CHAPTER 2

THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

TONY

Just as our honeymoon hadn’t started the way we’d expected, my first season as defensive backs coach turned out a bit differently than I’d anticipated, thanks to a players’ strike.

Lauren and I didn’t see that coming, though, when we returned from Hawaii. We were just glad to have several weeks to focus on each other before training camp and a new school year kicked off. I was grateful that Coach Noll insisted that his staff take off between the last minicamp in late spring and training camp in late July. He told us to make the most of that time  —to get away from the game and concentrate on our home life  —because he knew our focus had to be on football all season long. I was more than happy to focus on Lauren in the weeks just before and after our wedding!

In early August, I opened the paper to read an article affirming my instincts and potential as a professional coach. In fact, Chuck Noll said that my coaching future was unlimited, that “[Tony could] go as far as he wants.”

Pretty heady stuff for me. My new, young wife seemed very impressed too.

Once training camp started, my routine was set. After spending all week at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, I would drive home on Saturday night, stay through church on Sunday, and then head back to camp. Occasionally Lauren would pack a picnic lunch and drive the fifty miles to camp to watch practice and then eat with me. She always brought my favorite foods  —fried chicken, potato salad, and homemade chocolate chip cookies. However, she quickly learned that training camp was business time for the players and coaches.

The silver lining for us that year was the NFL players’ strike. Seven games were canceled between late September and mid-November, so I was home much more that fall than I ever would be in the years to come.

That enabled us to make one change sooner than we might have otherwise. Now that we were living in Pittsburgh, we wanted to find a church there. Of course, since John Guest had introduced us, it felt a little awkward to thank him by leaving the church! At the same time, we knew we needed to find a church community that was closer to home and that fit us as a couple.

After we started praying about it, one of the Steelers’ chapel speakers recommended Bethany Baptist Church. From the first time we visited, we loved Bethany, which was Bible-based, small and intimate, yet full of life. It was exactly what we were looking for.

Pastor Richard Allen Farmer and his wife, Rosemary, were special people. We met plenty of couples our age, but we also looked to some of the older ones to model marriage for us. We developed a close relationship with Mike and Barb Cephas, who had five children and were very active in the church. They welcomed us not only into the church but into their family as well. We became so close that we would later ask them to be the godparents of our children.

No one treated us like celebrities at Bethany. The families did a lot together  —whether picnics or bike rides, potlucks or playing games  —and while people were interested in discussing the Steelers, it was never the main focus of our conversations. That was refreshing for us. We weren’t celebrities; we were just Tony and Lauren. An important part of our growth as a couple was being treated like any other people in the church.

If I had to name the number one thing that got our marriage off to a great start, it was finding the right church home. It provided a solid foundation for us as a newlywed couple. At Bethany, we established the habit of spending time talking about God  —and to God  —together.

Wednesday night was Bible study night, and Pastor Farmer would have us read different Scripture passages and pray in small groups. It was great for us to see so many couples, like the Cephases, praying together. Through their example, we learned how a marriage becomes stronger when couples make praying and spiritual conversations a priority. After all, spouses talk about everything else  —why not their number one priority?

During our marriage, we’ve learned that how and when we connect spiritually may need to change. When we were first married, Lauren and I began praying together in the evenings after I’d come home from the office. Once our kids began arriving, we waited until we’d tucked them into bed. Now that I am no longer coaching, we find the best time for us to pray together is in the mornings. We make a point to get up fifteen to twenty minutes before the kids do so we can pray and read a devotion together.

Early on, we learned to ask God for two things when praying about decisions: first, that He would give us His infinite wisdom and direction, and second, that He would put us on the same page. Over the years, we’ve come to realize that when we are frustrated with each other, it’s because we haven’t spent enough time praying or communicating about spiritual matters to understand each other’s heart on something.

Because of the players’ strike, we were able to establish the practice of regularly praying together right away. Once the strike ended that November, however, Lauren was reminded what it meant to be a coach’s wife when I would leave on Saturday morning for a road game. Weekends without her husband could be lonely.

