That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory

by John Eisenberg

  Landry, just thirty-four years old, was clearly a head coach in the making, while Lombardi, forty-five, was at a point where some NFL teams might think he was too old to be a first-time head coach; it had taken him longer to rise through the ranks, and he had been passed over a few times. But Bell, Brown, and Halas all endorsed Lombardi as the one the Packers should hire.

  A short, square-shouldered bulldog of a man, Lombardi was an indelible character with an array of extreme qualities, an intense Italian American incapable of not leaving a strong impression. He had light-olive skin, close-cropped dark hair, and a prominent, triangular nose. When he smiled, gaps showed between his upper front teeth and a rectangle of deep creases formed around his mouth. His expensive clothes and round frame glasses gave him a scholarly air, as did his abilities as a blackboard instructor; he could take up the chalk and make complex offensive tactics and philosophies easy for players and other coaches to understand. But his buttoned-down appearance masked his temperamental, loud, demanding personality, which was legendary among those who knew him. Impatient with players who fell short of perfection, he bristled and snapped like an exposed electrical wire during practices and games, uncorking sprays of sarcastic profanities that could reduce hulking linemen to tears.

  A lifelong resident of the New York area, Lombardi had grown up in Brooklyn's Sheepshead Bay neighborhood, the eldest son of immigrant parents. His father, Harry, a meat wholesaler and devout Catholic, attended mass every day, and now Vince, after attending Catholic schools, was also a daily communicant. Harry had been a stern but affectionate father and Lombardi exuded similar qualities as a coach. If he knocked a player down with criticism, he picked him up later with a pat on the rear.

  He had played college football in the 1930s, his strength and innate fierceness enabling him to survive as a five-feet-ten, 175-pound guard on a Fordham University offensive line known as the Seven Blocks of Granite. Too small for the NFL, he considered entering the priesthood after college but instead worked for an insurance company, played semipro football, attended law school for a year, and married the only woman he had seriously dated, a stockbroker's daughter named Marie. They had two children, a son, Vincent Jr., and a daughter, Susan.

  In the late 1930s he took a job as the offensive line coach at St. Cecilia's, a Catholic prep school in Englewood, New Jersey, where he also coached basketball and baseball and taught physics, chemistry, algebra, and Latin, all for seventeen hundred dollars a year. After a promotion to head coach, he won six state titles in eight years, shouting, demanding, praising, pushing—never allowing his players to give less than their best.

  Setting his sights on becoming a major college coach, he left St. Cecelia's in 1947 to join the staff at Fordham. Two years later, Army coach Earl "Red" Blaik, one of the nation's preeminent football men, called him about a job. Blaik had won two national titles, fashioned a thirty-two-game winning streak, and always fielded strong teams. His approach was devastatingly simple. His players were well conditioned and mentally tough. The team's playbook was slim but allowed for few mistakes. Army beat you not with offensive wizardry but with ferocious blocking and tackling.

  Many of Blaik's assistants became head coaches elsewhere, and after Sid Gillman left for the University of Cincinnati, Blaik heard from many coaches wanting to work for him. None excited him. His friend Tim Cohane, the sports editor of Look magazine, suggested he call Lombardi; Cohane had been the sports publicist at Fordham when Lombardi played there. Blaik interviewed Lombardi, and although Lombardi had neither played nor coached at a major college, "I knew he was ready. I saw the sparkle in his eyes," Blaik said later. "I could tell he had a good knowledge of the game, much more than just an ordinary mentality, and an unusual amount of imagination. Right then, as a young fellow, he had that special quality of being able to electrify a room."

  Blaik hired Lombardi and mentored him in all aspects of the coaching craft. Lombardi learned how to organize a short, useful practice, analyze game film, prepare for a big game, and motivate players. After watching Lombardi explode angrily on the practice field, Blaik lectured him on managing his temper. "At first he didn't have control of his emotions. He was explosive," Blaik said later. "But while he was immature, he could overcome it because he had such a dynamic personality."

