But Lombardi knew rookies and fringe players couldn't really help him eliminate the team's defeatist attitude—he needed to make a major trade to take that on, change his personnel with a bold stroke. The idea percolated in his head as winter eased and he made the rounds of local civic clubs that wanted him to appear at their functions. Lombardi had put them all off until he completed his film study and could speak with authority about the team.
At the Traffic Club's annual Truckers' Night Dinner, he addressed an audience of four hundred. "I have always followed the words of General MacArthur," he said, "who once told us at West Point, 'Gentlemen, there is no substitute for victory.' That will be applied here. We as coaches, an organization, and the team shall play every game to the hilt with every ounce of fiber we have in our bodies. Whatever personnel we have available, we realize football is a violent game and that's the way we'll play it."
The crowd gave him a rousing ovation, and the event's toastmaster, a judge, stood and said, "There can be no doubt in any of our minds that the Packers are going to go in a different direction. Mr. Lombardi breeds confidence that we will not follow the losing pattern of the past."
Lombardi also elicited a roar at the team's annual stockholders meeting, where Ole's plan for restructuring the front office was officially approved. More than 150 stockholders attended the meeting at the downtown courthouse. After a debate that lasted past 11 P.M., they approved bylaw changes reducing the size of the executive committee from thirteen members to seven and eliminating the position of chairman of the board. The changes represented a seismic shift in how the Packers operated, but they were overshadowed by Lombardi's fiery speech:
"A good football team is my number one job and I am keeping that in mind at all times. I can't make any predictions, but I guarantee this: You will be proud of the team because I will be proud of the team. The Packers have many weak points but they also have lots of good points and it's around those good points that we'll build. We have finished grading every player in each of the twelve games from last season, and we discovered that some players who saw little action had high marks while others who we expected to get high marks actually got lower ratings. My coaches and I are now discussing every phase, step by step, of our offense, and the kinds of defenses we can use. I am hopeful we will win some games next fall, somehow, in some way."
Some stockholders crowded around Lombardi after his speech, extending outstretched hands and best wishes.
While on his public tour, Lombardi continued to meet more players, sometimes over the phone, sometimes in person. Jim Ringo surprised him by demanding a trade. The veteran center, who had overcome his lack of size to become a superb blocker, said he was tired of losing.
"But we're going to win here," Lombardi replied.
Ringo had barely weighed two hundred pounds when Vainisi drafted him out of Syracuse in 1953. Ten days into his rookie training camp, he borrowed seventy dollars for a bus ticket and went home to Easton, Pennsylvania, tired of getting knocked around. Vainisi talked him into coming back. Smart and agile, he learned to cut down bigger defenders and had evolved into the centerpiece of the Packers' line.
Ringo told Lombardi that Blackbourn and Ronzani had also promised to win but failed miserably. That irritated Lombardi.
"If it costs you your job, we're going to win here," Lombardi barked.
Ringo eventually rescinded his trade demand.
In early March, Lombardi phoned Billy Howton and suggested the star receiver come to Green Bay for an in-person discussion of the Packers' future. Howton, who lived in Houston, Texas, readily agreed and flew up on a Saturday. Several days beforehand, he had called Knafelc and asked for a ride from the airport to the Packer offices. When Howton arrived, Knafelc was waiting for him.
"I'm glad Vince wants to talk like this," Howton said on the drive in from the airport.
"Billy, I wouldn't call him Vince," Knafelc replied. "Scooter is gone. Things aren't like they used to be."
Howton, a fearless pass catcher, shrugged off the advice. He was known for telling quarterbacks to ignore a called play and just throw the ball to him.
"Vince just wants to talk," Howton assured Knafelc.
It was widely believed around the NFL that Howton would play a central role if Lombardi ever succeeded in rebuilding the Packers. The Rice Redhead, as he was known (having graduated from Rice University in Texas), had been to the Pro Bowl in four of his seven seasons. He had caught fifty-three passes, including thirteen for touchdowns, as a rookie, teaming effectively with six-feet-three, 220-pound quarterback Tobin Rote, who had also come to the Packers from Rice. Rote was a force, bowling over would-be tacklers, throwing bullet passes, and treating the huddle as his sovereignty, barking instructions and pledging to "win this damn game by myself" when others seemed hesitant.
