Vince Lombardi: The Coach Who Put Green Bay on the Map | A Football Life

[Music] all right the big announcement we are moving to green bay wisconsin i'm going where's wisconsin so the next day my father comes home with a map he said this is the state of wisconsin and he's looking going back and i even know that i'm and i'm going well i'm i'm not moving any place that's not on the map and he said when i am done it will be on that map and you'll know exactly susan where you lived you're going to be at the moment today is the best day of your life you might be the finest quarterback produced in the last 10 years that's all i need unfortunately for me i didn't live in my life i didn't lose my job football convinced him that life is a team game [Music] nobody winning uh well i think it's only natural that anyone would think that to win is is important that's the reason you're in this business if you have any kind of pride or any kind of dedication or any kind of backbone or spunk to you should try to be the best in your own profession regardless of what it is anybody who has the idea that just to play or just to take part and that's all is necessary i think he's in the wrong business i think i think he's in the wrong country let me put it that way i think one of the things that made america great is to try to be the best in everything that they do and the best again is signified by winning in the winter of 1959 vince lombardi a born and bred new yorker packed up himself and his family and drove to pro football's farthest outpost green bay wisconsin it may have been the siberia of the nfl but to the new head coach of the packers green bay marked the end of a long and frustrating road that began 45 years earlier [Applause] i was born on june 11th 1913 i was born in the old chiefs at bay section of brooklyn my father was a meat cutter first and then went into business for himself in the wholesale meat business he worked hard and he expected us to be the same way my father was very heavily tattooed he had tattoos on his fingers one hand said work had w-o-r-k and the other one was play p-l-a-y work and play sort of the dichotomy of life i'm not sure how much harry lombardi got to play he worked most of the time as the boys grew up they went to work in that meat packing and they were carrying half of a cow and i think that was my grandfather's way of teaching discipline hauling meat held little appeal to the lombardi's eldest son vince who was urged onto a more spiritual path by his mother matilda we've always been made aware of the importance of church our grade schools were always catholic schools finn became an altar boy and he enjoyed it i don't think he can understand lombardi without understanding the role of religion in his life vince's faith was so profound that at 15 he had visions of becoming father lombardi he even enrolled in a school that prepared teenage boys for the priesthood but short of completing his study he had a change of heart i think he left for a couple reasons why does he like girls and the others he liked football and neither of those could be done at cathedral prep but rather than abandon his faith vince found a way to balance it with football rising from the brooklyn sandlots to high school prominence he became the first lombardi to attend college when he accepted a scholarship to the jesuit school fordham university when he arrived at the bronx campus as a freshman in 1933 fordham was a national football power number 40 right guard not the most talented but uh he was tenacious and uh never quit you're sighted and colorblind doesn't matter for an offensive lineman uh you don't have to see too far removed from the sheltered world of his italian neighborhood vince was being exposed to the harsh realities of life [Music] a teammate of his made a comment lombardi come over here and stand next to this other fellow i want to see which one of you is the darker complexion to an italian i was a pretty good insult and fight ensued they both ended up in the infirmary and my dad really thought his football career at fordham was over that he was gonna get thrown out of school as a consequence though lombardi's suspension lasted only days his sensitivity to prejudice would stay with him for a lifetime it was an era when that sort of discrimination against italians was commonplace it was one of the driving forces of lombardy's life he had something to prove and that drove him to achieve even more as did the lessons he took from the jesuits the jesuits were rigorous academics and you were pushed to be the best that you can be with with what you have academically sports wise whatever it was the striving for perfection and the giving of everything that lombardi took out of the jesuits and brought to his entire life afterwards lombardi was often injured and sat out much of his first three seasons once healthy he played both offense and defense and became a fixture on fordham's celebrated line which was never better than during the showdown with national power pittsburgh a game that came down to a goal line stand bobby larue crashes the line only to find fordham's magnificent forward wall holding him at the line of scrimmage the game ended in a scoreless tie fordham remained unbeaten it was his proudest moment as a football player he was one of the heroes of that great game in their finest season the fordham line wrote itself into college football lore and the undersized lombardi was immortalized as one of the seven blocks of granite he wasn't a great player but he was part of this group and that's what the seven blocks represent this group all working in concert [Music] for a couple of years after graduation vince lombardi was at loose ends he gave law school a try but after one semester dropped out he kind of knocked around played a little semi-pro football and as i recall he worked for a collection agency and wasn't thrilled with that at 26 lombardi was still looking for a career when an unexpected offer came his way when he was asked to be an assistant high school coach lombardi jumped at the chance though it was the other part of the job that piqued his interest my dad taught at saint cecilia's high school in englewood new jersey which is a immediate suburb of new york city taught chemistry physics and latin and he was a very good teacher i can remember he threw an eraser at my wife one time because she was gabbing in the back of the classroom he was a stickler to make sure that you understood the subject he did take time for kids who were a little slower and he was patient with him his patience in the classroom translated to the football field and helped elevate him from assistant to head coach i remember when we came out for practice before the season began he had a football and he said this is a football and he took the football and threw it away and that's the last you're going to see of a football for two weeks for two weeks it was merciless calisthenics the practices were not only long but difficult they we went into the evening we would be scrimmaging under headlights from cars he was a great believer in the fundamentals i want you to block block block and run he was that way you know it makes you say they don't belong in the same field with you you know i said to myself you're talking about the guys out there their foot over my head they're about 30 pounds heavier than me they're killing me out there but you get to the point where you're saying jesus maybe maybe he's right maybe he knows something that i don't know you know and you start playing maybe a little over your head lombardi spent eight years at saint cecilia's five as head coach the tiny catholic school had an enrollment of 300 but won six straight parochial school state titles and racked up a consecutive streak of 32 unbeaten games somehow saint cecilia's was beating schools with 10 times its student body you have to attribute that to him see he was different he knew how to get the most out of his players he was a genius at that lombardi