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| The Immortal Vince |
“A dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price.” – Vince Lombardi
Americans love sports! Though the same could be said truthfully about elsewhere, it is especially true here. The reasons for this are manifold. The fact that television, which gave spectator sports to the masses, was invented and first popularized here no doubt played a large part. Capitalism may have been a Dutch invention but crass Capitalism (which includes sports-oriented consumerism) is a decidedly American one.
Association football, or as it is more commonly known throughout the world, football or soccer, has never quite attracted the crowds here that it has in other countries. This is no doubt due to the fact it has a lot of competition for the hearts and minds of Americans. Baseball has been called ‘America’s pastime’ and historically has been thought of as this country’s most popular spectator sport. It may surprise many, however, to learn the most popular sport in America, in terms of both participants (at the high school and college level) and spectators overall is American football. Americans like to refer to Association football as ‘soccer’ while reserving the name ‘football’ for its beloved pigskin-kicking sport.
Basketball and ice hockey round out the ‘Big Four’ professional team sports popular here in the states, though changes in demographics are no doubt responsible for fueling the surging popularity of soccer. If current trends continue, there can be little doubt one day soccer will make up one of the “Big Five”.
Baseball has been successful as an American export. It enjoys a large following in countries such as Japan (where it is the leading spectator team sport), Mexico, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Columbia, Panama, South Korea, Taiwan, Venezuela and even Communist-run Cuba. Canada has one team, the Toronto Blue Jays that is a franchise in Major League Baseball (MLB). Many immigrants from these countries have wound up playing and distinguishing themselves on MLB teams including designated hitter (and World Series MVP winner) Hideki Matsui of Japan, who helped the New York Yankees crush the snot out of the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies in the 2009 MLB World Series.
While basketball ranks third, behind baseball and football, in terms of popularity of professional sports (per National Basketball Association or NBA viewership), according to the National Sporting Goods Association, more Americans play basketball than any other team sport.
Ice hockey is the only one of the ‘Big Four’ professional team sports not to have originated (in its present form) here in the U.S. It is actually a Canadian invention, and while it has become very popular here, Canadian players continue to dominate it. Since the welcome collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, however, a number of players have flocked to these shores from Eastern and even Northern Europe. In addition, an increasing number of American players, such as New York Rangers forward Chris Kreider, are showing they can give as well as they can get on the ice. The Canadians have their work cut out for them.
Despite the global obsession with Association football, American football has likewise found a niche outside of this country’s borders. American military personnel stationed overseas were in large part responsible for fueling its popularity, and in fact to this day make up a significant portion of the amateur players in other countries. Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France and Mexico are among the countries that have amateur leagues that are members of the IFAF (International Federation of American Football). The IFAF serves as an umbrella organization for a number of more region-specific leagues, such as the European Federation of American Football. The American Football Association of Germany (AFVD) oversees more than 230 German clubs.
As with baseball, though, it is the Japanese who dominate American Football (outside the U.S.). The Rice Bowl, an event sponsored by the Japanese American Football Association that occurs in Japan every January 3rd, routinely attracts over 60,000 spectators.
Southern Italians have not made much of a mark for themselves in ice hockey and basketball (yet). With baseball, of course, our people have produced such notables as New York Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto and even greats such as the ‘Yankee Clipper’ Joe DiMaggio! American football would be no different. In fact, one of our own has risen to the ranks of the iconic in football, a legend in his own right.
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A plaque dedicated to Vince Lombardi in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn
Photo by New York Scugnizzo
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Vincent Thomas “Vince” Lombardi was born on June 11th, 1913 in Brooklyn, NY to Enrico “Harry” Lombardi and Matilda “Mattie” Izzo. His father’s parents were immigrants from Salerno in the region of Campania, Italy. His mother’s parents were from the town of Vietri di Potenza in Basilicata. Vince grew up in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn. His father and uncle ran a successful butcher shop in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan which kept the family clothed and well fed during the Great Depression.
Vince’s parents were both deeply religious Roman Catholics; a fact reflected in his upbringing. As a youth he was an altar boy at St. Mark’s Catholic Church. He also helped his father at his butcher shop, but later admitted he didn’t care for it. It was also during this time he had his first exposure to the game of football, playing with an uncoached football league that operated out of his neighborhood.
In 1928 he entered the Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception, a six-year secondary program designed to prepare him for the Catholic priesthood. However, after four years he decided not to pursue this as a career. He then enrolled in St. Francis Preparatory high school which at that time was located in Brooklyn (it is now located in Fresh Meadows, Queens). By this time he had improved enough as a football player that he earned a place on the virtual All-City football team.
The following year he accepted a football scholarship to Fordham University in the Bronx. In spite of his relatively short size (5’8” tall and 180 lbs.) he demonstrated to his coach that he was a good player. By the time he reached his senior year, he was placed as the front guard for Fordham football teams’ offensive front line. It was during this year, in a game against the Pittsburgh Panthers, that he would suffer a serious injury, causing him to lose several teeth, thus giving him his distinctive smile.
He graduated from Fordham University in the spring of 1937. However, with America still in the throes of the Great Depression there was little in the way of job opportunities, and he didn’t wish to work in his father’s meat cutting business. A year later his father encouraged him to enroll in Fordham Law School but he dropped out after only one semester.
He explained his wish, instead, to marry his sweetheart, a young woman named Marie Planitz. Vince’s father, however, was adamant that before his son could marry he had to procure a job in order to support the family. To assuage his father, he took a job as an assistant coach at St. Cecilia Roman Catholic high school in Englewood, NJ. The position had been offered to him by the school’s new head coach, Andy Palau. Palau had been the quarterback (and Vince’s teammate) at Fordham University. In addition to his coaching duties, Lombardi also taught Latin, chemistry and physics at the school, all for the princely sum of just under $1,000 year.
