DUNGY GIVING CREDIT TO FAITH SPARKS A HOLY DEBATE.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI

Tony Dungy responded to a question about race with an answer about religion Sunday night, the first black head coach to win a Super Bowl telling network viewers he is prouder to have shown ``you can win doing it the Lord's way.''

This was more thought-provoking than the stuff you normally hear from a football coach. One thought it provokes is that Dungy has a lot of guts in that skinny body. I wouldn't have been surprised if the Indianapolis Colts coach, after talking about race and religion in polite company, had gone on to do a number on politics and sex.

It was no shock to hear religion come up at that moment; we're used to athletes crediting God for their victories. Moments before Dungy took his turn at the trophy ceremony, Colts owner Jim Irsay said the ``organization'' was ``giving all the glory to God.'' And the famously clean-mouthed, soft-spoken Dungy had discussed his Christian beliefs all last week and for a long time before that.

But Dungy had to know when he told the biggest audience of his life that promoting his Christian identity meant more than achieving a racial milestone, he was poking a hornet's nest.

If Dungy's phrase about ``doing it the Lord's way'' was a reference to Christian competitors' oft-stated fear of being considered soft, his enthusiasm for this controversy would seem to prove all by itself that he is a pretty tough individual.

Monday morning on his L.A. radio show, Fred Roggin asked if Dungy's answer was ``curious.''

On the Internet, commentators on both sides of the Christian-secular divide were less diplomatic about its implications.

On outsports.com -- one of many places Dungy has caught heat for scheduling a guest-of-honor appearance in March before an Indiana group described as anti-gay -- columnist Jim Buzinski ripped Dungy and Irsay in an item headed ``Shut up about the Lord.''

``This kind of in-your-face God-squadding suggests that they are in some way superior, and they need to be called on it,'' Buzinski wrote. `` `The Lord orchestrated this,' Dungy said on the NFL Network about Indy's Super Bowl season. I guess the Lord must have laid the 7.''

On newsbusters.org (``Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias''), blogger Tim Graham wrote that ``the ACLU's teeth must have really been on edge at this lack of separation of church and sport.''

Graham asked, ``How many media outlets will use the first half (of Dungy's quote, the part about race) and snip away the second (about Christianity).''

Here's Dungy's whole quote, responding to Jim Nantz's question about the ``social significance'' of the Super Bowl, the first with a black head coach (both Dungy and Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith): ``I'll tell you what. I'm proud to be representing African-American coaches, to be the first African-American to win this. It means an awful lot to our country. But again, more than anything, I've said it before, Lovie Smith and I (are) not only the first two African-Americans but Christian coaches showing that you can win doing it the Lord's way. And we're more proud of that.''

This raises a few questions.

Does Dungy really think ``showing that you can win doing it the Lord's way'' has more social significance than breaking the Al Campanis generation's stereotypes about blacks in sports management positions?

Was he suggesting that alongside black kids inspired by the sight of two black men at pro football's pinnacle, there are Christian kids whose minds have been changed about whether they can make it big?

If he's saying that Sunday's game represented some sort of Christian barrier-breaking, does this mean I've been unaware of a 40-year Super Bowl monopoly by -- let's say -- Hindu coaches?

Should other winning football coaches take offense from the implication that they've been doing it the morally corrupt way?

Should believers of other religions take offense from any or all of this?

Open-mindedness in all corners is called for here. The unreligious, and non-Christians, have to concede that Dungy seems to be a very nice man, admire how he has dealt with his grief after his son's suicide in 2005 and recognize his beliefs have worked for him. Christians, and anybody who applauds his speaking out, have to respect the possibility that his words will bruise other people's ears.

We all want our sportsmen to stand for something, but they're asking for an argument when athletes and teams whom not everybody is rooting for propose to represent ideals that not everybody adheres to.

If Tony Dungy is up for that debate, he'll have no trouble finding it after what he said in Miami.

Thought-provoking. To say the least.

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(color) TONY DUNGY