had a natural gift for leadership which the basketball team soon discovered vince never played it vince never coached it he goes to the library and he gets a book by the head coach at smu who wrote this book like i don't know 15 20 years earlier when the center jump was after every basket using that book as his guide you've got to make so many passes that's what you got to make so many passes i don't care if you're standing alone but you've got to make so many people so he coaches out of this textbook which becomes his bible and he wins the state championship he didn't know much about baseball but he knew about people he's a master psychologist he rode me he embarrassed me you know he hounded me but he never let me leave the gym without coming over and pat me on a butt say mick today was a tough day tomorrow's going to be a better day he just made me want to play harder he loved the the sensation of developing a team and then prevailing that addiction of winning sort of hit him at saint cecilia and he realized that this is what he could do [Music] i think coaching is teaching so i don't think there's any difference whether you teach on the football field or whether you teach in the classroom right they're both exactly the same it's a it's a question of a good teacher puts across what he must put across to these pupils whether it's done on a football field whether it's done in the classroom is one of the same thing [Music] while at saint cecilia's vince lombardi found a clear path to his future in 1940 he married marie planets his college sweetheart and the only girl he ever dated within two years son vincent was born daughter susan arrived five years after that [Music] almost from the start marie discovered she wasn't vince's only love they were in the honeymoon and my father turned to my mother and says well honeymoon's over i gotta go home go to st to see a training camp i honestly believe that she taught herself football and she made up a mind that she was going to try to become a part of his life they had ups and downs in their marriage almost always related to the fact that he was obsessed with something else and that football was indeed his mistress by the time lombardi was in his mid-30s leading a small high school team no longer satisfied his growing passion for coaching he had bigger dreams and thought he could fulfill them at his alma mater he moved on to fordham as an assistant coach with the belief that he would be the next head coach but lombardi was basically shut out and completely disappointed and the frustration started he knew all the guys who coach on the red blanket army seem to get head coaching jobs so he said i'll see if i can get up there because he wanted now to make his big step and he also knew he could learn from blake i was a neophyte as far as football was concerned until i went to west point of course red blake was the number one coach in the country in 1949 short of coaching his own team lombardi got the next best thing the chance to run the offensive backfield at perennial power army where he worshipped at the altar of red blake i've got to give him all the credit for whatever i know in football as far as organization of practices organization of thinking particularly as far as film is concerned blake was a fanatic over studying film and preparing and breaking down game film and the opposition at west point they were up in the turret of the athletic building studying film day and night lombardi followed to the letter blake's painstaking approach to detail and in his first two years at army the team lost only one game but lombardi's uncompromising work ethic took its toll on his family he would come home fairly late at night distracted pull into the wrong driveway and walk into the wrong house physically he'd be home mentally he was always somewhere else and i don't think marie handled that very well this uh separate life of his of football marie started to enjoy drinking at that point it was an escape for because vin wasn't there all the time for her to the exclusion of everything else lombardi was focused on football in his relentless pursuit of a head coaching job he hoped west point would be the catalyst for such a move air force was looking for a coach notre dame was looking for a coach but he wasn't getting much attention he applied for the head job at wake forest vince got a call from one of the people who interviewed him down there who liked them and wanted to hire him and said vince you better look around and and do something else because i am convinced they're not gonna hire a head coach whose name ends in a vowel and ending in a vowel equals italian american that army over the course of those five years i think the frustration built he he started to see some of the other assistant coaches getting head coaching jobs elsewhere and lombardi was being passed up but in 1953 vince lombardi felt a glimmer of hope when the new york giants went looking for a head coach wellington mara a fordham classmate of lombardi's and son of the team's owner was leading the search rumor had it that lombardi was their man would have been a dream come true to be the head coach of the giants where they're you know born and raised and have friends and family it turned out that in fact the marrows were more interested in his boss red blake and thought that he maybe he would come to new york to be the coach red blake turned the giants down but recommended that they hire lombardi to run their offense it wasn't ideal to be an assistant at 41 but at least he'd be coaching grown men and not boys when we got him he was really raw and he liked to treat us like we were in high school that didn't go over too well with some of the guys we had playing so there was a bit of a disconnect behind his back some of those veteran guys were kind of we could really get to him in little ways we'd take the chalk away from him and he'd just get furious screaming yelling who took my chalk we didn't dislike him or anything we just thought he was kind of weird because no one in the professional game you know coached like that when he did some silly things like yelling barking giving you a lap or something like that it got to a point where he was laughable lombardi's transition to the pro game was a humbling experience so much so that he sought advice from an unlikely source charlie connolly was my roommate one night lombardi came into our room he literally said what am i doing wrong i had some definite ideas some of which were good and some of which were not so good and i got some great deal of help from some of the giant players such as frank gifford and charlie conley i had to change my way of thinking in many many areas then all of a sudden football knowledge began to pour out of him he became a success with us when he became one of the guys by 1956 lombardi had fully adjusted to the nfl he centered the offense around frank gifford gifford responded with his best season with equally outstanding defense led by another promising assistant tom landry the giants went to the championship game on an icy field before 56 836 the mighty bears kick off the world championship game in yankee stadium tom literally was the head coach of the defense jimmy howard and head coach didn't get involved in any of he didn't understand it lombardi would become the head coach of the offense connolly now throws the final touchdown to gifford and the giants become world champions in a stunning tremendous 47-7 win over the chicago bears the monsters of the midway in 1958 the assistant coaches led the giants back to the title game where they faced johnny unitas and the baltimore colts the giants lost in overtime but history would remember it as the greatest game ever played [Applause] the game helped elevate pro football to an american religion and the little-known assistant coach standing on the giant sideline would become its patron saint for now however the climax to the nfl's first sudden death finish lingered with the 45 million viewers