One of the idols of this time was Vince Lombardi, the exalted Green Bay coach who went on to coach the Washington Redskins. I was not one of his admirers. Hence this column: February 6: Saint Lombardi Isn't Perfect So Vincent Thomas Lombardi, who preached the higher football gospel, is leaving Green Bay to go to theWashington Redskins. Lombardi, who always talked about duty and responsibility, carried on sub rosa negotiations with Washington though his Green Bay people were never asked-nor gave-their permission for these contacts. And Lombardi, who brought religion and morality to the fore in running a football team, is leaving Green Bay to take over the Washington coaching operation though there is a clause in his Green Bay contract which forbids him from coaching another National Football League team until 1974. Nobody's perfect. While the last minute sticky negotiations were going on to spring Lombardi loose from the Green Bay Corporation, (he once said, "Unfortunately, it has become too much of a custom to ridicule the corporation man because he is dedicated to a principal he believes in") Lombardi was accepting the Catholic Youth Organization's John V. (formerly Giants president) Mara Sportsman of the Year award for "…his outstanding achievement in professional football while maintaining a high standard of exemplary conduct worthy of emulation by the youth of America." The award presentation took place in New York, not GreenBay. There's no inclination here to deny Lombardi's right to quit a job. It's part of the American heritatge to try to better one's self at all times. And Lombardi has always tried to better himself. Lombardi became more than just a successful football coach. He came to be regarded as a genius. It's funny; Red Auerbach, the Boston Celtics basketball coach, won twice as many championships as Lombardi or anybody else, but nobody ever stooped so low or silly as to seriously speak of this basketball coach as a genius. Lombardi came to stand for something more than a genius. He came to personify righteous thinking; the old values of home, family and religion. If things were going to pot in this this country, by God, it was because there weren't enough men like Vince Lombardi around. At businessmen's luncheons Lombardi said there had developed in this nation an abuse of freedom, freedom without responsibility. He said, "Everywhere you look there is a call for freedom and independence or whatever you want to call it. As much as the people want to be independent, they still want to be told what to do." This is the received truth these audiences want to hear. It's this kind of thing that the Rotarians want to hurl into the teeth of people they look on as hippie-pinko-black militant-bleeding hearts who are dedicated to tearing down the republic and all the good things that football and winning stand for. Such things have been said by more worldly men than Vincent Lombardi, but none of them ever established a football dynasty the way Lombardi did. Lombardi used to tell his Green Bay players, "There are three things that are important to every man in this room: his religion, his family and the Green Bay Packers-in that order." Because Lombardi wrapped himself in a mantle of purity and dedication to the cause, he could hold up loyalty to himself and the Packers as one of the bedrock tenets of the Packer family. He branded it it acts of dishonor and disloyalty when Ron Kramer and Jim Taylor played out their options and left to join other teams. Now, Lombardi is jumping his Green Bay contract--and how do you cockadoodle-do Jim Taylor.? In the long run it probably won't matter much to most football people that Lombardi showed somethng less than 100 percent fealty to his own professed code of responsibility in jumping from Green Bay to Washington. Pointing that out is only being picky. The important thing in sports as we experience it will be that Lombardi will bring victory to Washington-and it's almost understood that Lombardi will win, isn't it? To look beyond the cult of personality that has grown up around Lombardi, and to see through his pretensions, is to recognize the singular things about the man. He was a winner. And as long as he won, it didn't matter what kind of a man he was. Instead, because he won, the kind of man he was became the fashion. People copied his methods and they laughed over eccentricities that would be condemned in other men. It became a definitive joke to quote colorful lineman Henry Jordan's comment, "Lombardi treats us all the same," Jordan said. "Like dogs." Lombardi is such a good coach-a genius remember-and almost certainly will mold a winner at Washington-a dynasty perhaps-that this relevant comment shouldn't even be mentioned. But just for the hell of it, it might be worth passing on a remark of Willie Davis, one of Lombardi's prize pupils at Green Bay. "Of course Lombrdi can be difficult," Davis said. "I've always felt it would be impossible to play under him if we didn't win. I don't think I could take him."
Lombardi started to build a winning tradition at Washington, but time ran out. He had a record of seven victories, five losses and two ties his first year, but died in 1970 at 57. He was a tough man to deal with for reporters. He was accustomed to a sycophantic press around him in Green Bay so it was difficult in the crucible of a post-game locker room to shoot questions at him and get answers. We were in his domain and he was able to bulldoze people and ridicule questions he didn't like. One of the definitive jokes about him was an apocraphyl anecdote involving his wife, Marie. She gets into bed with him on a frigid night in Green Bay and says, "God it's cold." He says, "Honey, at home you can call me Vince." Years after Vince's death she was selected by the National Football League to conduct the pre-game coin toss at the Super Bowl.. Asked what she thought her husband would have thought of this, she said, "He probably would have said, 'Get that woman the hell off the field.' '' Lombardi later was honored by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. when it named one of the rest stops along the turnpike for him. The stops were named for New Jersey heros, among them poet Joyce Kilmer, Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Grover Cleveland--and the macho man, Vince Lombardi. It evolved that the Lombardi rest stop near the Pulaski Skyway became a trysting place for homosexuals. Marie Lombardi launched a complaint to the Authority to stop this. Lombardi had a rugged charm. Steve Sabol, the head of National Football League Films, enjoyed a joking relationship with Lombardi. Sabol once requested an autographed picture. Lombardi granted the request and wrote "To Steve, a schmuck if I ever saw one." Sabol treasures the photo.
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Football is like war. But they don't kill each other. That purifies it. |
Ted Is Back in the Rat Race 
