When Pride Still Mattered

by David Maraniss

  Why did Lombardi quit? Not even his aides accepted at face value the pragmatic answer he gave about simply not having the time to do both jobs. “I guess all of us were sitting back and trying to read between the lines,” Chuck Lane said later. Lombardi’s claim that he would be satisfied doing only the work of a general manager, Lane thought, was “like a great racehorse saying it would be content plowing.” Despite his assertion that he was in “excellent health” and that “any rumors to the contrary” were “completely false,” it was indeed Lombardi’s health, physical and mental, that more than anything drove his decision.

  After leading his aging team to its third straight title, Lombardi was spent. For years he had suffered from digestive problems and heartburn, and over the past season those symptoms had worsened. Players became accustomed to seeing him with a bottle of antacid medicine in his hand. He had traumatic arthritis in his left hip, and it hobbled him more than ever during the 1967 season. Carroll Dale, the receiver, remembered once that season when “the team was fogged in somewhere waiting for a plane, and Lombardi talked about the weather and how much it hurt him. How tough it was to be out on the field with that pain in his hip.” He took indomethacin daily for the arthritis, which had an ulceric side effect on his stomach, creating a vicious cycle of pain. He tried various other treatments, delving into folklore remedies to wear a copper bracelet on his wrist. The pain did not go away.

  Father Spalding had reason to believe that the arthritic hip alone was enough to force Lombardi off the field. The priest had been visiting Marie at Sunset Circle one afternoon in December, a few weeks before the Ice Bowl. “We were sitting in the living room talking when Vince came in and said, ‘Well, that’s it. I’m done.’ He had just been to his doctor’s about the hip. He said, ‘I’ve got to quit coaching.’ ”

  Marie worried that he would drop dead of a heart attack, a fear that seemed all too possible several times that year. He blacked out in the dressing room twice, according to Chuck Lane, and several times complained about shortness of breath and chest pains. Friends thought that he looked more fatigued than ever before. “He didn’t look too good after the game in Baltimore this year” were Father Tim Moore’s first words after hearing that Lombardi had retired as coach. “And he seemed tired and low after the win over the Giants. Many of us were concerned. But if you know Vince, you know you don’t harp on things with him.” Lombardi “at fifty-four is a lot older than coaches older than he, if you follow me,” Moore added. “The intensity he puts into his coaching is almost unbelievable. He left nothing undone to win a game.” By the time Lombardi met with the Packers executive board to discuss his future, Tony Canadeo thought that he looked awful. “He said he was tired, and he looked tired,” Canadeo said. “You don’t want someone dying on you.”

  Lombardi’s physical exhaustion was exacerbated by mental strain. Here was the familiar cycle from success to anguish: The more he won, the more famous he became; the more famous he was, the more a target of criticism he became; the more he was criticized, the more he felt misunderstood; the more misunderstood he felt, the more anguish he carried. All of this had come to a climax with the publication of Leonard Shecter’s “The Toughest Man” piece in the January 1968 issue of Esquire, in which Lombardi was described as swearing at his players, casually dismissing their pain and injury, arguing with Marie and generally acting bellicose if not abusive.

  When considered from the remove of decades, Shecter’s piece seems relatively tame. Lombardi’s reported curses were nothing more than “dammit” and “shit” and “for Chrissakes.” His players described his excesses on the practice field, but the details were accurate and most of the anec-dotes were familiar to any journalist who had spent time in Green Bay. In addition, the players were quoted by name; this was not a deliberate hatchet job in which the writer attacked his subject with blind quotes. Dick Schaap, who read the piece as he was editing the manuscript of Instant Replay, thought Shecter was off mostly in tone. There was almost nothing in the magazine article that did not echo something in Jerry Kramer’s diary, but Kramer’s assessment of Lombardi was more complex and forgiving. “There were a lot of truths in it, but it was too far one way,” Schaap said of Shecter’s story. “It may have been one hundred percent truthful, but one hundred percent truthful isn’t always the truth. It may have been accurate, but it wasn’t fair.”