who witnessed it on national television as those images slowly began to fade lombardi would emerge from the shadows i had felt that i had uh i had done what i could for the giants really and i i just felt that it was time for me to move really and i i made it a point to to try to move i couldn't do anything with the giants i couldn't advance anymore i had to be more or less acceptable by what i was what i was with the giants and that's what it was otherwise i was status quo as far as the giants were concerned i wasn't going to be satisfied as an assistant coach and i wanted to be a head coach of a professional football team and green bay gave me the chance to be one in january 1959 green bay wisconsin saw the dawning of a new era the smallest nfl city had seen its once proud franchise reduced to a last place team that won a single game in 1958 disgusted fans had seen enough and hung team president dominic olanicek in effigy they were really in danger of actually losing their franchise it was a very a vulnerable situation we were hoping chain would come i get a kick out of you said well we expected something no one no one expected coach lombardi he was completely ready he had a fire in him unlike any other coach it's the fact that he had those 20 years in the vineyards preparing himself thinking that he was better than people realized all of those frustrations made the great lombardi possible when lombardi came in he said i know there's a board of directors and he says i want to make one thing perfectly clear i'm in charge here even though his only head coaching experience was limited to high school 45 year old vince lombardi also insisted on becoming general manager since the packers were community owned it was up to the executive board and team president olanicek to address lombardi's demands ole niziaki treated uh like a janitor early on they played a inner squad game and lombardi sat up in the stands and ola nachek came down the next day and he said here's a list of things that the board of directors said were wrong and lombardi took the paper crumpled it up threw it on the ground he says i'll coach the damn team gotta remember something vince worked so hard to get where he got failure could not be an option because he always believed in his heart he'd never get another chance tell you how proud we are to have you a part of the practice just as you should be proud to be to be here to be a part of this team when he walked into the meeting and he looked us right in the eyes he said gentlemen we're going to relentlessly chase perfection knowing full well we won't catch it because nothing is perfect but we're going to relentlessly and that's how he blurted it chase it because in the process we will catch excellence he said i'm not remotely interested in being just good holy mackerel man i was just up like this i didn't even need a seat to sit on i was like this ready to go in august 1959 green bay's new head coach opened his first training camp i was in a marine boot camp for two years i knew all about a tough it was and these things were picnics compared to what he did come on the field first he took a lap that was fine then the receivers would go out and run patterns they say okay now we start practice and then we went to up down up let's go and up down is running in place when he says front you hit your belly back you hit your back and you would do that to the point of exhaustion guys would lose consciousness on the field vomiting it wasn't uncommon to see a guy just keel over it was unbelievable we always looked at each other we couldn't believe this guy is crazy big thing is that he recognized the talent which was there we had a lot of talent nitzke jimmy taylor ringo myself forced greg horny star there were 13 guys who were pro bowl all-pro or hall of fame on that 58 team and we were 110 and one i believe we'll have a nucleus about which we can build the future lombardi's first official game as head coach had finally arrived hosting the bears green bay pulled off an upset winning nine to six it was only the first game of the season but the packers celebrated as if they had won the championship i think it was self-preservation make him happy maybe he'll be nice around us tomorrow but i don't know the packers ended up with a 7-5 record their first winning season in 11 years now that his authority went unchallenged lombardi was free to instill in his players the same values that had been driven into him i think the jesuit influence was there you know the discipline the the striving for excellence and he really incorporated a lot of that into his both his personality and the way he conceived of a football team he either had to believe in him and live to his values and his discipline and everything he was about or you're out of here after a dismal decade the packers were responding to lombardi's too leadership getting in there man how this man is being way to hell back here you never get to the hole the teacher was schooling his players on everything from how to read a defense to how to tell time liberty time is early time a minimum five minutes early ten minutes early fifteen minutes early we all ran on lombardi time yeah we all became compulsive punctuals the first time i went to the bus was to leave at 11 o'clock i got there at 10 of 11 i was five minutes late as trivial as it seemed there was a method to his madness i really think what was behind it was these guys were his guys they were playing his game under his auspices and he wanted them to accept what he said and then that became gospel here was a man that i just liked from the day we met him in that first meeting but because i had not shown much in his eyes i had to work my way up there a 17th round draft pick in 1956 out of alabama bart starr had little to show for his brief nfl career he now had to prove he could be the leader lombardi wanted him to be that process would start on the practice field i throw a pass and it's tipped the ball is intercepted and he is chewing my you know what out just unbelievable such a coach may i see you after practice he said sure so i went down into his office and said coach i can take your chewing that doesn't bother me and i said yet you chew my you know what out in front of the entire team and yet you want me to be leading that team please don't chew me out in front if you want to chew me out with something please do it here in your office he never ever chewed me out in practice again i think it was a turning point he turned a lot of players around and don't forget one thing you can't coach if the player hasn't been taught here's what they here's what they do and he taught saying you have to change every time you shouldn't change every time but i can say this i think this is a sure pass you're always kind of saving a little bit to stay alive you know you're not giving him everything you got but you're giving him quite a bit and he wanted every ounce of ability you had and he would not relent and he wouldn't stop until you gave it to him i jumped outside one time in a scrimmage and he got in my face and he said mister the concentration period of a college student five minutes high school is three minutes kindergarten is 30 seconds you don't even have that so where's that put you put me checking my shoe shine i go up in the locker room sitting there chin in my hand elbow me looking at the floor thinking i'm never going to play for this guy he came in the door came across the room slapped me on the back of the neck messed up my hair he said son one of these days you're going to be the best guard in football he turned around and walked away and that started my motor with that comment he allowed me to think about being a great football player and from that point on i worked my tail off i gave him everything i had it made a profound impact on my life the packers turn around was in full swing in only his second season lombardi brought green bay its first division title in 16 years and won them a trip to the 1960 nfl