Fortunately, she had company during my absences. Just before our wedding, I had decided to make the ultimate sacrifice and buy her a dog as a wedding gift. Growing up, Lauren’s family had always had a German shepherd. Though I had never had a pet  —not even a goldfish  —I could tell while we were dating how much Lauren loved her family’s dogs.

So even though I was not a dog lover and was even a little cautious around them, I decided to buy Lauren a German shepherd to show her how much I loved her. I asked her mom to help me but to keep it a surprise. Lauren’s mom saw an ad in the paper for German shepherd puppies at a reasonable price, so I gave her the money and asked her to pick one out for me. The next time I came over to visit Lauren, her mom excused herself, drove over to pick up the puppy, and brought back the surprise.

Lauren was surprised all right. After gushing over the puppy and telling me how much she appreciated the gift, she said, “That puppy is so sweet and precious, but she doesn’t look like a German shepherd.” Her mom assured her she was, despite the dog’s fluffy red coat. Lauren named her Casey because she looked more like an Irish setter than a German shepherd. In fact, after a few weeks had gone by, we still weren’t sure what Casey was, but one thing was clear: our puppy was not a German shepherd.

I knew Lauren wanted a purebred shepherd, so I suggested we go to the breeders her family had always used so she could pick one out. She was ecstatic and selected a beautiful black and tan male puppy, which she named Corey. Now all along I assumed that once we got Corey, she would give Casey back. When I asked her about that, she said, “You let me fall in love with Casey, and now you want me to give her back? No way. I love that dog, red coat and all.”

So now we had Casey and Corey, who got along great. But it didn’t stop there. Lauren had been researching and reading about shepherds, and she said that if we were going to show and breed them, we needed both a purebred male and female. Months later we added Kippy, the female. My sacrificial wedding gift had wound up being three dogs.

Our stint in the dog show ring didn’t last long. We competed with Corey until he outgrew his breed standards, and Lauren cared for the one litter that Kippy had. She didn’t breed the dogs again, though, because she couldn’t bear to see the puppies go to new homes when they reached eight weeks.

We did agree on some ground rules for our dogs. For instance, Lauren assured me she would not let them in the bedroom. That’s why I was sometimes surprised when I called her from training camp or a road game at night.

“What is that breathing in the background?” I would ask. “The dogs aren’t in the bedroom, are they?”

Lauren

While Tony was traveling with the team that first year, I used to have both Casey and Corey in bed with me. When he called at night and asked me if they were on the bed with me, I didn’t deny it. I told him, “It was just so quiet, and I thought I heard something.” My parents’ home had always been filled with talking and laughter; now I was alone in a home near woods that felt pretty remote. Also, I knew if anyone was paying attention to the Steelers’ schedule, they’d know that Tony was out of town and that I was home alone.

I also remembered what Paulette Shell had told me. The year Tony played for the 49ers, she and her husband, Donnie, who was still playing for the Steelers, rented Tony’s house. Paulette told me she was always afraid when her husband was gone. She’d hear noises and put chairs against the doors to feel more secure. I used to tease her because the neighborhood seemed so quiet, friendly, and safe when Tony and I were dating. But that was because Tony was always there with me. When he went away to camp that first night, I started hearing strange sounds too. But I had my loyal and faithful dogs to keep me company and protect me.

During the early months of our marriage, I began redecorating Tony’s bachelor pad, remaking it into our family home. His three-bedroom brick house was charming and spacious but needed a woman’s touch to bring out its potential. In the living room, he’d stacked the television and lamps on cardboard boxes. I replaced them with end tables. And the colors in the house were dark and masculine, so my mom and I made the rooms brighter and cheerier and arranged everything so our home fit us as a couple.

Tony told me that he appreciated having a woman’s touch around. Changing the decor was just one of many transitions after getting married; we had a lot to learn about each other since we’d met only a little over a year before. We wanted to spend good quality time together, growing in our relationship with the Lord as we grew closer to each other.

