish his own image. Now he had gone so far as to blatantly use the lingering aftermath of his own son’s death to forward his psychotic Christian fantasies of never having to deal with reality because you have Jesus in your heart. At its root, Christianity is a death cult fixated on the fantasy of a perfect afterlife. It is nothing more and Dingy personifies that cult perfectly.
In an article published on ESPN.com and in an interview that aired on SportsCenter, Dingy droned on about himself, his faith and his pain and had the audacity to say that he was angry at himself because he wanted his son with him instead of the Lord. Then he laughably realized how selfish that was and in deference to God, he said essentially shut off those feelings.
“The Lord has a plan,” said Dungy. “We always think the plans are A, B, C and D, and everything is going to be perfect for us and it may not be that way, but it’s still his plan.”
Talk about repression. You wouldn’t happen to have any repressed plans to toss Warren Sapp’s salad would you? Or does The Lord have a plan for you that involves Edgerrin James’ glistening biceps and thick trouser mamba? Nah, you’re too busy wondering how pissed The Lord would be if he knew that you missed your son and selfishly wanted him back here with you so you could have a second chance at raising him.
Normally I am not into kicking a man when he’s down, but when he is fucking oblivious to reality and insistent upon using a public forum to preach his obviously failed manifesto for child-rearing, I think it’s proper to undress the SOB in the public square.
“I probably think about my kids more,” Tony Dungy says. “I worry about them more, especially with the letters I’ve gotten about what teens and young men are going through, the pressures on them.”
Where to start?
Do you mean the part where you sit down with your kids and level with them about how much fun drugs, booze and pussy are? Or is it the part where you relate with them and act like a fucking human being instead of throwing some Bible verses at them and telling them to trust in God’s plan? Oh wait, you must mean the part where speak with a little honesty and humility and let your kids know that, yes, you too have fucked up in life and don’t have all the answers?
This kind of bullshit is far too pervasive and guys like Dingy perpetuate it without a thought for the sort of damage it does to people.
The primary problem with Dungy is that while he goes on and on about providing an example for people and being strong in the face of adversity, it all rings hollow because he keeps invoking imaginary gods in his lectures and interviews. Replace “God” with “drinking until I am blind” and you have the same thing and a little something I like to call cognitive dissonance.
What’s worse is that he get plenty of people to enable him throughout this little situation. Whenever one of his players comes to Dingy with a personal problem, so the story goes, he reminds them that God’s will is perfect and that all things work together perfectly for those who love The Lord. In all cases, whether it is someone dying, dealing with an illness or a child with a disability, it’s always this usual schlock about God’s plan.
Right, like anyone needs to hear that they were predestined to get fucked over by a being who is at best a concept or at worst a supremely fucked up allegory.
Frankly, I see nothing wrong with having a little faith. A little faith in yourself, not a life theory that essentially ends in a circular argument that keeps bringing you back to an imaginary father figure.
Faith, faith, faith, that’s all these assholes talk about and it’s all they ever believe in. Faith in the afterlife, faith in God, faith in the Virgin Mary and faith in a church that refuses to pay taxes. It’s enough to make a thinking man projectile vomit.
However, one good thing seems to have come out of this little situation. Mr. Dungy says that he now takes the time to simply walk into the other room and see what the kids are up to. If James’ death did anything positive for that family, it’s that Dungy now realizes he was not around nearly enough for his kids.
That’s not divine intervention, that’s just common fucking sense.
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