title game against the philadelphia eagles continues to run by 10 seconds trailing 17-13 with time running out the packers came up nine yards short of their first championship under lombardi [Applause] [Music] [Applause] he was talking about the eagles after the ball game in our dressing room he said we got bee today but he said i can tell you right now it won't ever happen again he says this to us right after the ball game it won't ever happen again no one will ever beat us in a championship game again the sun peeks through the cloudy skies the town of green bay becomes the sports capital of the world lombardi's guarantee was tested the very next year in 1961. when the pack reached the title game for the second straight year they were facing a team lombardi was all too familiar with the new york giants what most people didn't know was that the previous winter wellington mara had approached lombardi about returning to new york to become head coach of the giants one paper even reported that lombardi had submitted his letter of resignation to the packers he left new york actually presuming that he would return to new york and be the coach of the giants mara was acting on an agreement he thought was in place with dominic olanicek mr marrow you was that uh when he gave mr owen each permission to talk to me to come to green bay that was understood at the time that if a position was available in new york that i was to come back mr o'neich said he did not have that understanding had lombardi returned to the giants history would have told a far different story as it was lombardi and mara were still friends right up to game time the night before the championship game in green bay they went out to dinner and my dad drove walmart to the restaurant and they had a good time and then as the dinner wound down my dad just kind of pops up and says we're going to beat you tomorrow and uh and leaves uh without well mara having a ride home [Music] snapping off the right side the packers won 37 to nothing lombardi had his first nfl championship and the defeated giants could only admire the coach they almost had in only three years lombardi had taken a nucleus of talent and shaped it into a team of champions and nothing embodied green bay success more than a seemingly routine running play gentlemen this is the most important play we have it's the play we must make go it's the play that we will make go as the play that we will run again and again and again in green bay the play was known as the power sweep it perfectly suited lombardi's love of precision teamwork and brains it's a kind of a complex play that looks very simple there's a lot of things that have to happen for the play to work well if they do this we do that if they do that we do this and we adjust to where the defense goes so the defense is almost always wrong and the back will run to daylight to lombardi the sweep was more than a play it defined him and they ran it and ran it and ran it if the end has the linebacker taken in he will come around it and seal inside what we're trying to get is a seal here and a seal here and try to run this play in the alley it was run to perfection lombardi didn't invent it but he took everything to a different level than anybody else because he was lombardi and he had an obsession that was deeper than anyone else's he adopted it and used it as the signature of his offense lombardi became the definitive expert on the power sweep and shared his enthusiasm for the play with anyone that would listen [Music] i saved up everything i had to go up to a coaching clinic and vince lombardi was a speaker now at this time i was a young coach i was coaching in junior college and to be honest with you i thought i knew it all and i go in and i sit in the back you know this is this is how stupid i was and i ate vince lombardi you know the guy was up there talking i'm sitting in the back row like i'm in church and he talks for eight hours on one play the green bay suite talked for four hours keeping his eyes right on the numbers of the defensive man took a break came back and talked for four hours so then i left after that and i said i don't know a damn thing having perfected the sweep by 1962 the packers outscored every other team in the league with a nearly flawless 13-1 record they were one of the greatest nfl teams ever assembled their reward was a return trip to the title game in a rematch against the giants well we've got a jam packed yankee stadium here this afternoon lombardi showed his hometown what he was made of and coached the packers to a convincing 16-7 victory lombardi had built a dynasty and green bay was now on the map it's usually a small town kid who comes to the big city of new york and makes it and here was lombardi you know this new york city kid born and bred who's frustrated and was passed over and finally goes out to little green bay this god forsaken place that he'd only seen once before in his life and he made it there and became sort of a transcendent figure the packers success transformed lombardi from an east coast outsider to the pope of green bay he had saved a beloved franchise and restored pride to a humble corner of america green bay was renamed title town and lombardi took his place among modern day legends he was trying to raise football to the level of those other professions that he thought about but didn't achieve being a priest being a liar but the truth is he incorporated the best of all of those other professions into what he did as a football coach he taught us a lot more about life than he did about football he used football to teach life it wasn't enough to be a football coach that wasn't what god ordained for him he had to see himself in a broader perspective a teacher and a molder of young men's character he's a very tense first part of the week because that's when they that's when the hard work is but as the week goes along i don't see him monday tuesday wednesday night at all it must be very hard to do what he has to do and do it alone football coaching takes a great deal of time it takes every minute of your time during the season from the first part of june through january there are no days off you work every day and you work long hours you work from seven or eight in the morning to twelve or one o'clock the next morning i think we can work 64 give 65 give either way right my mother used to say you don't talk to my dad on monday and tuesday wednesday you can kind of have a conversation with him [Music] thursday begins the lighten up that's the best one right there that was the best one right there friday saturdays he figures he's done everything he can and he's pretty civil though vince lombardi was living his dream he allowed himself little time to enjoy it during the season his only respite came on sunday nights at his house in suburban green bay sunday night after a packer home game lombardi and all of his pals congregate in the basement rec room of his house and the bar down there there are martinis and high balls and everybody's smoking it's the quintessence of the late 50s early 60s people are a little tipsy in lombardy if they've won is on top of the world right here you know he's got that loud voice in his arms around everybody and he's laughing and trying to tell jokes himself but not very successfully [Music] [Laughter] you know you're at that peak emotionally and then you need something to get off this 50-story ledge you've been on it's his way of you know kind of coming down and with people that he trusted you know have a couple scotches and having a good time and then all of a sudden you get to see him ratcheting and thinking about the next week this is vince lombardi i look at this i look at my behavior i see has this become a game for mad men and am i one of them that's exactly what i meant it's a game for mad man and i'm the biggest madman of them all in 1963 lombardi's packers fell short of a third straight nfl championship [Music] they failed to win the division again in 64. and