The Rote-Howton partnership had peaked in 1956 when Howton caught fifty-five passes, averaging more than twenty-one yards per reception. But after the Packers traded Rote before the next season, Howton's production had plummeted. Lombardi saw on film that the receiver, while indisputably gifted, wasn't playing his best. Some of the defensive players had been displeased with his effort.
Knafelc dropped off Howton at the team offices and headed home; he had agreed to drive the receiver back out to the airport later in the day, and figured he had hours to kill. But Howton called almost as soon as Knafelc made it home.
"Come get me," he said tersely.
Knafelc got back in his car, drove downtown, and found Howton waiting on the sidewalk outside the offices, his face ashen.
"Billy, what happened?" Knafelc asked.
"Nothing," Howton mumbled.
They drove to the airport in silence.
A month later, while at a league meeting in Philadelphia, Lombardi huddled with Cleveland's Paul Brown, who liked Lombardi and, in a way, felt responsible for seeing that he succeeded, having recommended him repeatedly during the Packers' search for a coach. Brown gave Lombardi a list of Cleveland players who could be obtained because they wouldn't make Brown's starting lineup. Lombardi saw names that interested him, negotiated with Brown, and announced the major deal he had sought as a way of shaking up the Packers. Howton was going to the Browns in exchange for Bill Quinlan, a starting defensive end, and Lew Carpenter, a veteran halfback.
Packer players were stunned. Howton had never played anywhere else, so it was hard to imagine him wearing another uniform. He had been the team's best player, a rare source of light amid the gloom of a losing decade. And Lombardi had traded him! Wow!
Lombardi believed Howton was a bit too comfortable with losing, a serious problem given his stature in the locker room. He also didn't block much and was leading a drive by players throughout the league to organize a union, annoying management everywhere, Lombardi included.
Fairly or not, Lombardi concluded he would have an easier time making over his team's attitude without the smart, strong-willed, independent-minded Howton.
In Quinlan, Lombardi had acquired some of the defensive help he desperately needed. Quinlan was big, fast, tough, and recklessly threw his 250-pound body around the field. He had been a starter in Cleveland, the most accomplished player on the list Brown gave Lombardi. Why was he even on the list? He was just as fast and tough off the field, a heavy drinker and off-season gambler who flaunted curfews and other rules. Brown was tired of policing him. Lombardi knew he also would have to police Quinlan, but guessed he could control the young man. The coach was gambling that Quinlan's Sunday performances would make him worth the trouble he generated during the rest of the week. He played the game just as Lombardi liked, looking to punish the man across the line. He instantly made the Packers' defense better.
"We had to do something about the defense," Lombardi told reporters. "We think we got help where we needed it most. We know Howton is a fine ballplayer but we're trying like everything to build up the defense. Quinlan is a top-flight end. He's young, tough, and mean. You've got to be that way. He will pu
t pressure on the passer. He will do a job for us."
Quinlan initially balked at coming to Green Bay, telling a reporter in his hometown of Lawrence, Massachusetts, that he wasn't pleased to be going from a contender to a last-place team. He said he was considering taking a coaching job with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, a Canadian team.
"Would you want to go from the Yankees to the [last-place] Athletics?" Quinlan asked.
Quinlan quickly apologized to Lombardi and Vainisi for that remark, explaining that he was upset about hearing of the trade from a sportswriter, not Paul Brown. He continued to insist he was still thinking about going to Canada until Lombardi sent him a contract that included a pay raise. Quinlan was soon signed and on board.
"I changed my mind," he told the Associated Press, "because of the [salary] increase and because they've convinced me Green Bay has cleaned house. There's a whole new regime there."
Indeed, a whole new regime and, under construction, a whole new attitude.
