That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory
Page 30
In January 1969 Lombardi joined the Washington Redskins as their head coach. He had spent a restless year as a full-time GM, watching games from the press box as the Packers went 6-7-1 with Phil Bengston as their coach—their first losing season since Scooter McLean's debacle. The dynasty was over. Lombardi missed coaching. Marie longed to return to the East Coast.
The Redskins were owned by Edward Bennett Williams, a hard-driving attorney. Still suffering from George Preston Marshall's refusal to use black players until the early 1960s, the Redskins hadn't had a winning season since 1955. Desperate to break the losing spell, the competitive Williams lured Lombardi back into coaching with a deal that included a 5 percent ownership stake in the team. Lombardi was just one year into a five-year contract to be the Packers' GM, and the executive committee, still led by Dominic Olejniczak, wasn't thrilled about letting him go, but it finally relented.
"I made a great mistake giving up coaching," Lombardi explained.
The Redskins had gone 5–9 the year before, but Lombardi turned them around in his first season, much as he did with the Packers in 1959. The formula was familiar. He drilled out-of-shape players into better physical condition, most notably quarterback Sonny Jurgensen, a notorious night owl. He brought in a veteran star (Sam Huff this time, a decade after Emlen Tunnell) to stabilize a shaky defense. He simplified the playbook, built up the running game around halfback Larry Brown, and watched his offense roll up points.
The Redskins won four of their first six games and ended up with a 7-5-2 record. They appeared ready to challenge the Cowboys in the National Football Conference's Capitol Division. But Lombardi felt ill while preparing for his second training camp in Washington, and when doctors investigated, they found intestinal cancer. Lombardi was dead within months, at age fifty-seven.
"There was no doubt in my mind that they would have been good," Starr said. "You had an exceptional quarterback there. Sonny had more talent than I did as a passer. Combine that with a strong team around him, a stronger running game, and I am sure the Redskins would have been tough. It was so sad, what happened."
With Bill Austin, Lombardi's longtime assistant, as their head coach, the Redskins finished 6–8 in 1970. George Allen replaced Austin in 1971 and the Redskins began to realize the promise Lombardi had discovered. Starting out with many of the players Lombardi had put in place, Allen led the Redskins to seven straight winning seasons and a Super Bowl appearance in 1972.
Starr retired after the 1971 season, having played sixteen seasons for the Packers. He never threw for more than twenty-five hundred yards or sixteen touchdowns in a season, his statistics appearing increasingly meager in the coming years as pro offenses relied more and more on the pass.
When Lombardi wasn't his coach, he had a losing record as a starter. But when Lombardi was on the Packer sideline, Starr was one of the most successful quarterbacks in pro football history. He won five NFL championships and two Super Bowls, played in four Pro Bowls, and was voted MVP of the league in 1966.
"They were a perfect match, Bart and Lombardi," Knafelc said. "Lombardi was about planning and organization. Bart was meticulous and prepared. Lombardi just hated mistakes. Bart never made a big one. He was a great student of the game, really smart, and always knew the right play to run. He understood what Lombardi wanted and never tried to do more than he should. And he was as tough as they come. That was where people underestimated him. Bart took a beating and got right up."
It helped Lombardi that he joined the Packers just months after the executive committee decided to stop meddling with the team. Many other coaches around the league had to deal with owners or GMs (or both) also wielding decision-making power, but Lombardi had unchecked authority.
He also inherited some talent. Jack Vainisi, a forgotten football architect, had assembled a roster of gifted young players ready to be molded into a winning team. Eight players from the 1959 Packers—Gregg, Hornung, Starr, Taylor, Nitschke, Ringo, Jordan, and Tunnell, all but the last two drafted by Vainisi—would eventually make the Hall of Fame, as would Lombardi himself. (Sadly, Vainisi didn't live to see his team become a winner. He died of a heart attack at age thirty-three in November 1960.)
But while his timing was fortuitous and he had help, Lombardi, unmistakably, was the force that transformed the Packers from the NFL's sorriest team into its best.
"It's like we were a house, and he came in and built a new foundation," Starr said. "A house is going to fall if you don't have a solid foundation. We had been worked with before, by the other coaches, but fitness, discipline, and preparation, we did not have any of those things prior to his being there. He started putting it all in as soon as he arrived: 'This is our broad plan, our system; this is why we call this play now; this is how we function.' I'm impressed to this day how well prepared we always were. Everyone had confidence in that foundation, the way we were going to do things. When you see something work, basically from the very beginning, your confidence is buoyed, your attitude is great, and you can go out and beat the crap out of people.
"There was a day, after he had gone with the Redskins, when he came back to Green Bay to play golf with friends. Cherry and I had built a new home in De Pere, and he called and said, 'I'd love to stop by and see it.' We said, 'Gosh, we'd love to see you.' He walks in, says, 'OK, give me the cook's tour.' We showed him around and then sat down in the den. He said, 'Boy, you did a great job. You should be proud.' And Cherry said, 'Well, thank you, Coach. We owe all this to you. You're the one who made it all possible.' He choked up, got up off the sofa, walked over and gave her a hug. Then he came over and hugged me. He was tearing up, crying. Then he just walked right out of the house. We always wondered if he knew then that he had cancer."