after back-to-back second place finishes they bore the full brunt of their coaches madness bob how'd you get a man caught back there got a touchdown there nobody blocked on the left side marvin you missed that guy every time hey supposed to be a hell of a defensive club it didn't look like it to me all the way down what the hell's going on out here lombardi's obsession with winning echo louder than ever this is a tough and it's a cruel business we have to produce we're only here because we win period and when we lose we're gone therefore we have to win therefore you have to win and we only want winners we only want winners why is this your cradle is it the be-all and end-all of your life well that's a that's a tough question how it i um in my business there is only one place and that's to be a winner on the field and off life with vince lombardi had become a day-to-day proposition when he came up the stairs if he smiled at us and said good morning we knew we were going to have a fairly decent day but if he ignored us we kept our heads down we didn't talk to him just left him alone that day he was so bipolar of course we didn't know one minute he'd be up here the next minute to be down here when he got out of control i ran to the basement you know turn the radio on and just stay away son vincent had spent his adolescence at his father's side being the son of vince lombardi wasn't easy even when vincent left to play football at the college of st thomas in minnesota my freshman year in college i hurt my knee i'm not obviously not playing i'm not practicing and they come up to play the vikings and he gives me a big hug a big smile and how you doing and everything but he also has uh in the room with him dr jim nellen who is the team's orthopedic guy and he i go in the bedroom with nellen and he takes my knee and he comes out and tells my dad there's nothing structurally wrong he's just you know ligaments are stretched my dad goes from smile he he jumps me like nobody's business god he jumps me you're gonna run out that thing tomorrow put baby in it yet and now i know i got tears running down my cheeks but um ran out of the next day and i got in a starting lineup as a freshman about two weeks later he knew better than i with vincent gone the house took on an almost eerie silence you could hear a pin drop in our kitchen table [Music] my mother was quiet my father was quiet and we just ate our dinner i traveled with this team that was my father's way of keeping the family together so my suitcase laid on the floor opened 12 months out of the year i hated it but who was i gonna tell i hated it daddy i hate this only one person was able to handle that chore my mother was the only person who could talk back to my father and get his attention we loved her god we loved her because we couldn't say anything to him all he did is win all the time she could one of the most common phrases that you could hear out of vince lombardi's mouth was shut up marie but like many marriages he would say that in public and then he would do exactly what she instructed him to do in private but it was marie who had left her life in new york for the sake of her husband's career she knew that she couldn't really compete with football and i think that that sense of emptiness manifested itself in her being depressed and becoming an alcoholic [Music] my mother had a drinking problem and when things got unhappy she'd drink i think my dad was not all that sympathetic i think his thought is just saw it as a weakness that something you know you should be able to control on at least one occasion marie was unable to as vincent discovered when he brought home his new fiance he comes home to announce he's engaged and marie is overdosed on pills and drinking i never put my finger on it until subsequent i didn't at the time okay she's sick in the hospital i should have known my dad was falling all over himself to compensate for it [Music] through thick and thin vince and ree as he called her did have a love affair she was completely devoted to him to the end god forbid she missed a football game she never missed one not one god family and the green bay packers this was the trinity that defined lombardi's life in what order was never clear here he was a very imperfect man trying to create something perfect and the more he tried to create something perfect the more he understood his own imperfections and i think that's what he tried to deal with in church [Music] it was very strange my father went to church 365 days of the year he never missed lombardi's day began at st willoughbroads anyone who went there while the coach was in attendance might have been surprised at what they found so we're all in the front row the priest comes in and who's the older boy the coast lombardi we looked at each other like holy crap this guy does everything and to this day i believe the priests kept looking at lebar like am i doing it right i'm a highly emotional man i'm quick to tears and i'm quick to praise i'm quick to all other things i think anyone who tries to hide their emotions uh i think makes a mistake i think you've got to do things according to your own personality this is all part of whatever little bit of success i've had too i think this is most important everybody grabbing out there nobody talking describing everybody vince lombardi wore his emotions on his sleeve and his players had no trouble recognizing them nobody could yell like he did all the time a lot of time was for effect clearly i saw one time kind of practicing some facial stuff in the mirror you know grimace growl henry jordan had one of the famous lines about lombardi he treats us all alike like dogs it's a great line and it's completely wrong come on henry jordan you're just laying on it he treated every one of them differently he treated henry jordan like a dog because that's how he'd get the most out of jordan just by getting him mad he just played us like a maestro every player you're great and the grading system if a guy blocks you and you get out of the block and you make the tackle for no game that's a zero you did what you're supposed to do now he blocks you and you don't don't get out of the block you stay blocked that's a minus two he dog people so much he gave you a compliment even if it's just a little small one he just took it and said hey he likes me my dad always said never let a white man pat your head but this is the boy when he needed something good he woke up behind you he hit your back here right here behind your head right here and i just love it man he didn't pat you in the head he hit him back in the net it's kind of like his deal of approval behind lombardi's irascibility lay a deep-rooted belief that it took more than bullying to produce a team of champions there's a certain togetherness here but it's not true in many other fields i gave it a word it has to be a great deal of love for each other he was the first coach that i ever heard refer to love in the locker room he really believed that there was a christian love that he could incorporate into the team the love that binds his players together the love that comes out of sacrifice [Music] during the radically changing 1960s lombardi's love for his players was put to the test vince was colorblind he didn't care who it was he made dave robinson the first black linebacker in packer history and then offered his support to robinson's roommate lionel aldridge during a critical time in his life lionel gave me an engagement ring but i couldn't wear it and i had to hide it i couldn't tell anybody that i was engaged to him at that point in time it wasn't really legal for black and whites to marry there was a player that had married interracially a couple years before lionel and i were thinking about it and he had been blackballed from all of football so lionel wanted to know what lombardi's reaction would be vince called him in because he'd gotten complaints about lionel importing this white girl to a green bay and uh delano told him