Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
January 11, 2002, Washington Post

Vince Lombardi: Super Coach

The National Football League playoffs begin this weekend. Twelve teams will battle for the right to play in Super Bowl XXXVI. Only one team will win the Vince Lombardi Trophy and be the champs of the NFL.

The start of the NFL playoffs brings up a question. No, not which team is going to win the Super Bowl. I've got no idea. The question is: Who was Vince Lombardi?

Lombardi was the hard-driving, no-nonsense head coach of the Green Bay Packers when they won the first two Super Bowls. He turned Green Bay into Titletown U.S.A. and became a football legend.

When Lombardi took over the team after the 1958 season, the Packers were the joke of the NFL with a 1-10-1 record. Two years later, the Pack was playing for the NFL championship. The Packers lost the 1960 title to the Philadelphia Eagles, but they didn't lose many more after that. Lombardi led the Packers to five league championships in the next seven years, including the famous "Ice Bowl," when the Packers beat the Dallas Cowboys in a 21-17 thriller. That 1967 game was played outdoors when it was 13 degrees below zero.

How did he win so much? Well, Lombardi was a great coach, but he wasn't the kind of coach that most kids would like. He worked his teams hard. Lombardi made his players repeat plays over and over until they got it right. As one player said, "He pushed you and pushed you and made you strong."

Lombardi yelled at his teams for any mistakes, even after games they had won. He accepted nothing less than excellence. One of Lombardi's famous line is: "Winning is not everything. It is the only thing."

Lombardi, of course, was not always a famous football coach. Born in 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, Vince loved to play sports, even though he was not very good at most of them. Vince was too stiff and clumsy to be skilled at basketball. He was a solid catcher in baseball, but had bad eyes, so he struggled at hitting.

Vince was strong and tough, however, so football became his game. When he was 12, he played fullback on a neighborhood sandlot team. Vince even helped design the plays for the team. Later, Vince was good enough to play football for Fordham University when the New York City college was a football power.

You had to be tough to play college football in the 1930s. In those days, the players wore hardly any pads, their leather helmets had no facemasks and lots of players played both offense and defense.

After college, Vince taught Latin and science at St. Cecilia, a high school in New York City. Vince also started coaching at St. Cecilia. But his first head coaching job was not in football. Lombardi was the school's basketball coach. But even coaching a sport that he hardly played, Lombardi was a winner. His first team's record was 10-9 and within a few years Lombardi led his boys to a regional championship.

Lombardi coached football too. First at St. Cecilia. Then Army, the New York Giants and the Packers in the NFL. He even coached the Washington Redskins for one final winning season. Wherever Lombardi coached, winning teams followed.

And that is why they hand the Super Bowl winners the Vince Lombardi Trophy.

Fred Bowen is the author of sports novels for kids. Write to him at KidsPost, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071. Or e-mail (with "The Score" in the subject field): kidspost@washpost.com.

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