  Lombardi adopted Blaik's straightforward philosophy. Football didn't need to be complicated. The best players were fit, disciplined, and tough, willing to inflict and endure pain. They could win by mastering a small set of basic formations and plays, executing so crisply it didn't matter if the other team knew what was coming.

  Lombardi also favored discipline, routine, and hard work. His workday began at 8 a.m. and often didn't end until midnight. His focus and drive bordered on maniacal. Obsessing over a new offensive wrinkle one day, he forgot to put on his pants after practice and left the locker room wearing just his underwear; a security guard told him to go back and finish dressing. After driving to work with Marie and a male friend one morning, he absently leaned over and gave the friend a "bye, honey" kiss. His mind was always on football. Forever diagramming plays and debating their merits, "he was in another world when he was playing around with X's and O's," Blaik recalled.

  Thinking all along that his future lay in college ball, Lombardi paid little attention to the NFL. But then the Giants tried to hire Blaik to replace their longtime head coach, Steve Owen, after the 1953 season. Blaik turned the Giants down but suggested they hire Lombardi to run their offense under Jim Lee Howell. Lombardi took the job after Blaik endorsed the move. Blaik wasn't going anywhere, and if Lombardi, now forty, was ever going to become a head coach, he needed to move on.

  Lombardi got off to a rough start with the Giants. Some veterans didn't care for his sarcastic, critical style, and the offensive linemen practically revolted when he showed them his blocking system. They previously made blocks according to the defensive alignment, but now their assignments would be dictated by the offensive play-call. And instead of blocking a specific man, they were assigned a space and told to block any defender who entered it. Lombardi later recalled that when he unveiled the concept, "I could tell from the way they looked at each other and from their air of resignation that they were skeptical of this 'college stuff.' They thought I was crazy."

  But Lombardi won over a new generation of Giant blockers who mastered his system and played with the jaw-rattling toughness he demanded. They became the heart of his offense. Eschewing the pass-happy schemes that had become popular, Lombardi designed a simple power attack built around a strong running game, with a sprinkling of surprises mixed in. Like Army, the Giants ran few plays, but ran them flawlessly. In the 1956 championship game they rolled to a 47–7 victory over the Bears on an icy field at Yankee Stadium.

  The key for Lombardi was finding a use for Frank Gifford, a former Southern Cal star floundering as a pro. Owen had put him at defensive back, but Gifford was a nimble runner, effective receiver, and could throw. Lombardi put him at left halfback in a four-man backfield and designed plays that utilized his varied skills, such as the halfback option, which looked like an end sweep until Gifford stopped and threw downfield. In 1956 Gifford totaled more than fourteen hundred rushing and receiving yards, leading the league.

  After the 1957 season, in which the Giants finished second in the Eastern Division, Lombardi was approached by the Philadelphia Eagles about becoming their head coach. They offered a short-term contract with the possibility of an extension if the team won. Lombardi had dreamed about the chance to run his own team, but Giants owner Wellington Mara talked him out of going. The Eagles had meddling owners who would interfere, Mara warned. Lombardi turned down the offer and received a raise from Mara.

  Now, a year later, the Packers were interested. Vainisi mentioned Lombardi to Ole in mid-December 1958. Ole already knew the name, having seen Lombardi at a coaching clinic in Ohio that fall. Tony Canadeo had suggested they attend the clinic to check out other coaches. Lombardi had commanded the classroom, ex
uding self-confidence.

  At Vainisi's suggestion, Ole called Bell, Halas, and Paul Brown. They repeated their praise. Lombardi, they said, was an innovative strategist and dynamic leader who believed in discipline. Bell, who desperately wanted the Packers to improve, said he was "a great believer in desire and proper conduct; you'll like him." Halas said, "I shouldn't tell you this because you're liable to kick the crap out of us, but he'll be a good one." Paul Brown told Ole the Packers might not be able to pry Lombardi away from the Giants because he was a lifelong New Yorker liked by the Mara family. If he stayed put, Brown said, he probably would succeed Howell as the Giants' head coach.