he said that he wanted to marry her but he's afraid of being blackballed and lombardi told him i don't care who you marry as long as you play good football you keep your nose clean lionel called me and said wow i just i walked out of there just like shaking my head thinking oh my gosh she said yeah i still have a job so we can get married when he came back to me for this he came right to me until he said they just told me vicki i can get married he was happy to have us a lot the issue of prejudice was especially sensitive for lombardi given his own past and when several team owners learned of the situation he remained adamant in his support of aldridge pete rozelle the commissioner of football got wind of it and to lombardi's credit said this is my team you can't tell me what to do with my team they can do what they want as long as it's okay by me he just was amazing in the fact that if he believed in something he fought for it by 1965 the bond that vince lombardi had cultivated with his players translated to success on the field after missing the playoffs two years in a row his packers were winners again and met the cleveland browns for the nfl title the game was no contest star takes the ball hands off to haunting sweeps to the left side he's got the block he's inside the ten he set the five cuts into the end zone for the touchdown the green bay backers are the national football league champions for 1965. lombardi was about to take his team on a historic run a year later the packers lost just two games and advanced to the nfl championship for the second straight year the title match was in dallas against the cowboys and old friend tom landry vince was very very intense when he played against landry it's almost like i'm playing against my brother i'm gonna show him who's the boss vince always felt that tom's complicated offense under pressure someone was going to screw up that's precisely what happened with dallas trailing by a touchdown in the closing minutes an offsides penalty pushed the cowboys back to the packers six yard line with 45 seconds remaining dallas was down to its last chance if the cowboys go in here and kick the extra points we're going into overtime they've got one play to travel two yards meredith takes the ball rolls out [Music] the hero of the play was dave robinson who had pressured don meredith into throwing the game-winning interception i really played it wrong if i had missed meredith he could have walked in defenses seek and destroy and i just knew this was the time that i could go get him so i did but it wasn't the way it's drawn up on the playboy consequently this the body gave me a minus two in the play [Applause] the packers were again champions of the nfl but their celebration was short-lived pro football supremacy was about to be contested in the first super bowl pitting green bay against the kansas city chiefs the rival afl lombardi and his packers would be representing much more than just green bay now he gets a letter from wellington merit and the letter says vince you know what this game means to us i couldn't think of any other general i would want to take the nfl army into battle than you in super bowl one the telegrams and calls and everything else they got put more pressure on him the guy was absolutely just wound tighter than to say the nuts on a new bridge he was just i mean he was uptight the game was far short of a sellout but lombardi's biggest concern was protecting the honor of the nfl i want you to be proud of your professional it's a great profession you'd be proud of this game and you can do a great deal for football today great deal for all the players in the league and everything else go out there and play this ball game like i know you can play the final score read 35-10 lombardi had accomplished what his nfl brethren had asked of him [Music] but he was in no mood to celebrate not with a bigger dream spurring him on i didn't get the feeling in 63 that he was going for three in a row but in 67 he didn't let you forget it vince was a man of a single purpose winning three consecutive world championships each year you have different motivating features and at this particular time we're going to try to repeat no modern day nfl team had ever won three championships in a row and vince lombardi's attempt at the feet didn't come easy the packers were aging and racked with injuries they looked exhausted as did their head coach he drove himself and he drove his players and coaches to the point where he'd had it you know i thought he had just you know he had just absolutely burned himself out i compared him to a president of the united states who is in office as a young man he's fresh-faced and you know all bright-eyed and everything and after about three years he looks haggard and he looks gray and he looks worn he looks aged in 67 coach lombardi looked that way he looked gray and he looked tired lombardi's health was deteriorating he had ulcers he had stomach problems he might have had other more serious problems several times his friends urged him to get a colonoscopy and in the horrible immortal last words he said i'm not going to let somebody stick that up my ass hobbled though they were lombardi's packers pressed on and returned to the nfl championship game for a rematch with the dallas cowboys the vince lombardi show featuring let's look ahead to uh sunday the dallas cowboys and for for the whole works i tried uh uh al this is the big game of the year and uh it's uh we're real happy we're going to play in green bay let me say that and our field is going to be in good shape because unless something happens to the to that electric blanket we have out there coach lombardi invested a great sum of money on the electric coils that went underneath lambeau field they were designed to keep the field from freezing obviously and it was a new concept he said let me tell you what we did to this view he's got the city of wires underneath the turf throw the switch everything's gonna melt we're gonna be fine the field's gonna be in good condition that was lombardi's baby and he just loved to show people the this control panel downstairs looked like the you know something you'd see in a submarine or there are all these handles and valves and cranks and all this stuff we're all in there and the lights are blinking he's a mad scientist he doesn't know a damn thing about it and it says field electrified this is my pride and joy out here this feel here let's not cut it up nobody was the world's greatest control freak there's no question about that but when he couldn't control his weather as the sun rose on game day lombardi had become as helpless as the ground beneath him the field it had been covered the night before the heat was coming up through the ground and bringing the moisture with it and as they peeled the tarp off the field was damp and it was fairly soft but as the cold worked on it it started to freeze and you could just see the field turning color starting in the north end zone and going to the south all sudden we think oh my god coach lombardi's field is frozen finally they turned to chuck lane and said chuck you better go and tell coach i'd probably be better off telling him that marie was running around on him he was just livid not because of the players playing on ice he looked bad marty's looking at the field you know and he says it's going to be all right that's terrible it's just terrible the stage was set for a game that even before kickoff had earned its nickname the ice bowl the field grew worse as the game wore on and it was a skating rink more than a football field the packers took a 14 to nothing lead and then as wind chill temperatures reached minus 38 degrees their offense froze footing was so bad the hands were so cold and the receivers catching the ball was difficult so one score could make a big difference he'll throw the option fast way downfield it is at the 10-5 and into the end zone for the touchdown and it's the dallas cowboys 17 the green bay