“…I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour – his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear - is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he’s exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.”
- Vince Lombardi (1913-1970)
1. The Super Bowl and The Lombardi Trophy
Vince Lombardi is one of my heroes. Not because he won a lot of games but because he impacted so many lives.
The iconic Lombardi Trophy will be handed out this Sunday to the winner of Bowl LX . It was named for the legendary coach, who won five NFL championships in nine seasons and the first two Super Bowls in 1966 and 1967 as Head Coach of the Green Bay Packers. Many recognize the Trophy, but fewer know the story of the man for whom the trophy is named.
One of my favorite books of all time is When Pride Still Mattered, A Vince Lombardi Story by David Maraniss. The book meticulously details the life of Lombardi from his childhood all the way through the final moments of his all-too-short life. Below I will share three stories that I believe best exemplify the greatness of Lombardi. First is a story about his time at St Cecilia High School. Second, is a story about his time in Green Bay. Third, is a story of the pilgrimage his players made to see him in the hospital before he passed at age 57, while coach of the Washington Redskins.
Before I dive into the three stories, let’s take a brief look at his 57 years on God’s earth.
2. When Pride Still Mattered
Lombardi was born into an Italian-Catholic family in Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn in 1913. He grew up with two loves, football and the Catholic Church. According to Maraniss, “I don’t think you can understand Lombardi unless you understand the role religion played in his life”. At age 15, he had visions of becoming Father Lombardi and even enrolled in studies that prepared teenage boys for priesthood.
Ultimately, he had a change of heart and after high school, Lombardi attended the Jesuit School Fordham University in The Bronx, New York where he played football and planned on becoming a lawyer. He became a member of the Seven Blocks of Granite, the legendary line of the 1936 and 1937 football teams. He graduated with high honors but left law school early and bounced around for a while before being hired as a schoolteacher and coach at St Cecilia High School in Englewood, NJ in 1939.
He left St Cecilia in 1947 to coach the freshman team at Fordham before leaving to become an assistant coach under the legendary Red Blaik at Army in 1949. His first venture into the NFL came in 1954 at age 41 when Lombardi joined the New York Giants to be the team’s Offensive Coordinator. He helped the Giants go 39-19-2 over five seasons including an NFL Championship in 1956 before he finally got his first offer to become head coach of the Green Bay Packers in 1959 at age 45.
He took over the Packers in 1959 and spent the next nine years in Green Bay as Head Coach. He stepped down in 1968 to become the teams’ general manager. Realizing his mistake, Lombardi returned to the sidelines in 1969 as Head Coach and an Equity Partner of the Washington Redskins. After one season as head coach in Washington, Lombardi was diagnosed with an aggressive form of colon cancer in June 1970 and passed in September 1970. The NFL Championship Trophy was renamed The Lombardi Trophy shortly after his death and was awarded for the first time to the Baltimore Colts who defeated the Dallas Cowboys on January 17, 1971 in Super Bowl V.
3. Lombardi the High School Basketball Coach?
The first of my three favorite Lombardi stories is about his time at little St Cecilia High School in Englewood, NJ…
Lombardi fell into coaching almost by accident. He was 26 years old and unenthusiastically working with his father down on the docks and making collections for a finance company. At the same time, his former college teammate Nat Pierce was leaving “Saints” to join the coaching staff at Fordham University. Pierce offered to help find his replacement at Saints and called former teammate Andy Palau who quickly accepted the offer. Palau’s first order of business was to hire an assistant coach and he began reaching out to some of his former teammates as well.
He placed several calls with no luck before his former baseball coach Jack Coffey suggested he “call Vinnie Lombardi”. And the rest, they say, is history. Lombardi quickly accepted the job. While he would go on to have great success at Saints as a football coach winning six NJ state championships, my favorite part of the story was he also became the head basketball coach out of necessity. Being less familiar with the sport, Lombardi went to the library and took out a book on coaching basketball to be his guide. He won the school’s first and only NJ state basketball championship in 1945.
