VINCE LOMBARDI

It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up.

Vince Lombardi was a successful football player in his youth, but is best known for his successes as an NFL football coach. Over the course of his life he led teams to two Super Bowl wins and five NFL Championships with a total career record of 105 wins and 35 losses.

Born on June 11, 1913, Vince Lombardi spent the first years of his life in Brooklyn New York in the area known as Sheepshead Bay in south Brooklyn. He attended public schools in his youth and grew up as the oldest of five children in a Catholic household. Lombardi studied to become a priest for a brief period at the age of 15, attending Cathedral Prep for four years, two short of the six year program. He transferred to St. Francis Preparatory High School where he began his career in football. Although the rest of his life revolved around the sport, Lombardi always remained a devout Catholic throughout his career.

In 1933, Vince Lombardi enrolled as a student at Fordham University with the help of a football scholarship. He was scheduled to play under the supervision of legendary coach Sleep Jim Crowley. Although he was a light 170 pounds at the time, he was considered an essential part of the the offensive line which became known as the "Seven Blocks of Granite". He was just as successful in the classroom and managed to graduate from Fordham in 1937 with a business major at the age of 24.

Lombardi pursued his business career for the next two years, working in finance while taking night classes at Fordham to complete a law degree. At the same time, Vince Lombardi played semi-professional football for the Brooklyn Eagles and the Wilmington Clippers. After only one semester with graduate school, Lombardi took a job as an assistant coach at a Catholic High School in Englewood, New Jersey called St. Cecilia, discarding his future with law. He was hired by an old Fordman football teammate, Andy Palau, who had taken over the position from yet another teammate, Nat Pierce.

At the young age of 26, Lombardi was helping to coach high school football while simultaneously teaching chemistry, physics, and Latin at the same school. In 1940, one year after taking the job at St. Cecilia, Lombardi married Marie Planitz (cousin of another former Fordham teammate) and two years later Vince Lombardi became head coach for St. Cecilia. In 1947 Fordham asked him to return to the University to coach the freshman football team. A year later he became assistant coach for the varisty team.

In 1949 Earl Blaik, the football coach for the US Military Academy in West Point, asked Lombardi to work for him and help coach the West Point varsity football's defensive line. While working with Blaik, Lombardi learned the necessity for executing perfect plays with confidence and strength. Over the next five years Lombardi worked at West Point, learning from Blaik and honing his coaching skills. After the 1953 football season, Vince Lombardi took a job as an assistant coach with the NFL New York Giants. He was 41 years old.

While with the New York Giants, Lombardi was able to work with another former Fordham teammate, Jim Lee Howell. Under Howell, Lombardi managed the defensive strategy of the Giants and helped lead them to championship seasons.

Vince Lombardi became head coach and general manager of the Wisconsin-based Green Bay Packers in 1959 at the age of 45. At the time the Packers were suffering from massive losses and won only two of the twelve games the season prior to Lombardi's arrival. Within two years Lombardi, using some of the cutthroat techniques he learned with the US Military, led the Packers to the 1960 NFL Championships.

The NFL Giants offered him a job as head coach, but Lombardi declined, preferring to continue his position with the Green Bay Packers. Although he continued his career with the Packers, on two occasions Lombardi wrote to Notre Dame in an attempt to persuade them to offer him a position as a football coach at the school. He never received a reply and continued his career at Green Bay.

His coaching techniques won him an outstanding career record of 105-35-6. As head coach of the Green Bay Packers, he led the team to five NFL Championships and developed the "Lombardi Sweep", a play designed for the right offensive lineman to sweep to the outside to block the pulling guards. He also was responsible for leading the team to two winning Super Bowls. He retired from the Packers in 1967.

A year into retirement, Lombardi still wanted to coach. The Washington Redskins offered him a position as head coach and Lombardi accepted. He led the team to their first winning season in 14 years. He fell ill later that year and died of intestinal cancer on September 3, 1970 at the age of 57. Tens of thousands attended his funeral and Vince Lombardi was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971. He is still remembered as one of the great influential icons who helped shape American Football.