packers 14 and the packers have got their work cut out for them now i hate to say it but i had lost faith in the offense i really had because they hadn't done a thing they shut the offense down completely so we get the ball four and a half minutes to go we got 65 yards to go to score star takes the snap he's back to throw he's got the time flips out to the right side to donny anderson gets by one [Music] seconds remaining in this game in the most adverse conditions they had ever faced the packers moved down the field in nine plays and into position to score a game-winning touchdown actually uh i was looking for a suggestion from jerry kramer a forest greg as to what particular type of play and what kind of blocking that we should particularly run in that area [Applause] the players spotted a weakness in dallas defensive lineman jethro pugh they said we can wedge pew if we have to he wouldn't want him i said i'm not i'm we can wedge pew if we have to that's right [Applause] it's a give and take i'm not uh i'm not the complete autocrat here do you see as everybody thinks the packers had identified their target but the real enemy was the ice [Music] so we called the plague twice the backs were slipping and sliding and couldn't get back to the line of [Music] he's scrimmage in the backers called time again and then we take our final time out and bart asked me if i could make a block can you get your footing for one more wedge play yeah i i can i think so i ran to the sideline got over there and i said coach there's nothing wrong with a play i said the backs simply can't get to the line of scrimmage because the ground is so hard there i said i'm standing upright i can shuffle my feet and lunge in all he said at that time was well then run it and let's get the hell out of here and i'm laughing like i am now going back to the huddle and i'm trying to not let anybody see me laughing because it just broke me up that was his response that's all the time out the green bay packers have they are still inches away from that goal line on third down with 16 seconds to go lombardi gambled everything on one last play landry would have called a roll out and a lot of people would have called a rollout [Music] come on barty wanted to run the wedge play if you can't gain a yard you don't deserve to be champions here are the packers third down inches to go star begins to count the quarterback my perspective on the last drive in the ice bowl is that that is the culmination of everything lombardi and his packers had been preparing for for all of those nine years together we got a little commitment a little discipline a little perseverance a little preparation a little consistency a little intensity we reached down we got a little bit of lombardi [Music] brookshire is uh interviewing coach lombardi slow motion now as jerry cramer makes a key block for bart starr on this quarterback sneak for the winning touchdown and he runs a play and coach goes way to go jerry way to go nobody got a minus two on the final play of the ice bowl but even as lombardi had accomplished his goal of winning three straight titles he was strangely detached we get in the car and he turns to me and says you just saw me coach my next next to last football game super bowl two would be the final game lombardi coached as a packer in beating the raiders lombardi went out a champion he had done what no other nfl coach had accomplished winning five titles in nine years two weeks later the lombardi era officially ended gentlemen let me introduce to you the new head coach of the green bay packers mr phil bankster i think that in part it was the accumulation of the stress i think it was partly his health i think he was afraid honestly about what would happen to him if he kept coaching no longer head coach vince lombardi was confined to the front office where he concentrated on executive duties with his workload cut in half he also had plenty of time for personal appearances most times the streets are named after the deceased i hope this is not i just want you to know i'm not dead lombardi had become an icon richard nixon was once contemplating putting him on his ticket as vice president in 1968 and of course vince lombard but in fact lombardy was a was a kennedy democrat his message which had made him so successful on the football field operate on lombardi time resonated with business leaders and the after-dinner crowd but once you have won their hearts they'll follow you anyway but in time lombardi grew uncomfortable with the one message that had come to define him winning isn't everything but it's the only thing in our business there is no second place either your first or your last he told me one day i wish the hell i never said that i said well don't you believe it he said what i believe is if you go out on a football field on sunday or any other endeavor in life and you leave every fiber of what you have on that field when finding the game finally ends then you've won and to me that does a lot more than the final score and i never made that clear what's the one thing you want from each and every man who plays boy i want him to give 100 percent on every play that he is in as far as the packers are concerned but when his appearances were over he went back to an office and not a football field i think at that point he realized that he'd made a heck of a mistake he'd see him on the practice field just wandering around and looking and you're going i turned to my mother i said mom he's so depressed you just walk shoulder's over like well i can't say anything and i see some things that are going on wrong and he'd walk then he'd walk and he'd walk it killed him he's an old lion that was away from the pride they actually had to sound proof the booth in lambeau field that he would stand to watch the packers because he was yelling so much they didn't want the press to hear it i could hear the beating on the wall when the packers were screwing up you know with the packers headed for their first losing season since lombardi's arrival their old coach finally spoke to his team he went in and talked to him and i was sitting at the death doing some work and talking on the phone and he came in so it was just he and i in there and he said there's a damn many things i wanted to say to him he said i don't know why i have to whip him all the time and i said coach you trained him with a whip you can't put it down he said yeah and uh and all of a sudden he takes his chair he was just inside the door he takes it over and puts it facing into the corner and he breaks down and cries he just bawled like a baby there's some damn many things i wanted to tell him i was sitting at my desk one day and he called me in to take dictation and i thought it was just regular dictation and all of a sudden i realized he is dictating his letter of resignation to me i was into a couple lines and i thought oh my god he's actually leaving i'm on the contract with the packers as a general manager for the next five years when i've asked for release from that contract could take a position with the washington redskins as their executive officer also a coach and also for a substantial position with equity it was like god is here it was amazing in spite of what some of you may think i can't walk across the potomac even when it's frozen like the packers in 58 the redskins were one of the worst teams in the nfl they needed a miracle and were counting on lombardi to bring them one reaching into his past to bring the redskins into the future he met with one time giants linebacker sam huff who had recently retired from the redskins i said to coach lombardi i want to come back and play and i can coach the linebackers and play for you and lombardi said you think you could get another year or two and i said i know i can't for you the redskins already had their bart star and gifted but free spirited sonny jurgensen he wasn't talking about rebuilding and going down the road that went he was talking about now he was talking