We knew we didn’t want to start a family right away. Our differences reminded us why it was important that we get to know each other as husband and wife. Not only that, I was still teaching and wanted to continue developing my career. I enjoyed my students so much that I wasn’t focused on having children of our own yet.

Tony and I had many opportunities to nurture kids as a couple, too, because Bethany embraced the concept that every child should be cared for by the church. Bethany had programs that reached out to the community, such as vacation Bible school and after-school tutoring and activity programs for young people. I was involved in the Sunday school program, and on top of that, many of our friends at church had children. So whether we were going to their houses or they were coming over to see us, we were always around children. Sometimes we’d even invite kids to spend a weekend with us so their parents could get away. We knew we would have kids of our own eventually, but at that point, with Tony coaching and me teaching, we were happy just to be a support system.

A couple of years into our marriage, though, God made it clear that He had other ideas for us regarding children. During one Sunday service, a group appealed for help from the congregation, telling us about the shortage of willing foster parents in Allegheny County.

Tony and I decided to meet with the guest speakers after the service. They’d set up a little table in the back of the church where they handed out information and answered questions. We also watched a video about foster parenting. We left feeling that we could give children some of the love and attention they weren’t getting in large group homes.

We continued to pray about it and decided to investigate a little more. We had to have a home study and some background checks done, but soon after that we were approved to be foster parents.

It was such a natural thing for us to do. I guess in the back of my mind I remembered my parents hosting foreign exchange students or caring for kids from group homes in the Pittsburgh area who came to our home for a weekend. Later my mom and dad became foster parents and opened their home to over seventy children. In the early nineties, they would end up adopting two of them, Amanda and Devin, bringing the total number of my siblings to six.

On top of that, many young couples in our church were already foster parents. Because of the mutual support and encouragement Tony and I found at Bethany, we were both on board with the idea.

We completed the training program on a Friday, and that same night we received our first call. The social worker asked if we would be able to take in a little boy named Gypsy. He turned out to be an adorable little seven-year-old boy with curly black hair. He arrived with just the clothes on his back and an infectious smile on his face.

Although he was well behaved and extremely intelligent, early on I thought he might have a tendency to make up stories. For example, it bothered me when he told Tony and me about his eight brothers and sisters, whom he said were “living in California in a shelter with the nuns.” When I expressed my concerns to his social worker, she said, “He does have eight siblings, and they do live in California.” Apparently, he had been separated from them at the shelter and was sent back to Pittsburgh to live with his mother.

We ended up caring for Gypsy for over a year. His sweet sister Jayme was in our home for a number of months too. Several times the social worker informed us that a court date for a custody hearing had been scheduled. As the date rolled around, Gypsy would say, “My mom’s not gonna come. She’s too busy doing other things.” Each time the social worker picked him up, though, we’d say a tearful good-bye, thinking we wouldn’t see him again.

Gypsy was always right; his mom wouldn’t keep her appointment at the hearing, and he would be back with us that evening.

This little boy was used to being bounced around. It was troubling. After one court date, though, we didn’t hear a word until late that night. I told Tony sadly, “Well, that’s it. He’s not coming back.” As we were going to bed at about ten, the doorbell rang. By the time we got to the front door, Gypsy had his little button nose pressed up against the window, and when we opened the door he kept saying, “What took you so long to answer the door?”

I had never imagined it would be Gypsy. As he walked in, he asked matter-of-factly, “Mom Lauren, what did you make for dinner? I’m starving.”

If the uncertainty was hard on us, it was excruciating for Gypsy. On the one hand, he just wanted to be reunited with his siblings. He wanted his family to be together. On the other hand, he liked the stable environment in our home. He appreciated having a predictable schedule and knowing what was going on every day. He loved the security of knowing we would be there when he woke up in the morning and when he went to bed at night.

One of Tony’s former teammates, Jon Kolb, owned a farm where he kept quite a few animals, including horses. Gypsy loved the peaceful and tranquil environment when we took him there one Saturday, so we went a few more times. During our visits, Gypsy purposely began leaving things behind, like a toy or piece of clothing. He’d had so many disappointments and broken promises that he didn’t believe us when we told him we could come back again. If he left something, he figured we’d have to go back and get it.