When Vince’s girlfriend announced to her father her desire to marry she was informed he did not want her marrying an Italian. This would not be the first or the last time in his life that Vince Lombardi would be exposed to the rampant and overt anti-Italianism that existed in America back then (and still exists, albeit in a more covert form). In spite of her father’s protests, Marie married her sweetheart on August 31st, 1940, and according to her later account, almost immediately realized she had made a mistake!
To listen to her, he was obsessed with football! He spoke of it even on their honeymoon, which he cut short to get back to his coaching job at St. Cecilia’s. There were also the problems of his authoritarian personality, his perfectionism, and above all…his temper. Had he chosen a military career path, he might have one day made an excellent general. Not too long after marrying, Marie would suffer a miscarriage, a devastating event that sent her down a whirlwind path of depression and chronic drinking. She would eventually give birth to a son, Vincent Harold (Vince Jr.) Lombardi, on April 27th, 1942. She later gave birth to a daughter, Susan, on February 13th, 1947.
Around the time of Vince Jr.’s birth Andy Palau left his head coaching job at St. Cecilia’s to accept a position at Fordham U. Lombardi, in turn, took over the head coaching position at St. Cecilia’s. He would spend the next five years as head coach, drilling his brand of perfectionism into his charges minds and bodies. Just one year later St. Cecilia’s football team was recognized as the top high school football team in America.
The year his daughter was born he became the coach of freshman football and basketball teams at his old alma mater, Fordham U. A year later he was bumped up to assistant coach for Fordham’s varsity football team.
The next year he accepted another assistant coaching position at West Point where he worked as offensive line coach for Earl “Colonel Red” Blaik. It was here that Lombardi refined his leadership skills as a coach. Blaik emphasized to Lombardi the importance of execution, something that would become the hallmark of Vince’s style of coaching. He would remain at West Point for five years with mixed results. His last two seasons there were unsuccessful due to a cadet cheating scandal that resulted in 95% of the varsity football team being discharged by administrative order. Years later, when asked what he learned from his experience there, Lombardi stated that Blaik’s decision not to resign taught him the value of perseverance.
Vince Lombardi began his professional NFL career with the New York Giants in 1954, when he accepted a position with them as assistant coach. The previous year the Giants had finished the season with a dismal 3-9 record. By the third season, Lombardi, working with the great defensive coordinator Tom Landry, had turned them into a team of championship caliber that defeated the Chicago Bears for the title in 1956.
In spite of this victory, Lombardi chafed at the thought of remaining an assistant coach. He thus jumped at the chance when offered the twin positions of head coach and general manager with the Green Bay Packers in January, 1959. Lombardi found the Packers in even worse shape than the Giants! In the previous season their record was a pathetic 1-1-10 (one win, one tie and 10 losses).
Rather than be discouraged, he took this as a challenge he felt he could surmount. The Packers soon learned Vince Lombardi’s brutal reputation as a coach was well-deserved. He put his players through punishing training regimens that bordered on inhumane…but they quickly produced results! His first season with the new team ended with them notching up a 7-5 record. In recognition of his feat the NFL named him Coach of the Year.
The following year the Packers, under Lombardi’s iron discipline, won the NFL Western Conference for the first time in 16 years! He then took the team against Philadelphia Eagles in the 1960 NFL Championship game, suffering the only Championship loss of his career as head coach of the Packers. After the game was over he berated the team for allowing the Eagles to stop them just a few yards from the goal line and a victory. He told them, “This will never happen again. You will never lose another championship.”
Like his parents, Vince Lombardi was deeply religious. His zeal for Catholicism, plus his ability to lead his team to victory, earned him the moniker “the Pope” from the Packers. His firsthand experience with the ethnic bigotry suffered by so many of our people in this country likewise left a deep emotional scar, and throughout his tenure with the Packers he maintained a zero-tolerance policy for prejudice of any kind.
Like so many other heroes, he had feet of clay. In his case this was manifested by his temper. In truth, he was aware of this and prayed often for help in controlling it. Nevertheless, it remained a point of contention in a tumultuous marriage.
Like so many others of his generation, he was stubborn and lackadaisical when it came to his health. Plagued by digestive problems, he ignored his doctor who suggested he get a proctoscopic exam…that would cost him dearly! On June 24th, 1970 he was admitted to Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC complaining of severe intestinal distress. Tests revealed he had an aggressive colo-rectal cancer. Subsequent tests a few weeks later revealed the cancer was terminal.
Lombardi received numerous friends, family and fans at his bedside. President Richard Nixon himself called Lombardi and told him America was behind him. Despite the outpouring of support, on September 3rd, 1970 Vince Lombardi, head coach of the Green Bay Packers, died of cancer.
His funeral was held four days later in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City with approximately 1,500 in attendance.
During his tenure with the Green Bay Packers they won five NFL Championships and two Super Bowls, making him one of the greatest head coaches in NFL history. This is reflected in the fact the NFL Super Bowl trophy is named in his honor. Even after his death his name and legendary persona have remained in the popular culture.
Back in 1973 actor Ernest Borgnine portrayed Lombardi in a one-hour ABC TV movie entitled “Legend in Granite”. In 2010 actor Dan Lauria portrayed him at the Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway in a play called, appropriately enough, Lombardi. It co-starred actress Judith Light as his wife Marie.
His legacy to the game of American football, plus the lessons he left us for leading a successful life, lesson that include pride, perseverance and devotion, have certainly earned this man a place among the Titans of our people.
Further reading:
1) David Maraniss: When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi: Simon & Schuster, 2000
2) Vince Lombardi: What It Takes to Be #1: Vince Lombardi on Leadership: McGraw-Hill, 2003