about right then and you believed that he made everybody believe in his program lombardi had never had a losing season and wasn't about to start now in 69 he coached the redskins to their first winning record in 14 years with jurgensen leading the way they won seven games the same win total posted by lombardi's first team in green bay just to have the chance to play for him that was the highlight of my whole career i'm glad i had that experience if i'd had it longer it would have been cheating because it was easy [Music] with the stress of the season still lingering lombardi went to green bay to see old friends he comes over the house and greeted him outside of a nice big hug and handshake and we come inside to take him on a cook's tour of the home and my wife said coach none of this would have been possible without you he gets up tears are coming from his eyes he comes across the room gives my wife a great big hug turns around hugs me and goes out the front door i was in the office looking at films and he was coming down the hallway and he looked terrible and i said coach are you okay and he said no sam he said i really feel sick and i said well why don't you go see the team doctor and he did washington redskins coach vince lombardi had a two-foot section of his colon removed today after surgeons discovered a tumor during an exploratory operation in late july lombardi addressed the redskins before a preseason game i'll never forget it he said i want you guys to know why i brought you here from now on i'm not going to be with you but by god you're going to be a winner the next day on july 27th lombardi was readmitted to georgetown university hospital for a second surgery i remember getting a call follow up on that the surgery wasn't successful and that he was terminal when word got out about lombardi's condition legions of disciples began a pilgrimage to washington every green bay packer went to say goodbye them and all the washington redskins the giants and once it all came out that the coach was gonna die those players flocked in there like it was like i have to say goodbye i go in and he said you know i've been lying here thinking about this american football conference runs a lot of 34 defense instead of the 4-3 defense in the nfc and i'm going here's a man that you know it's just i don't know how long he has to live and he's sitting there thinking about ways to beat defenses [Music] it was six or seven o'clock in the evening when i went into his room he opened his eyes and looked at me and i went over and took his hand and told him how much i appreciated our time together and that he had a great impact on my life and i loved him for that took the train down and he was actually alone he knew who i was and and he kind of laughed and i squeezed his arm and we talked about the weather or anything what do you say and i remember grabbing him by the arm as i was leaving [Music] he looked at me and he said frank it really hurts vince lombardi the famed football coach of the green bay packers and later the washington redskins is gravely ill in a washington hospital and is said to be near death one party's wife issued a statement at georgetown university hospital in washington which said he was suffering from an extraordinarily virulent form of cancer we'd heard on the six o'clock news that he was in the hospital and then my mother subsequently called me that night or the next morning i can't remember saying it was serious business and i better come out my dad and i didn't communicate too well i'm sure it was both of our faults i never had any doubts my dad loved me but he was hard i had to probably grow up to his level and i was probably getting there but uh didn't have time he said come here and somehow he got his hand up and he put my hand in his and he's just squeezed it and then i realized that my mother was gonna die mr vincent lombardi coach and executive vice president of the washington redskins died at 7 12 a.m today at georgetown university hospital i usually wake up in the morning listening to paul harvey and i opened up my eyes it was raining and i heard still can't talk about this [Music] it is a gray day in green bay wisconsin i heard paul harvey on the radio saying that the heavens were weeping in green bay because vince lombardi had passed away they said the town ran on lombardi time 15 minutes ahead of everywhere else and elsewhere in an era in which many sought to deify the common man some of us continued to thrill to the accomplishments of the uncommon ones rockne leahy bud wilkinson bear bryant and the incomparable vince lombardi vince lombardi and his uncompromising determination to be the best could not alone inspire us all let that be his epitaph unbelievable that this great man at age 57 that died he was too darn tough and too mean to die and all but he died it was something that nobody could really comprehend on labor day 1970 4000 mourners silently filled the streets of midtown manhattan from every corner of america they came the anonymous and the anointed players executives even mentors gathered their collective grief as they filed into st patrick's cathedral vincent thomas lombardi was finally home said it was the first time i really shed a tear at a white funeral scene and it wasn't it didn't mean it derogatory i was just trying to say that this guy even though he was white he was like a father to me the saddest part of his death was the us's players you could see the sadness inside them he was amazing he really was amazing vince lombardi for the good fight we believe in that last struggle with death this man won the final victory [Music] we're in the car and we went into jersey i went like this to my brother and i said look and all these people they were lined up on hills everywhere waving the flag as my father went by that made the day i think he had a profound effect on people i think a lot of his players realize that they never would have come close to being the players and the human beings that they subsequently became without him i don't know that you even had to be a player for him to feel that one just by his presence and the way he conducted himself he had that strong faith and yet he yelled screamed at you he would embarrass you and if he did chew on you it's because he thought at the moment that it was appropriate and that it would do you some good he never did anything out of malice he had a good heart and it's uh everything came from his heart really did people say to me oh gee you know couldn't have been easy i say you know you're right but if um if it's 17 16 15 you'd say okay here's this is it so this is how it's all going to play out i would say well give me a pet where do where do i sign off i think he would have done this [Music] someone to give you a testimony it's a very emotional type of thing gives you with great many thoughts really as to why and as to who and to to where and whether you're particularly deserving i'm very fortunate to be respected in my own profession i think i've got to place a great deal of value on that i've got to have great deal of gratitude for my parents my wife and my two children and certainly for all my superiors over the years what i am today let me put it that way all of these people were a part of it [Music] man should get maybe at the end of his life one testimony [Music] everybody's gonna go through it once once is enough as far as myself is concerned i know my future happiness has to be some other place i'm going to try to do these things as well as i can here in order to attain someday maybe a greater happiness that's about the size you

Channel: NFL Films

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Keywords: NFL, Football, NFL Films, American Football, vince lombardi, green bay, green bay packers, a football life, who is vince lombardi

Id: njlGLMYopLo

Length: 85min 48sec (5148 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/aaron4mvp]

No way Vince lets Kevin King get embarassed before halftime like Pettine did.