We finally had to let Gypsy go because the social worker wanted to reunite all nine siblings in one home. We felt that we were too young and that it was too early in our marriage to take on nine children. And that broke my heart. I remember crying for several days when Gypsy left.

The toughest part of fostering, in fact, was never knowing how long we were going to have a child with us. Sometimes we had a boy or girl overnight; other times, a child would stay with us until the parent’s next court visit.

We did sense that the Lord wanted us to help by being foster parents, but it was tough developing an emotional attachment and then watching the kids leave, never knowing what happened to them after they left our home. The rest of fostering was easy: there was a crisis situation and a child was in danger. The social workers needed to place them in a safe home, not a police station or an office building. Those children needed stability, and we could provide the room  —it was that simple.

TONY

As God was bringing foster children into our lives and preparing us for our own children one day, He was also helping us learn to adjust to the differences in the families we’d grown up in. Because we lived in Pittsburgh, we spent more time with Lauren’s family. I enjoyed being around my brothers-in-law, even though it was not at all like being with my own sisters and brother. While my family had opinions, they usually waited until someone asked what they thought before speaking up. Lauren’s brothers didn’t hesitate to ask personal questions, and nothing was off limits. When we’d make a major purchase  —like a house or a car  —they’d ask, “Where did you get it?” “How much did you pay?” and “What were you thinking?”

Their questions weren’t limited to our home life either. As soon as Lauren’s brothers walked through our door, they’d start telling me what defense the Steelers should run the next week or what had gone wrong the week before. While their probing caught me off guard at first, I quickly realized it was their way of showing that they cared about me and that they welcomed me into the family as a brother. They wanted me to be successful, and analyzing and scrutinizing everything I did was their way of helping. Also, I knew the Bible said, “There is safety in having many advisers” (Proverbs 11:14), so I was open to their advice.

While I adjusted to getting her brothers’ input about everything, Lauren learned to accept my parents’ unpredictability whenever they came to visit. The Harris home had been more structured than mine, with a fairly regular schedule and dinner hour. Early in our marriage, my mom and dad often drove from Michigan to attend Steelers games, but they didn’t always let us know what time they would arrive. Sometimes they even stopped by the mall before coming to our home.

Lauren felt she should serve my parents a proper meal and make them feel welcome, but that could be difficult because she was never sure what time they’d arrive. Sometimes, when it was approaching ten or eleven at night and we still hadn’t seen them, Lauren even worried that they’d run into trouble on the road. Rather than stay silent, Lauren eventually told them her concerns. When she did, my parents reassured her that they didn’t mind eating late and promised to let her know if they were delayed on the road so she wouldn’t worry about their safety.

I admired Lauren’s willingness to speak up when necessary, and she sometimes encouraged me to do so as well. For example, when Woody Widenhofer, the Steelers’ defensive coordinator, left to become head coach of the USFL’s Oklahoma Outlaws, I thought I was in line for his job. Coach Noll had never talked to me about it, but he wasn’t interviewing other coaches either.

Lauren kept telling me, “If you want the job, go in and discuss it with Chuck.” But I’ve always felt that if you have to come out and ask, you’re not going to get the position.

A couple of weeks after Woody left, Chuck and I were in New Orleans for the Scouting Combine, an opportunity for NFL scouts to watch guys who will be in that year’s draft work out together. One evening Chuck asked me if I wanted to take a walk with him to Preservation Hall. I agreed, and I was sure he would use that occasion to tell me I was going to get the job, but he really did just want to go listen to jazz, one of his passions. He said nothing at all about the defensive coordinator position.

I went back to the hotel and called Lauren. She asked, “Well, do you have the job?”

“I don’t know!” I said.

Lauren was shocked. “What did you two talk about? How did you end the conversation?” She finally convinced me to at least talk with Coach Noll to find out if he was going to promote me or if he’d decided to go in a different direction. He looked surprised when I finally got up the nerve to ask him about the opening.

