HEADLINE

Former Titans WR Dyson graduates to middle school principal

Field Level Media

May 24, 2019 at 8:55 pm.

Kevin Dyson may have come up a yard short in one of the greatest finishes in Super Bowl history, but he never let up on his pursuit of education — his own and that of others.

Nearly 20 years after nearly climbing to the top of the football world, Dyson is sitting atop the academic world at a middle school in Tennessee. As the principal.

Interim Williamson County superintendent Jason Golden on Friday announced that Dyson, 43, is the new permanent principal at Grassland Middle School in Franklin.

“He has served the school well during his interim period, and I’ve been especially impressed with the positive relationships he’s built in such a short time,” Golden told school faculty, according to the school district’s web site. “Teaching and learning matter at Grassland, and we look forward to Dr. Dyson leading this great school.”

It is quite a change compared to a playoff run in which Dyson took part in two of the most famous plays in recent football history. In Super Bowl 34 in Atlanta on Jan. 30, 2000, Dyson and the Tennessee Titans trailed the St. Louis Rams 23-16 with five seconds to play and the Titans with the ball on the Rams’ 10-yard line.

Titans quarterback Steve McNair completed a pass for a slanting Dyson, who appeared headed for the end zone and a potential game-tying (or winning) score. But Rams linebacker Mike Jones wrapped Dyson’s legs and tackled him a yard short of the end zone. The play would become known as “The Tackle.”

Earlier that same postseason, Dyson took a lateral on a kickoff and raced 75 yards down the left sideline and into the end zone with no time left to beat the Buffalo Bills 22-16 in a wild-card game — “The Music City Miracle.”

While Dyson’s playing career would be over by the end of 2003, his education had many years left. After earning master’s degrees in both leadership and teaching from Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Dyson earned his doctorate in leadership and practical practice, also at Trevecca, last July.

“A lot of people have looked at me crazy when I’ve said this, but to me this is a lot greater accomplishment than being drafted in the first round, than my football career,” Dyson, picked No. 16 overall by the then-Tennessee Oilers in 1998, told The Tennesseean last summer. “… I went to school so I could play sports. I had to be eligible. I didn’t take education nearly as seriously as I should have and as I do as an adult. So this was greater because I’ve never considered myself academic. … Until a few years ago, I never wanted to do anything like this. That’s why it’s my greatest personal accomplishment. It’s my Mount Everest.”