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When Pride Still Mattered : A Life Of Vince Lombardi (平装)
by David Maraniss
| Category:
Biography, Football, NFL, Leadership |
| Market price: ¥ 208.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
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| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist illuminates the life and legend of the great pro football coach Vince Lombardi, in this textured and compelling biography of an American original. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 15 items |
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Tim Long (The Miami Herald) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-14 00:00>
A masterly biography... A finely crafted, multifaceted portrait of a life driven by obsession. |
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Lester Munson (Chicago Tribune) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-14 00:00>
Both the reach of the research and the grasp of Lombardi's character are impressive. It is a wonderful work.
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Michael Bauman (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-14 00:00>
A monumental biography.
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Ron Fimrite (Sports Illustrated) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-14 00:00>
Forges a near-perfect synthesis of fine writing and fascinating material. May be the best sports biography ever published. |
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Robert W. Creamer (The Washington Post Book World), USA
<2007-01-14 00:00>
An astonishingly good book... A triumph, a classic American biography.
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Wes Lukowsky (Booklist) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-14 00:00>
Lombardi, whose Green Bay Packers dominated professional football in the early 1960s, was arguably the greatest NFL coach ever, despite a relatively short career ended by his death from cancer in 1970. Maraniss, who won a Pulitzer for his Washington Post articles on presidential candidate Bill Clinton, looks beyond Lombardi's surface image of single-minded determination and devotion to discipline to reveal a man whose essence was... single-minded determination and devotion to discipline. There was no pretense and very little subtext to Vince Lombardi. He was devoted to family, God, and football, and if he had a failing, it was to reverse the order occasionally. As Maraniss reveals, he was a mediocre father and a loving but distracted workaholic husband. If there is any revelation here, it comes in Maraniss' treatment of the relationship between Lombardi and his wife, Marie, who was unhappy with her secondary position in her husband's life and, in response, became a problem drinker. This is a carefully researched, often poignant, three-dimensional biography. In an era where image is usually synonymous with illusion, it is refreshing to realize that Lombardi, whose private and public selves were so similar, was a man of substance and depth. |
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Allen St. John (The New York Times Book Review) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-14 00:00>
When Pride Still Mattered stands in stark contrast to most other books by and about coaches. Maraniss shows not only that winning isn't everything, it's not even what it's cracked up to be. |
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Roger Dier (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-14 00:00>
David Maraniss never overtly answers that question, but close readers find evidence that Vince Lombardi paid the ultimate price for his success. Oh, the irony. Dying just past his mid-50s, Maraniss uses anecdotes to show that Lombardi's drive to succeed was organic, excessive and frequently beyond his control.
Still, Lombardi's public fed those desires with praise for the results he achieved through the men who played for him. Count me guilty: I grew up in Green Bay during the Lombardi era and I loved this man at the time and I love his memory even more. With Lombardi's teams, you just knew that they were going to find a way to win when it mattered most. Maraniss spends time on the methods Lombardi used to handle his players, much of which was new to me. Maraniss also devotes writing energy to shed light on people who helped Lombardi become Lombardi: Jack Vainisi, a pliant Packers Executive Committee, his parents and his coaches.
Many of Lombardi's friends, associates and players in Green Bay and in his life are dying off. That Mariness culled the impressions and memories of Lombardi's contemporaries and included them gives this book depth that is not found in other Lombardi print pieces. The effort researching and creating this book showed me that when it came to Vince Lombardi, David Maraniss believed that great writing is the only thing.
I thought I knew most everything there was to know about Lombardi until I read this book. It's a keeper and one that you'll read more than once.