  Whatever its merits, the story had a profound effect on Lombardi. He was a New Yorker and Shecter was a New Yorker, and he had assumed that Shecter would intuitively understand him. During the week that Shecter was at training camp, in fact, Lombardi had noted with hometown pride that the writer was “a real New Yorker” because he read the newspaper by folding it in eighths, the style perfected by subway riders. But he told aides and friends that he did not recognize himself in Shecter’s portrait. He had always been forthright in acknowledging his explosive temper, realizing that it was a difficult aspect of his personality, but he did not think, as he thought the story implied, that his temper defined his character. “It absolutely destroyed him. He thought he was being compared to a Bavarian beast who drank blood from his victims,” said Chuck Lane. Lombardi often recounted the scene of his mother calling him in tears from Sheepshead Bay after reading the story. The other side of that anecdote is that he was nearly reduced to tears by his mother’s lament: Is my son really like that?

  The story diminished him, Lombardi said, reducing him to nothing more than another brutal football coach. He preferred to be known as a teacher, leader, bearer of the Insignis Medal, the man who had preached the nobility of sport. Instead, Shecter described him almost pathetically as a self-important little man who has “a little bit of a weight problem and walks with his belly sucked in and his chest expanded like a pigeon’s. Even so, the waistband of his beltless (but pleated) slacks sometimes folds over to show the lining….” Years later, in an interview with Howard Cosell, one of his sympathetic chroniclers, Lombardi dismissed the criticism he had faced in late 1967. Yet, he said, “that kind of talk, I think, was one of the reasons for my retirement….I think it had a great deal to do with it.”

  Two other reasons were mentioned by others as factors in Lombardi’s decision, although he was hesitant to acknowledge them. He had pushed his Packers as long and far as they could go, many believed, and it was becoming obvious that their era was over. “He was a very smart guy. He knew. The Packers were dead,” said Gary Knafelc, who had played on Green Bay’s early championship teams. “He didn’t do Phil [Bengtson] any favors. To win the Ice Bowl and that last Super Bowl was amazing. The Packers were old and dead. He didn’t want to go down a loser.” Even if that judgment was too harsh, perhaps the relationship between Lombardi and his players had reached a point of diminishing returns. He had said it all; they had heard it all. That was the assessment of Lombardi’s son, Vincent. “Anybody who motivates and gets people going sooner or later runs out of things to say. You’ve got to take your act to a new venue. What’s he going to tell these guys to get them to reach down and do it one more time? They’d done it five times now. I think he saw that coming. I don’t think he bailed out because he saw the inevitable decline so much as he just figured, what’s the point?”

  On the Friday morning of February 2, the morning after he announced his retirement from coaching, Lombardi took the same route to work, walked up the same stairs, said hello to the same secretary, Ruth McKloskey, entered the same door with the same nameplate, MR. LOMBARDI, on it. “I feel about the same,” he said, smiling. “I don’t feel any different. I don’t know whether the impact has hit me yet.” On his desk was a stack of telegrams. He picked through the names: Red Blaik, Jim Ringo, Bobby Kennedy, Bob Jeter. Pete Rozelle (“VINNIE VENI VIDI VICI I AM HAPPY FOR YOU PETE”). Mailbags full of letters were on the way.

  One came from W. C. Heinz, who said that he had stayed near the radio all day at his home in rural Vermont listening to hourly news reports from a station in Schenectady until finally, late at night, Lombar
di’s voice “came booming through the static.” Another came from Father Burke of St. Norbert, who noted proudly that he had kept the secret of Lombardi’s desire to quit for more than a year. From Oliver Kuechle, sports editor of the Milwaukee Journal, came a note congratulating him on “the greatest coaching era” in the history of pro football and adding: “I don’t believe there would be a Packer football team today except for you.” Barbara Hecker, wife of Lombardi’s former assistant Norb Hecker, recalled in her letter that her youngest daughter had trouble saying the letter l, so that, appropriately, “‘Lombardi’ somehow always came out ‘Somebody.’ ” She and Norb were “filled with emotion” when they got word of Lombardi’s retirement, she said. “You are a great man, yes, but a good and gentle man also.”

