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When Pride Still Mattered : A Life Of Vince Lombardi (Paperback)
by David Maraniss
| Category:
Biography, Football, NFL, Leadership |
| Market price: ¥ 208.00
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| 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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Author: David Maraniss
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; Reprint edition
Pub. in: September, 2000
ISBN: 0684870185
Pages: 544
Measurements: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00624
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0684870182
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- Awards & Credential -
The New York Times Bestseller, widely recognized as one of the finest American biographies. |
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- MSL Picks -
David Maraniss's excellent biography of Vince Lombardi reveals a man in touch with the average American, the story of a super achiever whose own struggles propelled him with increased conviction to drive others toward victory. Maraniss traces Lombardi's roots as a butcher's son growing up in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn. His passion for football exceeds his on field talent, but through grit and determination Lombardi obtained a scholarship to Fordham University in the Bronx and became one of the "Seven Blocks of Granite" at guard, helping bolster the line offensively and defensively. His innate coaching gifts were on display early as, according to Maraniss the least talented of his teammates on the Fordham line, he became the most inspirational. More talented teammates would listen to his criticism and react to his fiery exhortations to push onward toward perfection.
The Fordham school motto was "do or die" and Lombardi profited from the teachings of the Jesuit fathers at Fordham, instilling discipline within him and a sense of commitment. After coaching football and basketball at St. Cecilia's High School in Englewood, New Jersey, Lombardi then received an opportunity to become line coach at Army, where he sopped up gridiron knowledge from one of the game's all-time coaching masters, Colonel Earl "Red" Blaik. At Army he also became acquainted with General Douglas MacArthur, whose motto of "There is no substitute for victory" remained within him from that time thereafter, as did the Army motto of "God, honor and country."
Eventually Lombardi moved on to become offensive coordinator under Jim Lee Howell with the New York Giants. Another young up and coming coach, Tom Landry, assumed the defensive coordinator's role, comprising with Lombardi the most formidable one-two punch among assistants in National Football League history.
While Landry became famous by becoming the original coach of the expansion Dallas Cowboys, guiding them to greatness, Lombardi received first crack one year earlier in 1959 in an NFL head coaching status, becoming mentor of the hapless Green Bay Packers, thought by many to be on their way out of the NFL. In 1958, under Scooter McLean, the Packers were 1-10-1. The tenacious Lombardi brought his determined ways immediately to bear, finishing 7-5 in his astounding first season, then losing by an eyelash to the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFL championship game one year later. Not to be thwarted, in 1961 Lombardi won it all, romping at home over his old New York Giants' team in a 37-0 rout, then repeating the victory feat one year later in Yankee Stadium 16-7.
Green Bay was a small town consisting of uncomplicated people adhering to the traditional values. Lombardi was a no nonsense coach who disdained fancy formations and trick plays, focusing his attention on perfecting the basics, emphasizing execution.
This is a book that could be read and enjoyed by those interested in solid biography and not in football, and will be devoured by afficianados. Lombardi is presented in human terms, revealing him as someone with his own troubles. His devotion to his teams left less time at home than he would have desired. He fought with wife Marie often and struggled to find more time to spend with son Vince Jr. and daughter Susan. His relations with management and with the press were often less than cordial, and yet, in the final analysis, despite his imperfections, Lombardi emerges as a loving, caring individual to players, family and friends. He emerges as a giant, an overachiever determined to come as close as humanly possible to attaining perfection in his field, obtaining the maximal effort from his players.
(From quoting William Hare, USA)
Target readers:
Biography lovers, American football/NFL fans, leadership readers, English majors, and advanced English learners.
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David Maraniss is the author of The Clinton Enigma and First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton. He is an associate editor at The Washington Post, where his articles on Bill Clinton won him the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1993. He lives in Washington, D.C.
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From Publisher
More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor of the American experience. The son of an Italian immigrant butcher, Lombardi toiled for twenty frustrating years as a high school coach and then as an assistant at Fordham, West Point, and the New York Giants before his big break came at age forty-six with the chance to coach a struggling team in snowbound Wisconsin. His leadership of the Green Bay Packers to five world championships in nine seasons is the most storied period in NFL history. Lombardi became a living legend, a symbol to many of leadership, discipline, perseverance, and teamwork, and to others of an obsession with winning. In When Pride Still Mattered, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Maraniss captures the myth and the man, football, God, and country in a thrilling biography destined to become an American classic.
