The Story And Significance Of Vince Lombardi - Five Titles In Nine Years As Green Bay Packers Head Coach

Vincent Thomas Lombardi was an American football coach and executive in the National Football League. Lombardi is considered by many to be the greatest coach in football history, and he is recognized as one of the greatest coaches and leaders in the history of all American sports. He is best known as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers during the 1960s, where he led the team to three straight and five total NFL Championships in seven years, in addition to winning the first two Super Bowls at the conclusion of the 1966 and 1967 NFL seasons.

Lombardi began his coaching career as an assistant and later as a head coach at St. Cecilia High School in Englewood, New Jersey. He was an assistant coach at Fordham, the United States Military Academy and the New York Giants before becoming head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1959 to 1967 and the Washington Redskins in 1969.

He never had a losing season as head coach in the NFL, compiling a regular-season winning percentage of 73.8% (96–34–6), and 90% (9–1) in the postseason for an overall record of 105 wins, 35 losses and 6 ties in the NFL.

The year after his sudden death from cancer in 1970, he was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the NFL Super Bowl trophy was named in his honor.

In 1939, Lombardi wanted to marry his girlfriend, Marie Planitz, but he deferred at his father's insistence because he needed a steady job to support himself and a family; he married Marie the following year. In 1939, Lombardi accepted an assistant coaching job at St. Cecilia's, a Catholic high school in Englewood, New Jersey. He was offered the position by the school's new head coach, Lombardi's former Fordham teammate, quarterback Andy Palau. Palau had just inherited the head coaching position from another Fordham teammate, Nat Pierce (left guard), who had accepted an assistant coach's job back at Fordham. In addition to coaching, Lombardi, age 26, taught Latin, chemistry, and physics for an annual salary of under $1,000.

In 1942, Andy Palau left St. Cecilia's for another position at Fordham, and Lombardi became the head coach at St. Cecilia's. He stayed a total of eight years, five as head coach. In 1943, St. Cecilia's was recognized as the top high school football team in the nation, in large part because of their victory over Brooklyn Prep, a Jesuit school considered one of the best teams in the eastern United States. Brooklyn Prep that season was led by senior Joe Paterno, who, like Lombardi, was to rise to legendary status in football. Lombardi won six state private school championships (NJISAA - New Jersey Independent Schools Athletic Association), and became the president of the Bergen County Coaches' Association.

In 1947, Lombardi became the coach of freshman teams in football and basketball at his alma mater, Fordham University. The following year, he was an assistant coach for the varsity football team under head coach Ed Danowski, but he was arguably the de facto head coach.

Following the 1948 season, Lombardi accepted an assistant coaching job at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a position that greatly influenced his future philosophy and system of coaching. He was offensive line coach under head coach Earl "Colonel Red" Blaik. "As integral as religion was to Lombardi's sense of self, it was not until he reached West Point and combined his spiritual discipline with Blaik's military discipline that his coaching persona began to take its mature form." Blaik's emphasis on execution became a trademark of Lombardi's coaching style. Lombardi coached at West Point for five seasons, with varying results. The 1949 and 1950 seasons were successful, but the 1951 and 1952 seasons were not, due to the aftermath of a cadet cribbing scandal (a violation of the Cadet Honor Code) which was revealed in spring 1951. By order of the Superintendent, 43 of the 45 members of the varsity football team were discharged from the Academy as a result of the scandal. "Decades later, looking back on his rise, Lombardi came to regard ..." Blaik's decision not to resign "... as a pivotal moment in his own career" — it taught him perseverance. After the 1951 and 1952 seasons not much was expected from the 1953 team as it had also lost six players due to academic failure. The 1953 team, however, did achieve a 7–1–1 record, as Lombardi had a bigger role than ever in coaching the team. Following these five seasons at Army, Lombardi accepted an assistant coaching position with the New York Giants.