4. The Frozen Tundra of Green Bay, Wisconsin
My second story about Lombardi has to do with his time immediately before arriving and departing Green Bay…
Typically, when we hear stories about a “boy makes good”, it’s about the small-town boy who summons the courage to leave his small hometown and move to the big city with aspirations of conquering the world. Except for his five years at West Point, Lombardi spent the first 45 years of his life in and around New York City.
For him to make the jump to the highest level of coaching, he had to depart the big city and venture out to tiny Green Bay, Wisconsin, population 62,000 in 1959. His daughter Susan tells the story of her dad coming home with a map to show the family where exactly they were moving. After her father could not locate Green Bay on the map for several minutes, 12-year-old Susan grew frustrated and demanded “I am not moving anywhere that is not on the map”.
Not only was their lifestyle about to be upended, but Lombardi was leaving a New York Giants team who had winning seasons in each of his five years as offensive coordinator and appeared in two NFL championships, winning one in 1956 over the Chicago Bears. He was inheriting a Green Bay Packers team that won one game in 1958 and had not had a winning season in eleven years. In his very first season, the Packers would win seven games and in his second season they would appear in the NFL Championship Game.
In his nine short years as Head Coach in Green Bay from 1959 to 1967, Lombardi would post a winning record in all nine seasons. His Packer teams would finish first or second in the NFL’s West Division eight times, winning five of the six championship games in which they appeared. The Packers won the first two Super Bowls in Lombardi’s last two seasons in 1966 and 1967, firmly establishing Green Bay as “Titletown” forever more.
As a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan, I can only hope that my hometown team strikes gold 67 years later like Green Bay did in 1959.
5. Legacy and Impact
My final Vince Lombardi story has to do with his legacy and the impact he had on people, particularly the lives of his players...
Lombardi was only 57 years old when he passed. He was preparing for his 11th season as a head coach when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He would pass less than 10 weeks after his diagnosis. While Lombardi excelled as a football coach, he always believed that God had a higher calling for him. Many believe, including his biographer Moraniss, that Lombardi used football as his pulpit. The evidence of his impact was apparent during the summer of 1970, when his former players made a pilgrimage to Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC to say goodbye to their coach.
One of those players, Jerry Kramer, a guard on all nine of Lombardi’s Packers teams tells a story of how he believed Lombardi went out of his way to be tough on him during their first training camp together. As Kramer sulked in the locker room after one particularly difficult practice, he imagined how much better life would be on another team in another town. Just then, Lombardi walked through the locker room door, and as he got to Kramer, patted him on the back of the neck and said “one day you are going to be the best guard in football”. Kramer was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton in 2018.
Quarterback Bart Starr was a 17th round draft pick (the NFL draft had 30 rounds back then) out of the University of Alabama in 1956. He was 3-15-1 as a starter in his first three seasons before Lombardi’s arrival. He tells a story of how he loved Lombardi instantly, beginning with Lombardi’s first team meeting with the Packers in 1959. Starr said that Lombardi walked into the room and told his players “gentlemen we are going to relentlessly chase perfection knowing full well we won’t catch it because nothing is perfect. But in the process, we will catch excellence. I am not remotely interested in being just good.” Starr said he called his wife after the meeting and told her “honey, I believe we are going to start winning”. Starr was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.
6. A Life of Vince Lombardi
Vince Lombardi was a man who loved his faith and his football. He believed that great coaches had to be great teachers. He proved we can use our stations in life to impact positively the lives of others.
He did that at St Cecilia, Fordham, West Point, the New York Giants, Green Bay Packers and during his short time in Washington. The final line of Maraniss’ book is Lombardi’s favorite quote from Scripture, in St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. “Brethren: Don’t you know that while all the runners in the stadium take part in the race, only one wins the prize. Run to win.”
7. Super Bowl LV
Lombardi is one of my heroes. I hope you now know more about the man behind the trophy. While Roger Goodell is congratulating the owner of the winning team on Sunday evening, I plan to take a moment to remember the legend who helped make Super Bowl Sunday what it is today. I hope you will too.
If you would like to do a deeper dive into Lombardi’s life, I highly recommend heading up to your local public library and picking up a copy of “When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi” by David Maraniss. If you prefer the 90-minute documentary version, then check out “Vince Lombardi, A Football Life” for free on YouTube.