  Ole phoned Mara and asked for permission to speak to Lombardi. Mara denied the request and suggested Ole consider Landry. But Ole persisted and, after several conversations, finally obtained Mara's permission.

  Reached at his home in Fair Haven, New Jersey, Lombardi told Ole he was interested. Lombardi and his wife had a heated discussion later. A tall, blue-eyed blond with an attention-getting figure, Marie Lombardi had never lived anywhere other than in and around New York. She and Vince had many friends, led an active social life, dined out, went to sophisticated nightclubs. No less strong-willed than her husband (she barked back when he snapped at her in the harsh tone that caused players to crumble), she hadn't minded the idea of Vince coaching the Eagles, just down the road in Philadelphia; maybe she and the kids wouldn't even move. But Green Bay was the middle of nowhere.

  Green Bay?! Green Bay?!

  Look, Marie, I don't know where this will lead. But I'm going to listen to what they have to say.

  Deep down, she knew they would go, had to go, if the job was right. Her blustery, football-obsessed husband had frustrations and insecurities like everyone else, and his involved getting older without having been a pro or college head coach. Howell, his boss, was two years younger, and like most NFL head coaches had been hired before turning forty. Lombardi, forty-five, wasn't out of time yet, but as the years passed, he felt increasingly restless, pent-up, and anxious; it frustrated him to be full of ideas about how to run a team, yet unable to execute them.

  Starting at his age meant he might get just one shot to run a team, which was partly why he had turned down the Eagles—he didn't want to waste his shot on a situation so rife with problems. This Packer job might fall into the same category, he feared. But his only other choice, at least as of now, was to wait for Howell to retire and then take the Giants' job, a scenario that might not play out for years.

  Before considering the Packer job, Lombardi had to finish coaching the Giants in 1958. They beat Cleveland on the final Sunday of the regular season to force a one-game playoff for the Eastern Division title, and then shut out the Browns to win the playoff. On the last Sunday of 1958, a national television audience of 40 million watched them play the Baltimore Colts for the championship. The Giants were favored to win their second title in three years, but the Colts jumped ahead, 14–3. The Giants rallied to take a 17–14 lead in the fourth quarter and had the ball in the final minutes, but Gifford fell inches short on a third down and the Giants punted. Johnny Unitas led a drive that produced a field goal forcing overtime, and then drove the Colts to the winning touchdown.

  Disappointed to lose what Sports Illustrated called "the greatest football game ever played," Lombardi started his off-season job at a bank a few days later. Coaching pro football wasn't a full-time job for assistants, many of whom worked outside the game in the off-season to augment their meager salaries. Lombardi experienced a profound change as he went from the shattering noise of a championship football game to the quiet purr of a bank, but he needed the money to maintain his family's standard of living, and he enjoyed the professional environment. Hired by the bank's sales office, he checked out other jobs in the building and wondered if he might like such work if his coaching career fizzled. A dapper dresser and quick learner, he felt he fit right in.

  His phone rang again in early January when Blaik resigned at Army after eighteen seasons. There was a flurry of talk about Lombardi replacing him—he was ever a logical candidate—but Army eventually stuck to its tradition of hiring only West Point men to coach its football team. Yet another opportunity had eluded Lombardi. It made him more frustrated. He knew he was a good football coach, and knew exactly what he wanted to do if he was ever fortunate enough to take over a team. He was confident enough to assume an opportunity would come, but whenever a dark mood struck, he wondered if it was possible he would end up working at a bank.

  Ole was under pressure to make a splashy hire. The members of an American Legion post that owned a substantial amount of Packer stock had demanded the resignations of the entire executive committee; the post commander said they had "not demonstrated they were capable of gaining and retaining the confidence of the community." A popular retired Packer, Charley Brock, had agreed in a public appearance that the entire committee should resign, saying the team should "start over from scratch." Ole's forthcoming management restructuring, which he had announced, hadn't assuaged the critics. They still believed the committee could do no right.