Did the other players agree that they owed it all to Lombardi?
"Oh, absolutely," Knafelc said. "No one will dispute that. If he hadn't come in 1959 with that attitude, we never would have won. He was the right man for the right job at the right time. It was like with little kids, when they're doing bad stuff, playing with matches, someone has to step in and go, 'DAMMIT, YOU DON'T DO THAT!' He got our attention in 1959, showed us the right way, how to prepare and play hard and smart. After that first year, I was ashamed for having not played like that in my first five years. And from then on, I loved it. I would do it all again for the same money. We were crazy. We even enjoyed practice. The cold was bad, the mud was worse. One time the mud was so thick it sucked off one of my shoes. I couldn't find it! The conditions were that bad. But we didn't care. We couldn't wait to get out and practice and play. We were the Green Bay Packers, and we were on top of the world."
GREEN BAY PACKERS 1959 SEASON
DATE SITE (ATTENDANCE) OPPONENT SCORE RECORD
Sept. 27 Green Bay (32,150) Chicago Bears 9–6 (W) 1–0
Oct. 4 Green Bay (32,150) Detroit Lions 28–10 (W) 2–0
Oct. 11 Green Bay (32,150) San Francisco 49ers 21–20 (W) 3–0
Oct. 18 Milwaukee (36,194) Los Angeles Rams 45–6 (L) 3–1
Oct. 25 Baltimore (57,557) Baltimore Colts 38–21 (L) 3–2
Nov. 1 New York (68,837) New York Giants 20–3 (L) 3–3
Nov. 8 Chicago (46,205) Chicago Bears 28–17 (L) 3–4
Nov. 15 Milwaukee (25,521) Baltimore Colts 28–24 (L) 3–5
Nov. 22 Green Bay (31,853) Washington Redskins 21–0 (W) 4–5
Nov. 26 Detroit (49,221) Detroit Lions 24–17 (W) 5–5
Dec. 6 Los Angeles (61,044) Los Angeles Rams 38–20 (W) 6–5
Dec. 13 San Francisco (55,997) San Francisco 49ers 36–14 (W) 7–5
Acknowledgments
Scott Waxman, my literary agent, first proposed the idea of writing a book about Vince Lombardi's inaugural season in Green Bay. Then he found a terrific home for the project. At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Susan Canavan was kind enough not to scream when she saw an early draft of the manuscript, and then astutely guided me as I sought to hammer it into shape. Melissa Dobson provided a clear-eyed edit, s
aving me in countless places and helping me sharpen the narrative.
Mary Jane Herber at the Brown County Library directed me to people who educated me about Green Bay in 1959. Paul McCardell and Andy Sussman helped with football research. The staffs of the Brown County Library in Green Bay and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., tended to my every need. My family put up with me hogging the computer. My thanks to all.
My special thanks to everyone who gave me (in many cases) hours of their time in interviews: Bill Austin in Las Vegas, by phone, 11/14/08; Tom Bettis in Pearland, Texas, 2/14/07; Vernon Biever in Port Washington, Wisconsin, by phone, 2/5/07; Tom Braatz in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, by phone, 1/10/07; Tim Brown in Los Angeles, by phone, 1/27/09; Pat Cochran in Green Bay, 10/19/08; Art Daley in Green Bay, 12/3/06; Bobby Dillon in Temple, Texas, 2/15/07; Boyd Dowler in Dacula, Georgia, by phone, 10/13/08; Joe Francis in Kaneohe, Hawaii, by phone, 2/5/07; Dave Hanner in Land o' Lakes, Florida, 2/2/07; Alex Hawkins in Denmark, South Carolina, by phone, 12/20/06; Jerry Helluin in Houma, Louisiana, by phone, 1/22/07; Phil Hendrickson in Green Bay, 10/31/08; Paul Hornung in Louisville, Kentucky, by phone, 10/13/08; Gary Knafelc in Clermont, Florida, 1/30/07; Jack Koeppler in Green Bay, by phone, 1/26/07; Jerry Kramer in Boise, Idaho, by phone, 11/21/08; Ron Kramer in Detroit, by phone, 10/20/08; Bud Lea in Milwaukee, 12/6/06; Vince Lombardi, Jr., in Arizona, 12/15/08; Harry Maier in Green Bay, 10/29/08; Norm Masters in Naples, Florida, 2/1/07; Barbara McHan in Metairie, Louisiana, by phone, 1/20/09; Don McIlhenny in Dallas, 2/12/07; Tom Murphy in Green Bay, 10/30/08; Babe Parilli in Denver, by phone, 1/11/07; Peter Platten III in Longboat Key, Florida, by phone, 2/7/07; Lee Remmel in Green Bay, 12/5/06; Bob Skoronski in Boca Grande, Florida, 1/31/07; Bart Starr in Birmingham, Alabama, 2/8/07; Jim Taylor in Dallas, 2/15/07; Jim Temp in Green Bay, 12/4/06; Fuzzy Thurston in Green Bay, 10/29/08; Jesse Whittenton in Las Cruces, New Mexico, by phone, 1/25/07.