“Of course I’m promoting you,” he told me. “You know more about the defense than anyone else on the staff.” Apparently his decision was so obvious that he hadn’t even mentioned it.

Along with the new responsibility, I got a raise, which enabled Lauren and me to look for a new house. We both liked where we lived, but in the back of Lauren’s mind, she wanted to select a home together, as husband and wife. Because her dad was a real estate and insurance broker, he often told us about new developments and offered to show us new listings  —all of which coincidentally happened to be closer to the Harris family.

We finally settled on a four-bedroom colonial home in the North Hills area of Pittsburgh, not far from Lauren’s family. John Kolb loaned us his flatbed truck from the farm, and it seemed as if everybody from Bethany turned out to help us pack and load the flatbed. It was like a big church-wide event, with friends loading up our belongings and driving with us to our new home.

I’m not sure what the neighbors thought. Rather than watching uniformed workers and professional moving vans, they saw forty people and a big flatbed truck. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies as we drove up the street with our possessions secured with ropes to the truck, but it was another great Bethany moment. And when we finished the job, Lauren spread tablecloths on our lawn to set up a lunch and feed the famished workers.

Lauren

With two acres of property, we had plenty of room to entertain guests in our yard. We also had room for a vegetable garden. As I was planning out the garden shortly after we’d moved in, I had my first long, in-depth conversation with Tony’s dad, who was visiting from Michigan.

I had taken him out to the garden and asked him how many inches apart I should plant the green beans. Two hours later, he was still telling me about soil content and photosynthesis. I was burning up in that hot July sun but I loved spending time with him and hearing his knowledge and wisdom. That was the day I discovered that Wilbur Dungy was indeed a man of few words  —until you asked him about something he was passionate about. He was a biology teacher with a world of knowledge about the outdoors and plant life specifically.

Now that Tony and I had a couple of acres of rolling hills, we bought a riding mower. I’d always wanted to mow the grass when I was growing up, but that chore was delegated to my brothers while my sister and I were responsible for the laundry and indoor cleaning. I didn’t mind our defined roles and the order and structure they brought, but at times I would have enjoyed doing some of those things my brothers did. When neighbors would ask Tony or me why he made me cut the grass, I told them he wasn’t forcing me. I loved being outdoors, along with the instant gratification that comes from a nice-looking lawn and the smell of freshly cut grass.

After Tony’s promotion and our move into a new home, I left my teaching position to be at home full time. We now felt ready to start a family. Beautiful Tiara Nicole was born in late 1984. She looked like a baby doll with her delicate features and angelic face. I would hold her for hours and marvel at how beautiful she was. Having a new baby in the family is a huge transition for most couples, but it really wasn’t for Tony and me. My mom stayed with us for the first few weeks to help out, and I was grateful for her support. But we had so much child-care experience and preparation from teaching and caring for foster children and babies at church that Tiara’s arrival didn’t seem to change much of anything. She was the ideal baby, sleeping through the night in no time.

God’s timing seemed perfect, since once we were in the new house, our support system was that much closer to us. My parents and aunts and uncles in the Sewickley area were eager and available to help with Tiara and anything else we needed. And within minutes of walking through the church doors, someone was taking Tiara in her arms to hold and cuddle.

Handsome James Anthony, whom we lovingly called Jamie, was born just over two years later. At nine pounds and twenty-one and a half inches long, he seemed destined to be the next Magic Johnson. When he was born, the spoiling from family started all over again! Tony wasn’t sure Jamie would get quite as much attention since he was a boy, but that wasn’t the case. Both babies spent many weekends at the home of my parents, whom the kids called Grandma Bird and Pop Pop. They always came home with new outfits and toys and were worn out from all the love and attention doled out to them.

By the time Jamie was born, Tony and I had been married just over five years. We didn’t think life could have been much better. To start our family life in my hometown of Pittsburgh, where Tony was able to work for Chuck Noll, was such a blessing.

It was a great time in our lives, but a time that would not last forever.