The Indianapolis Colts’ near-perfect season was plunged into sadness when the news came that coach Tony Dungy’s eldest son was found dead of an apparent suicide.
“Everybody said a team prayer for Coach Dungy and his family,” quarterback Peyton Manning said. “It’s laying on the hearts of all the players here today.”
James Dungy, the 18-year-old who became a fixture around the teams his father coached and was often mistaken for a player because of his towering size, was found dead in a Tampa-area apartment early Thursday.
His girlfriend returned to the Campus Lodge Apartments at about 1:30 a.m. and found him unresponsive, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Debbie Carter said. Carter said evidence at the scene indicated he had killed himself.
A sheriff’s deputy performed CPR before an ambulance took him to University Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Tony Dungy took the team plane from Indianapolis to Tampa, Fla., where he had coached the Buccaneers from 1996 to 2001. He left his team with instructions befitting their ever-steady leader: Keep playing.
“He’s an amazing individual with great strength and integrity, even in the toughest times,” assistant head coach Jim Caldwell, who will take over in Dungy’s absence, said after Thursday’s practice. “He told us to carry on as usual.”