Lombardi's Packers are a well-trod subject, and the work of many journalists and authors furthered my understanding of the coach, his players, and the 1959 season. I am indebted to the authoritative beat coverage of sportswriters Art Daley and Lee Remmel in the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Chuck Johnson in the Milwaukee Journal, and Bud Lea in the Milwaukee Sentinel. They reported and wrote the story in real time a half century ago. Books that were especially helpful included Golden Boy, by Paul Hornung (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004); Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer, edited by Dick Schaap (New York: World, 1968); Launching the Glory Years: The 1959 Packers, published by Jay Bengston and authored by Len Wagner (Green Bay, Wis.: Coach's Books, 2001); Lombardi: A Dynasty Remembered, edited by Mike Bynum (Nashville, Tenn.: Athlon, 1994); Nitschke, by Edward Gruver (Lanham, Md.: Taylor, 2002); Lombardi: Winning Is the Only Thing, edited by Jerry Kramer (New York: World, 1970); Idols of the Game: A Sporting History of the American Century, by Robert Lipsyte and Peter Levine (Atlanta: Turner, 1995); When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi, by David Marannis (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999); Mean on Sunday: The Autobiography of Ray Nitschke, by Ray Nitschke (New York: Doubleday, 1973); Vince: A Personal Biography of Vince Lombardi, by Michael O'Brien (New York: Morrow, 1987); I Remember Vince Lombardi, by Mike Towle (Nashville, Tenn.: Cumberland House, 2001); Bart Starr: A Perspective on Victory, by John Wiebusch (New York: NFL Properties, 1972); Lombardi, by John Wiebusch (Chicago: Triumph Books, 1997); and In Search of a Hero: The Life and Times of Tony Canadeo, by David Zimmerman (Hales Corners, Wis.: Eagle Books, 2001).
Index
Adderley, Herb, [>]
Albert, Frankie, [>]
All-America Football Conference, [>]
Allen, George, [>]
Ameche, Alan, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
American Professional Football Association, [>]
Appleton, Wisconsin, as play spot, [>], [>], [>]
Arnett, Jon, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Assessment of players by coaches (1959), [>]–[>]
Association of Commerce, Green Bay, [>], [>]–[>]
Atkins, Doug, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Atkinson, Jerry, [>], [>], [>]–[>]
Austin, Bill, [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Austin-Straubel Field, [>], [>], [>]
Aveni, John, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Baker, Dave, [>]
Baltimore Colts
in all-star game, [>]
McHan with (post-1960), [>]
1957 game against, [>]
in 1958 championship game, [>], [>]
1958 game against (first), [>], [>], [>], [>]
1958 game against (second, [>]–[>] ), [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
in 1959 championship game, [>], [>]
1959 game against (first), [>]–[>], [>]
1959 game against (second), [>], [>]–[>], [>]
in 1959 title race, [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>]
in 1960 season, [>]
game against, [>]
in 1965 playoffs, [>]
as top team, [>]
as Western Division rival, [>]
Bangor, Maine, exhibition game in, [>]
Barnes, Erich, [>], [>]
Barnstorming trips, [>]
Barr, Terry, [>], [>], [>]
Beck, Ken, [>]
Bednarik, Chuck, [>]
Bell, Bert, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Bengston, Phil, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Berry, Raymond, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Bettis, Tom, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Blackbourn, Lisle, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Black players
and Lombardi, [>]–[>]
in NFL, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Blaik, Earl "Red," [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
Blood, Johnny, [>], [>], [>]
Bogda, Russell, [>]
Borden, Nate, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Bosseler, Don, [>]
Bourguignon, Dick, [>], [>], [>], [>]
Brackins, Charley, [>]
Braisher, Dad, [>]
Bratkowski, Zeke, [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]
Brock, Charley, [>]
Brodie, John, [>], [>]
Brooklyn Dodgers (football), [>]
Brown, Ed, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Brown, Paul, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]. See also Cleveland Browns
Brown, Ray, [>], [>]
Brown, Roosevelt, [>]
Brown, Tim, [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Brown County Veterans Memorialn Arena, [>], [>]
Bryant, Bear, [>], [>]–[>], [>]
Bullough, Hank, [>], [>], [>]
Butler, Bill, [>], [>]
Calhoun, George, [>]
Canadeo, Tony, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Canadian football, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Canton Bulldogs, [>]
Carmichael, Al, [>], [>]
Caroline, J. C., [>], [>], [>], [>]
Carpenter, Lew, [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Casares, Rick, [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>], [>]
Cassady, Howard, [>], [>]
Chicago Bears
exhibition game against, [>]–[>]
1959 game against (first), [>], [>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]–[>], [>]
1959 game against (second), [>]–[>], [>]
1960 games against, [>]–[>], [>]–[>]
in 1962 season, [>]
1963 games with, [>]
in Packers history, [>