  “It’s about time you got the hell out of coaching,” wrote Carroll Rosenbloom, owner of the Baltimore Colts. “Now I can put away my sign—Break Up Lombardi.” Don McIlhenny, by then a real estate agent in Dallas, recalled the 1959 season, the one year he had played halfback for Lombardi: “During that season you paid me a compliment that I am sure you have since long forgotten, but it will always be remembered as the highlight of my football career.” Bob Volovinno, who played for Lombardi at West Point, wrote that he would “always be grateful as to what you, Colonel Blaik and Murray Warmath taught me at West Point. Not only from the technical aspect of football, but also in helping me become a better individual. I will always remain an ardent admirer and a loyal fan of yours.”

  The most touching letter was written on a broken typewriter whose d key jumped a half line each time it was punched. It came from Ben Starr, the father of Bart, who wrote from his home on Biscayne Drive in Montgomery, Alabama.

  It is with a feeling of deep gratitude that we say “thank you” for all you have done for Bart since he has been associated with you. He gives you the entire credit for any and all success that he has had and we know he is going to miss the meetings he has shared with you, but we are thankful that you will, at least, still be associated with the Packer organization. I and my wife both feel that Bart will probably rely on you to still offer him advice. It is not only because you are the finest coach in football, but the type of religious man you are also that has made us so happy for Bart to be associated with you. He admires you in so many ways that you have had a far deeper impact on him in more ways than you will probably ever know.

  Lombardi’s own father was less sentimental, more succinct. “You made the biggest mistake of your life,” Harry Lombardi told his oldest son. “You gave up the best job in the world.”

  FOR SEVERAL YEARS Jack Koeppler had been making the three-hour drive from Green Bay down to Madison to attend board meetings of a mortgage guarantee company owned by David Carley, a prominent businessman and political activist who had run for governor of Wisconsin in 1966 and served on the Democratic National Committee. At every meeting, it seemed, Koeppler greeted Carley with the same offer: “I’d like to introduce you to my golfing buddy, Vince Lombardi.” Carley invariably declined. He knew who Lombardi was—it was nearly impossible to live in Wisconsin and not know—but Carley was completely absorbed in commerce, politics and public policy, and unlike many businessmen was not awed by the winning ways of a football coach. “Until, one day, driving to Milwaukee in my car, all of a sudden it hit me,” Carley recalled later. “I’ll get Koeppler to introduce me to Lombardi for this new company I had going.”

  The company was Public Facilities Associates, Inc.—a name that Carley’s wife disliked, believing it sounded as though they made toilets. In fact, they had entered the field of what were known as turnkey projects, building apartment complexes for the elderly and poor and selling them to local public housing authorities. Carley considered this the first stage of his ambitious development plans, which involved redeveloping downtowns with a mix of housing and sports facilities. “As soon as I saw that correlation between housing and stadia, I thought, I’ve got to get Lombardi interested in this,” Carley said. “I thought he would make some money at it. And, unquestionably, he would give me access or entrée.” Polls were listing Lombardi as the sports figure most respected by American industrialists. “And he was no less respected in Wisconsin by city councils,” Carley noted. “That name in Wisconsin! I always found it unbelievable.”

  Carley and Lombardi met at Oneida Golf and Riding Club early in the spring of 1968, soon after Lombardi’s retirement from coaching. Koeppler, serving as the go-between, had personal and business connections to both men. He not only played golf with Lombardi, but also handled the pension plan for Green Bay’s administrative personnel. In addition to serving on the board of Carley’s mortgage company, he was an ardent Democrat who kept Carley abreast of politics in the Fox River valley. Politics also bonded him to Lombardi; they were among the few Democrats at the country club. When the three men gathered for lunch at Oneida, Carley outlined his plans for Public Facilities and said that he wanted Lombardi to serve as chairman of the board. Lombardi’s manner swung from taciturn to gregarious over the course of the meal. Though it became apparent to Carley that Lombardi was “certainly not knowledgeable about business” he found him interesting and surprisingly generous with his time.

