Liberal Arts Blog — Vince Lombardi (1913–1970) Coach of Green Bay Packers, Winner of First Two Super Bowls (1966,1967)
Liberal Arts Blog — Saturday is Sports, Dance, Fitness, and All Things Physical Day
Today’s Topic: Vince Lombardi (1913–1970) Coach of Green Bay Packers, Winner of first two Super Bowls (1966,1967)
Lombardi also led the Packers to five NFL championships in seven years (1961,1962, 1965,1966, 1967). The most prestigious award in football, the Vince Lombardi Trophy, is named in his honor. It goes to the winner of the Super Bowl. His regular season winning percentage was 73.8% (96–34–6) and his playoff percentage 90% (9–1). Today, a few quotes attributed to Lombardi. In general, the best quotes from any famous person are often misattributions — the distilled wisdom of generations of fans.
What coach of what sport do you most admire? What quotes of theirs (whether or not they are misattributions) do you have etched in your memory?
The general theme of this series is that the more you know about the more things others care most about the greater your chance for a moment of shared joy with anyone you meet anytime, anywhere.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
“PRACTICE DOES NOT MAKE PERFECT. PERFECT PRACTICE DOES”
1. “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”
2. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”
3. “The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work.”
NB: “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”
“THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SUCCESSFUL PERSON AND OTHER IS NOT A LACK OF STRENGTH, NOT A LACK OF KNOWLEDGE, BUT RATHER A LACK IN WILL”
1. The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.”
2. “Success demands singleness of purpose.”
3. “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”
NB: “Confidence is contagious, so is lack of confidence.”
“THE QUALITY OF A MAN’S LIFE IS IN DIRECT PROPORTION TO HIS COMMITMENT TO EXCELLENCE, REGARDLESS OF HIS CHOSEN FIELD OF ENDEAVOR” (below Paul Hornung, (1935–2020) a half-back, quarterback, and kicker whom Lombardi called the “best player I ever coached.” Hornung was the first Heisman Award winner (for best college football player) to win the NFL Most Valuable Player Award)
1. “Everyone has a will to win, but very few have the will to prepare to win.”
2. “The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall.”
3. “Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character.”
BIOGRAPHICAL TIDBITS
1. Parents were immigrants from southern Italy. He grew up in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City. Eldest of five children. Father was a prosperous butcher.
2. Lombardi attended a Catholic high school, St. Francis, and then Fordham.
3. “Though he was 28 years old when the United States entered World War II, Lombardi did not serve in the war. He obtained a series of deferments: his first was a 2-A due to his teaching occupation; in 1943, he obtained a second deferment due to parenthood (3-A); and his final deferment was labelled a 4-A (age) and given in April 1944.”
NB: “The three constants throughout Lombardi’s life were his Roman Catholic religion, his family, and football…Lombardi attended Mass on a daily basis throughout his life.”
He died of colon cancer at age 57.
WHERE IS GREEN BAY ANYWAY? Have you been? What is so special about the Green Bay Packers?
1. “The Packers are the last of the “small-town teams” that were common in the NFL during the league’s early days of the 1920s and 1930s.”
2. “They are the third-oldest franchise in the NFL, established in 1919, and are the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team based in the United States.”
3. “Since 1957, home games have been played at Lambeau Field. They hold the record for the most wins in NFL history.”
NB: The Packers were founded by Earl “Curly” Lambeau (1898–1965) and George Whitney Calhoun (1890–1963). See last four links below for details.
Vince Lombardi Quotes (Author of What It Takes to Be Number One)
George Whitney Calhoun — Wikipedia
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
For the last four years of posts organized by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to sports, dance, fitness. Or the coolest thing you learned about Sports, Dance, of Fitness in your life — whether on the field, on the dance floor or in the gym, whether from a coach, a parent, a friend, or just your own experimentation.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or even change their life. It’s perhaps a chance to put into words something you have never articulated before. And to cement in your own memory something cool you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