If I could recommend another book about Vince that's out of print, look for Coach-A Season with Lombardi by Tom Dowling. Dowling shadowed Lombardi during his year coaching the Washington Redskins. |
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-14 00:00>
First, a few low points... While not written in the jargon of the field, Maraniss clearly approaches the subject of Vince Lombardi from a post-modern point of view. He opens with a contrived and somewhat galling introduction, in which he explains that he has borrowed the title from another author and uses it (of course!) "ironically." At various points throughout the book, Maraniss attempts to "de-construct" Lombardi, which is to some extent the mark of any good biography, but the author takes it too far at times, especially in his frequent references to the "fallacy of the innocent past." Moreover, this is not a political book, but because Lombardi was mildly politically active, politics enters the picture. And a subtle bias pervades Maraniss's discussion of politics. When lifelong Democrat (but always pretty conservative) Lombardi begins drifting toward Nixon and Republicans in the turbulent sixties, Maraniss attributes Lombardi's conservatism not to a heartfelt belief in those principles but to an inability to cope with rapidly changing times. The 60s is a favorite topic for Maraniss, as his latest book indicates, but his digressions into the protests, while tangentially important to Lombardi's story (particularly his philosophy of freedom), are overdone.
Nevertheless, despite those faults, I still give this book a five. Immediately after that disappointing introduction, Maraniss redeems himself with probably the most stunning first line I have read in any book of nonfiction (and perhaps in fiction, too): "Everything begins with the body of the father." It is a starting point for a discussion of Lombardi's immigrant father, but it brings together elements that appear throughout the book: family (especially Lombardi's relationship with his son); Catholicism; the physical violence of football. From his youthful desire to be a priest and his high school and college football career, Maraniss follows Lombardi to Fordham and beyond to his first coaching job at a small Catholic high school in New Jersey and to an assistant's job at West Point, under Red Blaik. It was then to the Giants, where he was an assistant with Tom Landry, and finally across the country to Green Bay, where the legend was born.
The book is not just a biography of Vince Lombardi; it is a look at American life and culture and at the history of professional football. It is amazingly written, and the descriptions of football games are wonderful - particularly the Ice Bowl, which another reviewer has mentioned. Flaws and all, this is a fantastic read.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-14 00:00>
When Pride Still Mattered is a well-researched and very enjoyable biography of pro football's most infamous coach. Author David Maraniss takes the reader on a page-turning journey beginning with Vince Lombardi's boyhood in Sheepshead Bay, N.Y. and continues his detailed chronicle through his college years at Fordham, his early (and somewhat obscure and lengthy) coaching positions, finally to his glory days with the Green Bay Packers (and ultimately to his death from cancer). The reader learns of Lombardi's devotion to God, Family and Football and the author attempts to illustrate how these priorities came to be the underlying foundation of Lombardi's persona via his large extended family, his devout Catholicism, and his relationships with various instructors and coaches who influenced him as he transitioned to adulthood.
As enjoyable and informative as the entire book is, it does have its problems. In a nutshell, Maraniss, a Washington-based journalist, is unable (or unwilling) to conceal his "bay-boom" deconstructionist mentality (or his leftward political leanings). Besides his Pulitzer-Prize winning book on Bill Clinton, he also has written a book on Gore and co-authored a little ditty entitled "Tell Newt to Shut Up". Enough said. These leanings manifest themselves in the following ways:
1)Maraniss seems bent on destroying the Lombardi "myth" (as well as the myth of the "innocent past"). While we all want to know Lombardi "the man", Maraniss all too often concentrates on Lombardi's faults (his inattentiveness to his wife and children, for example) to the point were it becomes bothersome and repetitive.
2)We learn (on a variety of occasions) that Lombardi was a Democrat and considered JFK a personal friend (who supposedly did help neuter Paul Horning's suspension). He detested racism and `homophobia'. While Maraniss presents Lombardi as a social liberal, he potrays his wife Marie (an avowed conservative Republican, by the way) as a tragic figure, an alcoholic who seeks recognition and identity throughout her entire life with Vince. After Lombardi's death, she is practically demonized as a chain-smoking boozer and recluse who lives behind closed doors in a dream-like trance.
3)At the very beginning of the book, Maraniss mentions he meant the title to contain a certain irony. Like other reviewers, I failed to find it. Pride clearly DID matter to Lombardi. In fact, blemishes and all, I admire Lombardi the man more now than ever. If Maraniss intended to "deconstruct" Lombardi, he failed in a rather big way.
I do not question the basic truths Maraniss presents here, but I do question the weight he attaches to them. After all, as good as his research was, he never interviewed Lombardi or his wife.
Nonetheless, a great read, and one that's hard to put down. Not an "X's and O's" book, but a wonderfully informative one about the life of the NFL's greatest coaching legend.
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