7
BART STARR WAS at his off-season home in Montgomery, Alabama, when he spoke to Lombardi for the first time. The coach called to tell him there would be a camp for the Packers' quarterbacks in Green Bay near the end of June.
"Yes, sir," Starr said.
Lombardi said he wanted to introduce his offense, which was different from Scooter McLean's.
"Yes, sir," Starr said.
Giving the quarterbacks a head start would enable them to grasp the new playbook by the start of training camp in July, Lombardi said, and that would speed up the installation of the offense.
"Yes, sir," Starr said. "I'll be there."
Later that day, Starr told his wife, Cherry, about the call.
"The guy really sounds organized," Starr said.
On the other end of the line, Lombardi hung up thinking he had never heard a more polite football player.
Starr was twenty-four years old and had been with the Packers for three losing seasons. At six feet one and 190 pounds, he had a solid frame and an oval face with slightly puffy cheeks and close-cropped dark hair. He spoke in the soft butterscotch voice of a southerner, and crinkles formed at the corners of his eyes when he smiled. Cherry had been his high school sweetheart. Now they had two young sons.
Starr looked forward to the camp, hoping Lombardi would provide what he and the Packers needed to get going in the right direction. To say that Starr had struggled was an understatement. Scooter and Blackbourn had given him plenty of chances since his rookie year in 1956, but the Packers had a 3-15-1 record in games he started, and Starr had never played all four quarters of a victory. He didn't have a strong arm, wasn't a nimble runner, and seemed almost cursed with a habit of making mistakes at critical moments. Though he was popular in the locker room, some Packers believed he was just not meant to lead the team. A kindly family man, he seldom raised his voice and never told anyone to get in line. His predecessor, Tobin Rote, had been an irascible but inspiring force in the huddle, barking instructions and screaming at teammates. A quarterback had to do that sometimes.
No Packer worked harder than Starr. While some of his teammates drank and chased girls at night, he sat at home with a projector, studying film until his eyes were bleary. Blessed with a quick mind, he easily memorized playbooks, mastered the nuances of different offensive systems, and was always ready to play. At times his zealousness paid off. In the Packers' first game against Baltimore in 1958, Starr threw for more than three hundred yards and the Packers jumped ahead early. But the Colts rallied and then scored the winning points late when, summing up Starr's career, a defender intercepted his pass and returned it for a touchdown. Even on his best days, something went wrong.
Starr was the first to admit he had not fared well. There was no debate. He had thrown almost twice as many interceptions (twenty-five) as touchdowns (thirteen) in three years. A humble, team-first guy, he would never blame anyone besides himself.
But gosh, he thought, it was awfully hard to win when your team lacked discipline, organization, and leadership, as the Packers did. Starr privately wondered if some of his teammates cared about winning. Things hadn't been so bad under Blackbourn, but with Scooter the team absolutely disintegrated.
Starr was frustrated by the undisciplined environment. The son of a U.S. Air Force master sergeant, he had been raised in a strict household, by a father who was as tough on him as any strong-jawed football coach. Starr learned to respect a chain of command and to appreciate rules and order. His mother, a gracious southern lady, had softened his edges as he grew into a shy, deferential young man, and Starr's high school coach wondered if he was too quiet to play quarterback. But Starr wanted the job and, beneath his polite exterior, possessed the determination his father had drilled into him. He willed himself into a star player.
Recruited by schools across the prestigious Southeastern Conference, Starr chose to play at the University of Alabama. After completing seventeen passes in the Orange Bowl as a freshman reserve, he started as a sophomore; the Tide won five games, lost two, and tied three, earning a trip to the Cotton Bowl, where they lost to Rice. But instead of continuing to rise from there, Starr's star abruptly fell. He injured his back as a junior and barely played, and then sat on the bench as a senior when a new regime took over.
As his college career ended, pro scouts had little interest in him as a quarterback; he worked out as a defensive back at the Blue-Gray All-Star Game, and the Packers selected him in the seventeenth round of the 1956 draft almost as a favor to Johnny Dee, the basketball coach at Alabama, who knew Jack Vainisi, felt badly for Starr, and recommended him. When Starr told Cherry he had been taken by Green Bay, she said, "Where is that, honey?" She sighed when he showed her a map.