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Chapter 24: Ice
Ed Sabol could not sleep the night before a title game. He and his son Steve had been working pro football championships for NFL Films since 1962, and every year he was nervous, as if he had never done this before. Were his cameras in the right locations? Would there be a dramatic story line? Would the weather create problems again? By seven on the morning of December 31, 1967, he already had been awake for two hours, and now he was standing at the window of his hotel room, staring out into the northern darkness. Friday seemed unforgiving in Green Bay, with heavy snow and a fierce wind, but on Saturday there was a brilliant winter sun and the temperature had soared toward thirty. Local forecasters had predicted more of the same for today's one o'clock game.
The telephone rang. Steve, who had been asleep in the other bed, fumbled for the receiver.
"Good morning, Mr. Sabol."
The wake-up message came in a gentle singsong voice.
"It is sixteen degrees below zero and the wind is out of the north. Now have a nice day."
"Dad," Steve said. "You're not going to believe this!"
The same words of disbelief were being uttered all over town. The phone at Paul's Standard station on South Broadway had started ringing at five that morning, and the overnight man couldn't handle it, so Paul Mazzoleni went in himself and took to the streets with his tow truck and jumper cables. One of his first stops was at Willie Wood's. The free safety was standing next to his dead car, shivering, convinced that even when Mazzoleni brought his frozen battery back to life he was not going anywhere. "It's just too cold to play," Wood said. "They're gonna call this game off. They're not going to play in this." Chuck Mercein, the new man on the Packers, brought in at midseason to help fortify the depleted backfield, was alone in his apartment, semiconscious; his clock radio had just gone off. Had he really just heard someone say it was thirteen below? He must have misunderstood. Wasn't it near thirty when he went to bed? He called the airport weather station to see if he had been dreaming. "You heard it right. It's thirteen below and it may get colder."
Lee Remmel of the Press-Gazette had arranged a ride to the stadium with a cityside writer, one of eleven reporters the home paper had assigned to the game. His colleague called at seven with the question, "Lee, do you know what the temperature is?" Remmel guessed twenty. No. Twenty-five? Go look at the thermometer. "I was aghast," he recalled. "The weatherman had been predicting twenty." Chuck Lane, the Packers' young publicist, had grown up in Minnesota and was familiar with the telltale sounds of severe winter in the northland. As soon as he stepped out of his downtown apartment on Washington Street, he knew this was serious. "You can tell when it's cold by the sound of your foot in the snow. I could tell by the first stride that this was damn cold. The sound has got a different crunch to it." By his second stride he could feel something else -- "the fuzz in your nose froze up."
Dick Schaap led a foursome of New Yorkers out to Green Bay for the big game, which he hoped would provide a narrative climax for the book he was writing with Jerry Kramer. As he and his editor, Bob Gutwillig, and their wives were driving downtown for breakfast, Schaap noticed the temperature reading on the side of a bank. It was -13. "Look, it's broken," he said. He had never before seen a negative temperature and assumed that the bank got it wrong. Dave Robinson was in his kitchen, eating his traditional pregame meal: scrambled eggs, the filet of a twenty-ounce T-bone steak, toast, tea with honey. His little twin boys hovered in the next room, waiting for their dad to leave so they could eat the rest of the steak. His wife came in and gave him a kiss. "It's twenty below out there," she said. "Twenty above, you mean," Robinson said. "Can't be twenty below."
There was a full house at Sunset Circle. Susan lived at home again after a short and unhappy stint at a Dominican-run secretarial school in Boca Raton. Vincent and Jill came down from St. Paul, and now they had two boys, Vincent II and John. Vincent was working days and going to law school at night. The father-son relationship had developed another odd twist. Vince rarely had time to watch Vincent play in college, but now he insisted that Vincent attend as many Packers games as possible. Lombardi the family man? Partly, no doubt, but there was also a measure of superstition involved. The Packers had won a key game the year before when Vincent was there, and ever since the Old Man thought of him as a talisman. Vincent loved football, he had grown up standing on the sidelines, but sometimes this good-luck business seemed more for his dad's benefit than his own.