At age 41 in 1954, Lombardi began his NFL career with the New York Giants. He accepted a job that later became known as the offensive coordinator position under new head coach Jim Lee Howell. The Giants had finished the previous season under 23-year coach Steve Owen with a 3–9 record. By his third season in 1956, Lombardi, along with the defensive coordinator, former All-Pro cornerback turned coach Tom Landry, turned the squad into a championship team, defeating the Chicago Bears 47–7 for the league title. "Howell readily acknowledged the talents of Lombardi and Landry, and joked self-deprecatingly, that his main function was to make sure the footballs had air in them." At points in his tenure as an assistant coach at West Point, and as an assistant coach with the Giants, Lombardi worried that he was unable to land a head coaching job due to prejudice against his Italian heritage, especially with respect to Southern colleges. Howell wrote numerous recommendations for Lombardi to aid him in obtaining a head coaching position. Lombardi applied for head coaching positions at Wake Forest, Notre Dame, and other universities and, in some cases, never received a reply. In New York, Lombardi introduced the strategy of rule blocking to the NFL. In rule blocking, the offensive lineman would block an area, and not necessarily a particular defensive player, as was the norm up to that time. The running back was then expected to run towards any hole that was created. Lombardi referred to this as running to daylight.

The Green Bay Packers, with six future Hall of Famers on the roster in 1958, finished at 1–10–1 under head coach Ray McLean, the worst record in Packer history. The players were dispirited, the Packer shareholders were disheartened, and the Green Bay community was enraged. The angst in Green Bay extended to the NFL as a whole, as the financial viability and the very existence of the Green Bay Packer franchise were in jeopardy. On February 2, 1959, Lombardi accepted the position of head coach and general manager of the Packers. He demanded and gained full control over the football operations of the community-owned franchise, leaving no doubt of this when he told the franchise's executive committee, "I want it understood that I am in complete command here."

Lombardi's assertion of "complete command" applied to the players as well. For his first training camp, he instituted harsh regimens and demanded absolute dedication and effort from his players. The Packers immediately improved in 1959 to 7–5, and rookie head coach Lombardi was named Coach of the Year. The fans appreciated what Lombardi was trying to do and responded by purchasing all the tickets for every home game during the 1960 season. Every Packers home game—preseason, regular season and playoffs—has been sold out ever since then.

In Lombardi's second year in 1960, Green Bay won the NFL Western Conference for the first time since 1944. This victory, along with his well-known religious convictions, led the Green Bay community to anoint Lombardi with the nickname "The Pope". Lombardi led the Packers to the 1960 Championship Game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Before the championship game, Lombardi met with Wellington Mara and advised him that he would not take the Giants' head coaching job, which was initially offered after the end of the 1959 season. In the final play of the game, in a drive that would have won it, the Packers were stopped a few yards from the goal line. Lombardi had suffered his first and only championship game loss. After the game, and after the press corps had left the locker room, Lombardi told his team, "This will never happen again. You will never lose another championship." In later years as coach of the Packers, Lombardi made it a point to admonish his running backs that if they failed to score from one yard out, he would consider it a personal affront to him and he would seek retribution. He coached the Packers to win their next nine post-season games, a record streak not matched or broken until Bill Belichick won ten straight from 2002 to 2006 with New England. The Packers defeated the Giants for the NFL title in 1961 (37–0 in Green Bay) and 1962 (16–7 at Yankee Stadium), marking the first two of their five titles in Lombardi's seven years. After the 1962 championship victory, President John F. Kennedy called Lombardi and asked him if he would "come back to Army and coach again". Kennedy received Lombardi's tacit refusal of the request. His only other post-season loss occurred to the St. Louis Cardinals in the third-place Playoff Bowl after the 1964 season (officially classified as an exhibition game).

Including postseason but excluding exhibition games, Lombardi compiled a 105–35–6 (.740) record as head coach, and never suffered a losing season. He led the Packers to three consecutive NFL championships — in 1965, 1966, and 1967 — a feat accomplished only once before in the history of the league, by Curly Lambeau, co-founder of the Packers, who coached the team to their first three straight NFL Championships in 1929, 1930, and 1931. At the conclusion of the 1966 and 1967 seasons, Lombardi's Packers won the first two Super Bowls, for championships in five of seven seasons.

Shortly after the victory in Super Bowl II, Lombardi resigned as head coach of the Packers on February 1, 1968, continuing as general manager. He handed the head coaching position to Phil Bengtson, a longtime assistant, but the Packers finished at 6–7–1 in the 1968 season and were out of the four-team NFL playoffs. In February 1969, Lombardi became head coach and general manager of the Washington Redskins. The Redskins finished at 7–5–2, their first winning record since the 1955 season. Lombardi died the following year, but he was credited with having "truly changed the culture in that one unforgettable season in 1969," laying the foundation for Washington's early 1970s success under another future Hall of Fame coach, George Allen.