He prepared for his first training camp by throwing passes through a tire with Cherry as his receiver, but the Packers assigned him uniform number 42 when he reported, thinking his best chance of making the team was as a defensive back. His passes lacked zip. Rote told him to "stop throwing cream puffs."
But he wound up making the team, beating out several more-experienced quarterbacks to back up Rote. Thrilled, he earned seventy-five hundred dollars as a rookie, and he and Cherry lived in the upstairs apartment of a family home. Rote mentored him on and off the field. They roomed together on road trips, and Rote and his wife had Starr and Cherry over for dinner. But Starr barely played, and the Packers obviously didn't think much of him. Although they traded Rote before the 1957 season, they drafted Paul Hornung and traded for Babe Parilli to fill the vacancy.
Years earlier, when Starr was in high school, his coach had arranged for him to spend a week with Parilli, then a high-profile All-American at the University of Kentucky after having been a Pennsylvania high school superstar. Starr came away idolizing the older Parilli, a deft ball-handler and sharp passer who had led the Wildcats to an historic win in the 1951 Sugar Bowl, breaking Oklahoma's thirty-one-game winning streak.
Parilli left Kentucky as college football's career leader in touchdown passes, completions, and passing yards, and the Packers selected him with the first pick in the 1952 draft, envisioning him as the game's next great quarterback. He had started relatively well as a rookie, throwing thirteen touchdowns while splitting time with Rote. He continued to split time the next season but experienced a drastic falloff, throwing nineteen interceptions and just four touchdowns. Parilli then spent two years in the military and the Packers traded him to Cleveland when he was discharged in 1956. Browns coach Paul Brown, unimpressed, shipped him back to Green Bay a year later.
Starr felt strange competing for playing time with his idol, but Parilli was so horrendous for the Packers in 1957—he threw four touchdowns, twelve interceptions, and completed just 38 percent of his passes—that Starr took most of the snaps. Parilli was better under Scooter in 1958, but Starr again took more snaps.
Packer fans argued about whether Starr or Parilli should start, but Vainisi doubted either was the permanent solution. Lombardi felt similarly after studying them
on film. While it was true he felt they (and Joe Francis) weren't entirely to blame for their 1958 performances because they had played behind a faltering line, he had a hard time envisioning them as solid starters even with more time to throw. Parilli just made so many mistakes. Starr wasn't exceptional in any way. (Blackbourn and Scooter started him because they had no other options, Lombardi conjectured.) And while Francis was bigger, stronger, and faster than the other two, he hadn't developed as a passer in Oregon State's single-wing offense. He was raw.
Lombardi told reporters his quarterback situation was "a puzzle." When he was in New York, the Giants had utilized a pair of quarter backs in an unusual way, letting Don Heinrich start and play the first quarter before giving way to Charlie Conerly for the rest of the game. Heinrich, a future coach, adroitly probed opposing defenses, giving Conerly ideas about what to call when he took over. The Giant players didn't care for the odd arrangement, and it was never clear whether the idea was Lombardi's or Jim Lee Howell's, but it worked. Now that he was in charge, Lombardi wondered if he would need to use a similar gimmick—not because he had two quarterbacks, but because he didn't have one who was good enough to excel every week.
Throughout April and May he talked to other teams, trying to find an available quarterback who could come in and play. George Shaw, who backed up Johnny Unitas, fit the description and was on the trading block, but Baltimore wanted a high draft pick for him and Lombardi didn't like him that much. Then Lombardi heard that Lamar McHan, the Chicago Cardinals' starter for the past five seasons, was available. That interested him. McHan was a strong-armed athlete who had stepped right into a starting role in the NFL after a stellar career as a single-wing tailback at the University of Arkansas. The second player picked in the 1954 draft, he had thrown for more than sixty-five hundred yards and rushed for almost a thousand yards in five years with Chicago.
That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory Page 8
