When Pride Still Mattered

In his biography of Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered (1999), American author and journalist David Maraniss takes a balanced and comprehensive view of Lombardi's life, highlighting his admirable traits while refusing to ignore the darker side of the NFL coach's character and actions.

Born on June 11, 1913, in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, Lombardi was the son of a working class butcher. Around the time of Lombardi's death, his father and uncle opened their own butcher shop in Manhattan, and the family rose to the level of middle class. Growing up, Lombardi attended church every Sunday and served as an altar boy in his local Catholic Church. He reported being discriminated against in his neighborhood for his Italian ancestry. He tried his hand at the family business but didn't care for it. Instead, he sought success through basketball and baseball, but his poor eyesight made him a bad fit for these activities.

He was on his way to study to become a priest at a Seminary prep school in Queens. It was against the rules to play football, even off-campus, but Lombardi did so anyway. Eventually, he decided to abandon his priestly ambitions, attending a regular Catholic school, St. Francis Prep in Fresh Meadows, Queens, for his senior year. During his year there, he became an all-city fullback for the school's football team.



His success on the high school football field earned Lombardi an athletic scholarship to Fordham University in the Bronx. Despite being undersized at 5'8'' and 180 pounds, Lombardi earned the right to be the starting right guard on the Fordham football team. Along with the rest of the team's offensive line, he was termed one of the "Seven Blocks of Granite" by a local journalist. During the last regular season game of his senior year, the team lost to NYU despite being heavily favored to win. A win would have earned the team the right to play in the Rose Bowl. This, Maraniss writes, was an experience Lombardi would never forget.

Looking for a steady job amid the Great Depression, Lombardi decided to go to law school. However, his desire to start a family caused him to drop out. Still needing steady employment to support his future wife, Marie, he landed an assistant coaching job for the football team at St. Cecelia Catholic High School in Englewood, New Jersey in 1939. While there, he also taught a number of courses including Latin, chemistry, and physics.

In 1947, Lombardi briefly rejoined Fordham University as the de facto head coach of its football and basketball teams. Just a year later, he accepted an assistant coaching job at West Point. This, Maraniss asserts, would be a very formative experience for Lombardi's future coaching career.



In 1954, at the age of forty-one, Lombardi's career in the NFL began when he became the de facto offensive coordinator for the New York Giants. While his time with the Giants was productive, Lombardi really wanted to land a head-coaching job at the college level, which he believed would be the next stepping-stone to becoming a head professional coach. He applied to numerous schools but didn't receive a reply from many of them. Maraniss writes of Lombardi's insecurities during this period, noting that the coach worried that he was being discriminated against for his Italian heritage, just as he had been as a child.

In 1959, however, Lombardi was offered the job that he is most remembered for: head coach of the Green Bay Packers. Hiring Lombardi was a bit of a gamble for the time, but the Green Bay management felt they needed a "Hail Mary," so-to-speak. They had finished the previous year with a dismal 1-10-1 record. Lombardi led the team to five NFL championships, including three consecutive championships. Moreover, in 1966 and 1967, Lombardi's team won the Super Bowl during the first two years of its existence.

Lombardi began suffering from digestive problems in 1967. In June of 1970, he underwent tests that revealed he was suffering from colon cancer. Tragically, Lombardi died just three months later at the age of fifty-seven.



For all of Lombardi's successes, Maraniss doesn't shy away from the uglier side of his personality. For example, despite espousing a vocal commitment to his country that endeared him to various conservatives, Lombardi asked John F. Kennedy to allow two of his star players out of active military duty. Maraniss also offers up a number of anecdotes that paint a picture of Lombardi as a somewhat neglectful father to his children and absent husband to his wife, who coped with her loneliness with alcoholism.

At the same time, Maraniss is quick to praise Lombardi's acceptance of players, coaches, or front office workers believed to be gay. He instituted a zero tolerance policy for discrimination based on sexual orientation.