Vince Lombardi
Pro football coach
Born: July 11, 1913, in Brooklyn, New York
Began coaching career in: Englewood, New Jersey
Died: September 3, 1970, in Washington, D.C.
New Jersey Hall of Fame, Class of 2008: Sports
In an all-too-brief career, Vince Lombardi established himself as the foremost head coach in the history of professional football, winning five NFL championships in the span of seven years, including the first two Super Bowls.
The son of Italian immigrants, Lombardi grew up working at his father’s butcher shop. He attended Catholic schools, played baseball and basketball at his prep school, and got his start in football with an independent team. Later, playing fullback at St. Francis Preparatory high school, he earned a slot on the All-City gridiron team.
Lombardi attended Fordham University on a football scholarship; by his senior year he was the right guard in the Seven Blocks of Granite, the nickname given to Fordham’s imposing offensive line. Lombardi graduated with honors, but in 1937 the nation was still in the grips of the Great Depression. To make a living, Lombardi played semi-pro football and, according to The New York Times, worked as a debt collector. Having abandoned his earlier ambition to enter the priesthood, Lombardi enrolled at Fordham Law School, but dropped out after one semester.
Finally, in 1939, Lombardi landed an assistant coaching job at St. Cecilia, a Catholic high school in Englewood. In addition to coaching, he taught Latin, chemistry, algebra, and physics. He soon became head coach of the football team, as well as the basketball and baseball squads. His football team would win six state championships; at one point, the team won 36 games in a row.
In 1947, Lombardi returned to Fordham as freshman football coach; two years later, he left for an assistant coaching job at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Lombardi spent five years at West Point, soaking in the lessons of military discipline and mental toughness. In 1954, at the age of 41, he brought these lessons to his first NFL job as an assistant coach with the New York Giants. Coordinating the offense, he helped turn the Giants into a winning team.
The turning point in Lombardi’s career came in 1959, when the Green Bay Packers offered him a job as head coach and general manager. Taking over a team that won only a single game the prior season, the rookie coach introduced a tough training regimen and directed the 1959 Packers squad to a 7-5 season and third place in the NFL’s Western Division. For his efforts, Lombardi was named the league’s coach of the year.
In 1960, Lombardi’s Packers reached the NFL championship game, but suffered a heartbreaking loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Lombardi vowed never to let that happen again. Over the subsequent seven seasons, the Packers would win five championships, going a remarkable 13-1 in the 1962 campaign. In 1966, Lombardi’s Packers went 12-2 and won the first Super Bowl (over the Kansas City Chiefs); they took the Super Bowl again in 1967.
After his second Super Bowl victory, Lombardi resigned as head coach, but stayed on as the Packers’ general manager. In 1969, he returned to the field as head coach of the Washington Redskins. Again, he hoped to turn around a losing franchise. Indeed, in his one season as the Redskins’ head coach, the team finished with its first winning record since 1955. Unfortunately, Lombardi was already suffering from the cancer that would take his life before the start of the 1970 season.
Lombardi left the game as a legend. In his 10 years as an NFL coach, he never had a losing season. But Lombardi was more than a highly successful coach and world-class motivator. He is also revered for fighting back against racial bigotry and other prejudices that still infected football in the 1960s.
In 1970, the NFL renamed its Super Bowl trophy the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The following year, Lombardi was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Streets and schools and playing fields in New Jersey, New York, and Wisconsin have been named in his honor. And his famous saying, “Winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing,” has lit a fire under generations of competitors across the nation.