TAMPA — They walked into the original One Buc Place together in 1996, new members of Tony Dungy's coaching staff. Rod Marinelli, a white former Vietnam vet who coached the defensive line at Southern California and Lovie Smith, nine years younger, an African-American from Big Sandy, Texas, who coached defensive backs at Ohio State.
"We're about as different as you can imagine," Smith said.
They also were on the last rung of the Bucs' coaching ladder and forced to share a room at the Holiday Inn in Tampa while the rest of the staff had separate rooms at the airport Marriott.