At his father's request, he had once boarded a flight in St. Paul during a heavy storm to attend a game in Green Bay. The plane was diverted to Milwaukee and he ended up studying his law books and watching the Packers on television at the airport. Another time he brought Jill along for a preseason game in Milwaukee. They had left the boys with a babysitter and were excited about having a night alone at the Pfister Hotel. At dinner after the game, Vincent and Jill were startled to hear the Old Man suddenly announce "We're going home!"
"Jeez, Dad, it's kind of late," Vincent pleaded.
"I'll drive halfway and you drive halfway," Lombardi said, and that was that. Vincent and Jill packed up, and soon they were in the car with Vince and Marie, heading north to Green Bay. Five miles up the highway, Lombardi pulled over. "My knees are killing me," he said to Vincent. "You drive."
Maybe it had all done some good. The Packers had finished in first place again. They had finished first in the newfangled Central Division of the Western Conference with a 9-4-1 record, and then whipped the Los Angeles Rams in the playoff game for the western title. Critics were saying that the Packers were too old and slow aside from their one breathtaking rookie, Travis Williams, known as The Roadrunner, a return specialist who had run four kickoffs back for touchdowns, including two against the Browns in one game. Yet here they were, back in the championship, playing for their record third straight NFL title against the Dallas Cowboys. If standing on the sideline in subzero weather this afternoon could help them win one more time, Vincent was game.
Not much was said about the temperature in the Lombardi house. There was little talking about the game at all that morning. "Everybody was very uptight," Susan recalled. Vincent II had been up all night with a fever, distracting everyone, including the coach, who patted his grandson on the head before leaving for church. The cars were in the heated garage; Vince's Pontiac started right up. Silence on the way to mass. The priest prayed for the Packers. All quiet on the way back. Then Vince and Vincent left, driving clockwise south to the bridge crossing the Fox in downtown De Pere, then west to Highway 41, north to the Highland Avenue exit and east to Lambeau Field.
The Sabols were already there, positioning eleven cameramen around the stadium. They sent a technician up to the scoreboard to place a microphone near a camera that peeked through one of the number holes. When it came time for a pregame group meeting, one member of the crew was missing. What happened? He had brought a flask with him and had taken a few shots of bourbon to stay warm -- a few too many, it seemed. He had passed out cold and might have frozen to death behind the scoreboard had they not gone looking for him. The parking lots were starting to fill up by 11 a.m., two hours before game time, with many Packers fans insisting on going through their pregame rituals as though it was just another winter day in paradise. Not as many tailgaters as usual, but they were still out there. Folding chairs, card tables, brats and beer. One concession to the weather: more of them than usual were huddled around fires. Jim Irwin, a local TV sports director, arrived at the press box two hours before kickoff, and looked out and saw hundreds of people already stationed at their seats. "They didn't have to be in the stands," he noted. "They had reserved tickets. They chose to be out there when it was thirteen below."
Chuck Lane was heading out from the locker room to check the field when he met a group of assistants coming the other way. They had a message for the coach, an unwelcome one, the sort of news they would rather have Lane tell him. "Tell Lombardi that his field is frozen," one said. Tell Lombardi that his field was frozen? That, Lane thought, would be like "telling him that his wife had been unfaithful or that his dog couldn't hunt." But that was his job, so he turned around and found Lombardi, who was leaving the locker room to check the field himself when Lane intercepted him. Lombardi seemed crestfallen, then angry and disbelieving. "What the hell are you talking about?" he thundered.
The field could not be frozen. The previous spring, in his role as general manager, Lombardi had paid $80,000 for a gigantic electric blanket devised by General Electric. He had bought it from George S. Halas, Papa Bear's nephew, who was the central district sales representative for GE's wiring services department. The fact that the Bears did not have an electric blanket themselves, even though young Halas was also a Bears scout, did not make Lombardi suspicious; it just showed that he was less tight with his team's money than old George. Lombardi loved modern inventions, and this electric blanket seemed to mean more to him than any play he had ever devised. Only the day before, he had taken a group of writers on a science field trip of sorts, first giving them a lecture on the underground magic, telling them how electric coils were laid in a grid the length of the turf, six inches below the surface and a foot apart, with another six inches of pea gravel below the coils and a drain below that. Then he led them back to a tiny control room off the tunnel below the stands...
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| View all 15 comments |
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. |
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. |
View all 15 comments |
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