  A big-name hire would calm the situation at least temporarily, and the opportunity presented itself when Curly Lambeau campaigned hard to return as GM and be put in charge of hiring the new coach. The idea stirred excitement and headlines, but Lambeau had made enemies during his bitter departure a decade earlier, and Ole resisted making the easy, crowd-pleasing play.

  The committee focused on hiring a coach rather than a GM, thinking the new person might end up with both jobs. Cleveland's Paul Brown had always run the Browns on and off the field, and so did Lambeau for much of his tenure. Gene Ronzani hadn't been able to handle both jobs by himself, but maybe an estimable football man could. The committee contacted University of Kentucky coach Blanton Collier; University of Iowa coach Forest Evashevski; Otto Graham, the Cleveland Browns' former All-Pro quarterback; and Jim Trimble, coach of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League and formerly coach of the NFL's Eagles.

  Collier and Graham were disciples of Paul Brown, who had won three NFL titles and seven Eastern Division titles in Cleveland since 1950 (and four straight All-American Football Conference league titles before that). Collier, fifty-two, had been Brown's assistant for seven years before going to Kentucky as Bear Bryant's replacement in 1953; he had a winning record but wasn't an exciting choice. Graham, who had just retired, wasn't interested in coming to Green Bay, saying he preferred to start his coaching career at the Coast Guard Academy. "I don't want to tackle that Green Bay situation with anything less than a two-year contract," Graham said.

  In early January, Evashevski, a square-jawed former star quarterback at the University of Michigan, emerged as the Packers' top candidate. Iowa hadn't won a Big Ten title in three decades when he took over in 1952, but he had remade the Hawkeyes into a power, winning Big Ten titles in 1956 and 1958. At age forty, he was just the kind of coach Ole wanted. Much of the committee supported going after him.

  Evashevski expressed interest when Ole contacted him shortly after the Hawkeyes pounded California in the Rose Bowl. Ole, Vainisi, and Canadeo interviewed him at the National Collegiate Athletic Association convention in mid-January and then quietly brought him to Green Bay for a second interview. But Evashevski abruptly took himself out of the running after that. He didn't plan on coaching much longer (1960 would be his last year on a sideline) and the rebuilding of the Packers figured to take years.

  That left Lombardi as Ole's top choice. They arranged to meet at the Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia, site of the NFL draft and league meetings on January 20. The Packer delegation that traveled to the event included Ole, Vainisi, Canadeo, Lewellen, executive committee members Fred Trowbridge and Boob Darling, and the team's publicity director, a lanky former player named Tom Miller. Lombardi sat just yards away from them during the draft, as part of the Giants delegation.

  The sad state of the Packers was a hot topic among reporters covering the event. So
me wrote columns suggesting the franchise was in disarray. One chased Ole into an elevator at the Warwick while making the point that the Packers had become a charity case, living off their gate intake from road games. "All is not lost," Ole insisted.

  That night Ole, Canadeo, and Vainisi interviewed Lombardi for forty-five minutes in Ole's suite. The restless head-coach-in-waiting was asked how he would run a team and what he would expect of players on and off the field.

  I like a power offense built around the running game.

  I like the 4–3 defense, just like the one the Giants have used.

  The players will be in shape and they'll listen to what I say. If they don't, they'll be gone.

  His interviewers found it slightly unsettling that he had never been a college or pro head coach, and Lombardi insisted that he would only come to Green Bay as a dual coach/GM, with full control of the team. He had turned down the Eagles because Mara said the owners would interfere, and he knew that could also happen in Green Bay unless he had the authority to ignore the executive committee.

  If this is my only shot, he thought, I'm going to do things my way.

  With the winning influences of Earl Blaik and the Giants pumping through his veins, he came across as an intelligent, ambitious coach with high expectations and strong convictions. Canadeo, whose opinion Ole valued, told Ole to go get him.

  Lombardi went back to work at the bank, thinking the interview had gone well. His phone rang within days. Could he come to Green Bay and meet the rest of the executive committee, the people he would work for? Ole had settled on him as the choice, ignoring a last, desperate attempt by Lambeau to wriggle in the door. It didn't matter that Lombardi had never been a head coach. He was impressive.