  From Lombardi’s perspective, the business offer could not have come at a more propitious moment. During his nine years in Green Bay, he had devoted himself almost exclusively to the cause of winning football games, something he did better than any other coach in the world. To that end, he had become expert in the art of power, gaining it and wielding it, but as to power’s frequent companion—money—he had not accumulated much beyond his generous near-six-figure salary and knew little about it. His financial ventures in Green Bay had been modest and sporadic. With Dick Bourguignon, he had invested in a cherry orchard in Door County, and at the suggestion of golfing friends at Oneida, he had bought various stocks. “But it was just five shares here or eight shares there,” recalled Ockie Krueger, his aide-de-camp. “He got a lot of tips from guys, but he never invested much money in them. He’d have all these little checks coming in.”

  As he became more famous, Lombardi associated more frequently with wealthy businessmen and professionals, and though his celebrity status allowed him to meet them as equals, he was still and always the Brooklyn butcher’s son. At league meetings he spent much of his time in closed rooms with the owners, and listened to this collection of egocentric multimillionaires talk about private jets, real estate deals, penthouse apartments in Miami Beach and Manhattan. They spoke a language that he did not quite know and wanted to learn. He told friends that no matter how much power he accumulated in Green Bay, he would never have as much power as an owner. As his son, Vincent, later explained, “You don’t have to be around the NFL long to understand that if you’re not an owner, you’re zip. You’re fungible. You’re a dime a dozen, no matter how great a coach you are.” Lombardi saw that football was changing, becoming more a business, in which authority meant less without money to back it up. The league was richer than ever, television advertising revenues and network contracts had doubled in five years, and in a sense the fight over the spoils had only just begun, as players hired agents and strengthened their union.

  Lombardi now equated money with power, and he wanted more of it. On May 1 he signed on with Carley, agreeing to a sweetheart deal in which he received 12.5 percent of Public Facilities stock by putting down $6,000. It was the only money that he ever invested in the enterprise, and within less than two years, after the company was sold twice, the second time to Inland Steel, he came out with more than a million dollars. His involvement with Carley’s firm was announced on May 10 at a press conference at Milwaukee’s Pfister Hotel. Carley had brought in public relations man Mitchell Fromstein to help develop the coach’s business persona. An hour before the press conference, Fromstein handed Lombardi a page of notes on how the company hoped to serve the public by providing low-income housing for the poor and elderly. “He read it once and walked up there and delivered a speec
h like he had prepared it carefully the night before,” Fromstein said. “It struck me immediately that he had a near-photographic memory. And he had a presence that was very, very strong. His voice made people respond to him.”

  At the press conference, Carley said that he intended to draw on Lombardi’s planning skills to help shape the company, but that was a public relations ruse. Lombardi did attend all the board meetings, but his role was limited. “David never expected that Vince was going to contribute something to the business that was technically important,” Fromstein said, nor did Lombardi expect it. His value to the company was obvious. His name alone could get Public Facilities a hearing anywhere. “We wanted to build housing for the elderly in Sheboygan, and we had tried to see Karl Prange from H. C. Prange’s several times,” Koeppler recalled. “We were up there talking to Vince, and Vince said, ‘I’ll call him.’ Soon he puts his hand over the phone and says, ‘Want to meet for lunch tomorrow or the next day?’ When we met the next day, they both knew why they were there. Prange ran Sheboygan. Vince ran Green Bay.”

  Carley was surprised by the way “other people in business and politics were awed” by Lombardi. His own opinion was that the coach’s worldview seemed limited. “Everybody kissed his ass so he didn’t learn things in the way most people learn things,” Carley concluded. Although Carley had heard that Lombardi was a football intellectual who read books, he was suspicious. Whenever he mentioned a book, it seemed that Lombardi could not engage in a discussion about it. “I wasn’t all that impressed with Lombardi,” he said later. “But I was impressed with the fact that other people were impressed. I caught on early to that.” He caught on late, too. Inland Steel might never have been interested in buying his company had the company president not been infatuated with the famous football coach.