Spotlights making his large shadow larger, “Lombardi” emerged from the darkness, slowly striding to centre stage.
My ticket told me that I was sitting in The Circle in the Square Theatre. The calendar told me it was December 29, 2010. My body told me I was 45 years old.
But as I saw the “Lombardi” character emerge onstage to open the play bearing his name, I was emotionally transported.
Not just back to a time when Vince Lombardi patrolled the sidelines in Green Bay. But to a time when I was forming my passion for the greatest sport in the world. Lombardi was dead at this point, but I worshiped what he had done. Even though my favourite NFL team was (and is) the Steelers; even though my favourite player was (and still is) Gale Sayers – I loved what Lombardi stood for and what he achieved.
Paul Brown went to 10 straight championship games (four in the old AAFC and six in the NFL), coaching the team he owned and christened. He did it with innovation and tactics. Chuck Knoll has won more Super Bowls than any other coach. He did it by massaging fragile psyches, balancing egos and embracing odd personalities. In different generations, George Halas and Don Shula are the only coaches to notch 300 victories.
But only Lombardi has won five NFL championships (I think, correct me if I am wrong) and he did it in just nine seasons with the Packers. He did it by taking the worst team in football in 1959 and, with the same core players, had them in the finals in two seasons and atop the podium in three. For me, it has always been about how he did it as much as what he did. There is a reason the Super Bowl trophy my Steelers are going to win (yet again) this year is named after him.
Lombardi understood people more than any coach who ever coached the game. He motivated them by making the “relentless pursuit of perfection” their goal. He fortified them by having them train harder than any pro coach would ever suggest. He convinced them by developing a single, powerful identity clothed in one offensive play – the PACKER SWEEP – that nobody could stop.
These three principles: never-ending pursuit of a goal, outworking others and creating overwhelming confidence – can work in any walk of life. Relationships. Friendships. Sports. Business.
For that, we owe Lombardi.
But as a youngster reading about Lombardi, I am doubtful (and hopeful) my reflections weren’t that deep. But, in some ways, they were. When I read Run to Daylight, I came to the realization that if I wanted something, all I had to do was work for it. I was incredibly insecure as a kid. This book gave me hope. It actually made me feel that it wasn’t about what you were born with. As an adult, I read When Pride Still Mattered by Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss. This isn’t a football book. It’s a book about what drives greatness in a reader.
If you want to understand yourself better, if you want to understand how to overcome your own demons… read it. If you want to understand why every family in the world is a mess… read it.
The current Lombardi play on Broadway is based on this book. My wife was generous enough to sit through it with me. For her, it was Broadway – great acting by the Marie Lombardi character… and, I suspect, perhaps a curiosity to understand me better.
For me, it was time travel. Seeing that play took me from my present day love of the game back to
the years when I would watch Condredge Holloway, Tommy Clements and later J.C. Watts guide my beloved (Ottawa) Rough Riders to Grey Cup titles and injustice (see offensive pass interference penalty on Tony Gabriel, circa 1981, I believe). It took me back to Franco Harris and Rocky Bleier. It took me back to Herschel (which is my nickname) Walker at Georgia and to the (almost) Toronto Northmen of the WFL. It took me to Johnnie Walton and the Boston Breakers of the USFL.
It took me back to being four-foot-nothing in grade nine. Struggling with being short. Struggling with not being a great football player, wrestler, or clarinet player. It took me back to wearing velour and living in the shadow of my dad – the hero teacher at my school – and older sister who I thought was perfect… as did the rest of my freaking hometown!
Football and my heroes like Lombardi let a little boy escape. It gave me confidence. It gave me pride.
That’s why I coach. Because of what the game can do to help little men become young men.
That’s why I melted when Dan Lauria as Lombardi strolled across the stage and the rest of the crowd applauded. My throat closed, my eyes followed. The tears came flowing out at an embarrassing pace. I wanted to go up onstage and hug him. This ghost. This myth. This guardian angle. This hero. My secret friend. My made-up pal.
Lombardi. He is football.
| I have a poster that adorns my office wall with a portrait of Lombardi in his stoic pose. Half-smile, half-grimace on his face. Neat black suit, hands folded gently behind his back. The text of the poster is Lombardi’s famous speech – What It Takes to Be Number One. The poster stands next to my door and I am sure that many an intern has wondered what I am staring at. My eyes lost in Lombardi’s. My lips mouthing every word. My right hand clenched in the tense fist I make when I’m absorbed by something.
This speech is an invincible spirit raiser for any occasion. I have copied it here for you. Read it. Keep it. Read it again in a week. And the week after, and… What It Takes to Be Number One
 Winning is not a sometimes thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that’s first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don’t ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win. Every time a football player goes to ply his trade he’s got to play from the ground up – from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That’s O.K. you’ve got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you’ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you’re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field second. Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization – an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win – to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don’t think it is. It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That’s why they are there – to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules – but to win. I don’t say these things because I believe in the “brute” nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour – his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear – is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he’s exhausted on the field of battle – victorious. – Vince Lombardi |
