# Tony Dungy is a loathsome charlatan **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 10, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355 "2010-01-10T03:10:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/41 "2010-01-10T21:00:47Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > So Tony is using his celebrity to advocate for a position he believes. > > Rosie O’Donnell is using her celebrity to advocate a position she believes in. > > Same same to me. All positions are equal and absent of moral content? What are you, some sort of relativist? And I don’t like Rosie either, she has stupid opinions on gun rights and other issues and she hasn’t been funny since at least she decided to become an activist full-time. ---
**Author:** ![ivn1188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/42 "2010-01-10T21:02:57Z")
> [@Turek](#): > > My prediction? > > The whole thread will devolve into Dio saying “nuh uh” and someone else saying “did too!” until nobody but them even bothers reading it any longer. > > Example: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=546508&page=3](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=546508&page=3) Oh noes! Thread not intellectual enough for Turek! Clutch the pearls! (Whatever the fuck that means.) Douchebag. P.S.: In your location, you mispelled “The magical world of complete dorkhood”. kthx. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/43 "2010-01-10T21:04:16Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > If all they are are rumors, then shame on you for believing them and spreading them around. Alright, let’s say the multiple people who expressed that belief all made it up. Then you just have someone who is such an abject failure as a parent that he didn’t notice or act upon any of the signs of depression in his child, leading to his son’s suicide. This still disqualifies him from being a professional parenting advisor. It’s amazing what the Christian right will put up with as long as someone toes the party line. This is just Sarah Palin, “family values” and abstinence advocate whose teenage daughter got knocked up, writ into a more tragic, life-and-death scenario. But to the right wing, “family values” doesn’t include actually raising your family such that they avoid ruining or ending their lives; it just means blaming all of society’s ills on homosexuals, and doing whatever else you want. ---
**Author:** ![ivn1188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/44 "2010-01-10T21:22:48Z")
So, like I said, it’s another rant against “people on the right who hate teh gays!!” Guest appearance by “retired football coach who is totally a giant celeb”. Featuring such gems as: “100% of teenage suicides are the parents’ fault! Proabably because they are religious!” and “No, seriously, it’s a well known rumor on the internet that the kid was a gay!” Also starring retarded comparisons: “What if _STALIN_ was announcing the Superbowl? Huh?” Wake up SDMB. People can be right (yes, bigotry is bad), but they can be stupid at the same time, like the OP. I submit there is no one in this thread that is anti-gay-marriage. So the only questions here are: “Is Tony Dungee morally equivalent to Pol Pot?” to which the answer clearly is No. “Is OP a fucking retard who has possibly the dumbest stance on teen suicide ever?” to which the answer clearly is Yes. Done. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/45 "2010-01-10T21:32:36Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > So Tony is using his celebrity to advocate for a position he believes. > > Rosie O’Donnell is using her celebrity to advocate a position she believes in. > > Same same to me. No, the use of celebrity is immaterial. It’s _what’s_ being advocated that matters, not how. Dungy advocates a repugnant view. Rosie doesn’t. Nice attempt at building a strawman, though. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/46 "2010-01-10T21:38:36Z")
What do I know about Tony Dungy? I know that every time he starts talking football analysis my eyes start to glaze over. YAAAAWN! zzzzz… The guy has -zero- personality and should not be on TV. He’s mundane, monotone, and drones on and on. Whatever kind of contract they have him in I predict he’s out after this season. Booooooringgggg. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/47 "2010-01-10T21:52:05Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No, the use of celebrity is immaterial. It’s _what’s_ being advocated that matters, not how. Dungy advocates a repugnant view. Rosie doesn’t. > > Nice attempt at building a strawman, though. Repugnant to you. Less so to others apparently. Bottom line is if the guy agrees with you, he’s fine. If not, he’s an asshole. Nice attempt at playing God though. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/48 "2010-01-10T21:53:03Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > “Is OP a fucking retard who has possibly the dumbest stance on teen suicide ever?” to which the answer clearly is Yes. Are you some sort of Scientologist or something? Where you think mental illness comes from? It’s not because someone’s trying to be rebellious and show up their parents, and it’s not because people just decide to kill themselves because they heard a Black Sabbath song. Depression is an actual illness which can be actually treated by people who don’t believe in demonic possession or in doing squat-thrusts to overcome biochemical problems; the people who are least likely to get treatment for it as teenagers are those whose parents reject the scientific facts about disease, which happens due to either ignorance, religion, or apathy. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/49 "2010-01-10T21:54:10Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Repugnant to you. Less so to others apparently. > Bottom line is if the guy agrees with you, he’s fine. If not, he’s an asshole. Well, yes, if he agrees that of-age humans should not be persecuted for their consensual sexual relationships, he’s fine, and if not, he’s an asshole. I’m glad you understand this. > [@](#): > > Nice attempt at playing God though. Oh no, not playing god! ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/50 "2010-01-10T21:54:51Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > Repugnant to you. Less so to others apparently. > Bottom line is if the guy agrees with you, he’s fine. If not, he’s an asshole. > > Nice attempt at playing God though. Lame. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/51 "2010-01-10T22:08:47Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Ex NFL head coach. Won a Superbowl with the Colts. He has a reputation of being a sterling “character” guy. He’s highly religious, and does a lot of volunteer work, etc, but is also anti-gay activist, something which tends to get glossed over by his hagiographers. > > He had a son who committed suicide. I have no idea if the rumors are true that he did it because Dungy disowned him for being gay, but those are the rumors. I was a fan of his and I didn’t know about his anti-gay activism. Might have to rethink my fanhood. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/52 "2010-01-10T22:18:08Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > Alright, let’s say the multiple people who expressed that belief all made it up. Then you just have someone who is such an abject failure as a parent that he didn’t notice or act upon any of the signs of depression in his child, leading to his son’s suicide. This still disqualifies him from being a professional parenting advisor. > > It’s amazing what the Christian right will put up with as long as someone toes the party line. As I have already noted, your silly attempts to blame parents for their childrens’ suicides is wrong. It happens, but not as often as you want to pretend just to rant about someone you don’t like. You are even williing to change the reasons, (still without anything resembling evidence), to hold on to your lame rant. If you want to whine that you don’t like seeing some guy on TV, that is fine. Inventing reasons to be mad when what you really mean is that you just don’t like him are pitiful. Have the guts to just say, “I hate watching his political views in the middle of my mindless sports addiction,” and stop making up excuses. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/53 "2010-01-10T22:49:12Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Have the guts to just say, “I hate watching his political views in the middle of my mindless sports addiction,” and stop making up excuses. It’s unusual for someone to be both anti-gay and snobbish about others watching sports. ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/54 "2010-01-10T22:59:00Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > Yeah, **I would say something in the neighborhood of 100% of suicides _by teenagers_ are due to either family rejection for sexual or religious identity issues, or parents too stupid/religious to recognize and get treatment for the symptoms of depression.** … It’s amazing the absolute shite that gets Pitted on this forum, yet that doesn’t (although it does get condemned). I am lucky enough not to have had a family member kill themselves (and that is luck, not skill), so I won’t set up a Pit thread, but you are a sanctimonious fuckwit, and you have no standing to criticise the opinions of others. You basically just blamed ALL teen suicides on their families, most of whom won’t know how wrong things are until they find their kid hanging off the back of a door. And you bitch about someone else’s belief being cruel and unfair and etc? Screw you. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/55 "2010-01-10T23:01:05Z")
> [@Laudenum](#): > > You basically just blamed ALL teen suicides on their families, most of whom won’t know how wrong things are until they find their kid hanging off the back of a door. Yep, I’ll stand by that. If you don’t know that your kid is depressed or you’re too blinded by outmoded ways of thinking to properly treat him, it’s largely your fault when he kills himself. And that’s usually what happens (again, combined with a healthy dose of kicking people out of the family for being gay). Are we no longer expecting parents to be responsible for the health of their teenage children, or what? ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2010, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/56 "2010-01-10T23:16:34Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Have the guts to just say, “I hate watching his political views in the middle of my mindless sports addiction,” and stop making up excuses. Not to defend **Condescending Robot** on other points where he’s clearly mistaken (to put it mildly), I think the issue is largely with the reputation Dungy has for being a person of good moral character. I don’t really pay too much attention to football, but I do watch a bit here and there, and am often around friends and acquaintances discussing football, and I’ve certainly noticed a degree of fawning over how moral of a person Tony Dungy is. Certainly if one believes, as our OP apparently does, that he is a man who’s anti-gay attitude drove his own son to suicide, one would obviously be pissed to see the guy universally held up as a paragon of virtue. Of course, since this is all predicated on malicious gossip and a poor understanding of teen suicide, the OP is pretty foolish, I think. But if you start from the beliefs that **Condescending Robot** seems to have, his position is perfectly comprehensible. And, really, the more I think about it, it does grate on me that animus towards gays seems to get a pass in a way that other expressions of prejudice don’t. That’s really more of a complaint with American society, and current mainstream Christianity, and any number of other things more than with Tony Dungy. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/57 "2010-01-11T00:49:57Z")
Wonder if he’s ever heard any “dung” jokes. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/58 "2010-01-11T01:48:15Z")
(I should also make it clear, if it wasn’t already, that I disagree with the **Robot’s** views on assigning blame for suicide, among other things. I was just disagreeing with the point that it’s impossible to properly “care” about someone else’s views if they aren’t directed specifically at you, especially if their whole purpose is to persuade others to marginalize a socially harmless group that possibly include the audience’s children.) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/59 "2010-01-11T02:08:44Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > It’s unusual for someone to be both anti-gay and snobbish about others watching sports. Actually, no one here appears to meet that odd condition. You have assigned blame for rather nasty acts to a man based on NO EVIDENCE simply because you don’t like some of his beliefs. You have cast your frothing reaction in the context of his appearance detracting from your fandom. In that context, my description of your (singular) behavior appears to be quite accurate. It also seems to be accurate that you have had to cast your aspersions dishonestly in an attempot to get others to agree with you because you do not appear to have the courage of your convictions to simply declare your own real point. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2010, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355/60 "2010-01-11T02:09:08Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > So you’d be OK with, eg, David Duke or Fidel Castro calling games for your favorite baseball team? Wouldn’t impede your ability to enjoy the sporting event at all? I’d be absolutely fine with either man discussing politics, which is, of course, where their expertise lies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tony-dungy-is-a-loathsome-charlatan/524355.md?page=4)