"Sit down!!!!!" the annoyed veterans yelled.
And Lombardi doled out little perks along the way. If the players had small children, as many did, they could bring them to practice, he said, and the kids were encouraged to dash onto the field and hug their fathers after the final whistle. Determined to build a positive family atmosphere, Lombardi smiled when the players' wives thanked him for allowing their kids to experience that. It was hard to say who loved the moment more, the children, players, wives, or Lombardi himself, who turned from sarcastic to sentimental, shouting the children's names as they sprinted across the field.
The players also tried to find the humor in their situation when they could. One day Lombardi railed at them throughout the afternoon workout, complaining loudly about dropped passes, botched fundamentals, and forgotten assignments. Obviously in a foul mood, he picked back up during a meeting that evening, telling them they had a lot to learn. Dramatically, he held a ball aloft and said, "We're starting at the beginning. Gentlemen, this is a football."
McGee quickly raised his hand. "Coach?" he asked.
"What?" Lombardi barked, annoyed at the interruption.
"Can you not go so fast?" McGee said.
Lombardi couldn't help laughing. Practice went better the next day.
In the evenings Lombardi stood at a blackboard and slowly introduced his offense, painstakingly explaining every player's role on every snap. Lamar McHan was astounded at how clearly he presented the material. "I've always had coaches who told me to do things, but didn't tell me why. Lombardi tells you why," McHan said.
Lombardi's attention never strayed from his quarterbacks for long. Monitoring their performances in practices, scrimmages, and meetings, he wanted them not only to make plays but also to understand his offensive philosophy. They would be calling the plays on the field, so it was imperative that they understood what he wanted.
Privately, he shook his head at how easy some coaches had it with their quarterbacks; with a John Unitas, Bobby Layne, or Billy Wade on your roster, all you did was put them on the field and let the good things happen. But most teams didn't have that luxury and resorted to different approaches, often involving two quarterbacks. The Giants started games with Heinrich and finished with Conerly. Starr and Parilli had alternated in 1958, as had the 49ers' Y. A. Tittle and John Brodie, the Bears' Ed Brown and Zeke Bratkowski, and the Cardinals' McHan and M. C. Reynolds.
Lombardi hoped one of his four quarterbacks would make his job easy and emerge as clearly superior. McHan was the obvious candidate, having played so much more—and so much better—than the others as a pro. Lombardi liked what he saw of McHan so far. It was hard to believe the young man had run the single-wing offense at Arkansas; he could really sling passes. He seemed to be picking up the offense, too. Lombardi's affection for him was obvious. Watching McHan during a passing drill one day, he said, "Son, you're going to lead the league in passing."
The other three quarterbacks heard the comment and reasoned that McHan had the inside track on the starting job. McHan wasn't so sure. "I don't know. You guys are good. He doesn't need me here. He might send me back to Chicago," he said.
The others smiled at his concern. "Lamar, you're not only going to be here, but you're going to be starting," Parilli said.
"I'll believe it when I see it," McHan replied.
The other three also had their positive attributes, Lombardi thought. Parilli was smooth, calm, an accurate passer. Francis was a fast, elusive runner, almost a halfback more than a quarterback; he gained yardage when Lombardi, experimenting, let him run sweeps. And Starr excelled in the classroom, answering first when Lombardi took the quarterbacks alone into meetings and asked how to attack certain defenses.
OK, umbrella zone, and they come on a red-dog from the weak side. What do you do? Anyone?
Check off to Paul, sir. Send him where the linebacker came from.
Hmmm. Good, Bart.
There was no doubt Starr was a smart young man, Lombardi thought. But he ran into problems applying his knowledge on the field. It was almost painful to watch him hesitate and make mistakes, obviously thinking too hard.
During a scrimmage before hundreds of fans on a sweltering Saturday in early August, Starr retreated to pass, saw a defender moving toward his receiver, and threw anyway. The pass was intercepted.
"STARR!!! You could see that ball was going to be intercepted and you still threw it!"
Starr's shoulders sagged.
"Yes, sir."
"Well ... throw one more like that and you're gone!"
Starr trudged to the sideline. It was so frustrating to make avoidable mistakes! Lombardi didn't tolerate them, he knew. He had to do better, he told himself—just had to, or he might be out of a job.
Come on, Bart, think!
Two days later, Lombardi approached Starr in the locker room and said he would start the Packers' first exhibition game against the Bears in Milwaukee on August 15.
"You deserve the chance," Lombardi said. "Your knowledge and preparation are outstanding."
Starr was astounded. Playing for this guy was like being attached to a yo-yo, he thought. He knocked you down so hard it made you dizzy, but he pulled you back up just as hard.
If I just stay calm and keep believing in myself, Starr thought, I think I can handle him.
Paul Hornung's life had turned inside out. On the field, where little had gone right for him in the NFL, he suddenly was flourishing; at halfback, his new position, he was an integral part of Lombardi's offense, running sweeps, catching passes, throwing options, making blocks. What a blast! But off the field, where he always enjoyed himself, he was cooped up in the dorm and adjusting to Lombardi's stricter rules.
Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and organized an escape. He and McGee and Kramer would wait until 11:30 P.M., tiptoe out, and drive across town to a pizza joint. Lombardi would never know, they thought.
As they crept down the hall that night, Jim Ringo and Dave Hanner heard them and came along. Bill Quinlan, who never missed a good time, also joined the group. They stayed out until 2 A.M., drove back to St. Norbert, crept into their rooms, and slept for a few hours before rising for breakfast. They thought they had gotten away with it, but at a meeting that night, Lombardi said, "People have been phoning me all day, saying they've seen some of you guys out after curfew. But I don't pay attention to those crank calls."
Hornung swore Lombardi knew precisely who had gone out and what had happened, but for some reason, chose not to punish them.
This guy is something else, the Golden Boy thought.
Lombardi had hoped some of the new players would help change the team's personality and erase the Packer defeatism that had been so obvious on film. He got his wish. One day in the locker room, Quinlan, who had played on a winning team in Cleveland, listened to several holdovers laughing about a loss the year before.
"No wonder you guys aren't champions. You talk like you enjoy getting beat," he said.
Turning to Hanner, Quinlan said, "You're not smart enough to be an end, Dave. You can't diagnose plays. You don't have the speed. You're not tough enough."
The redheaded Hanner flushed with anger. "OK, Quinlan, let's go on outside and settle this," he drawled.
Quinlan stared back for a moment, but then broke into a broad smile. "That's the way, Dave," he said warmly. "Now you're talking like a champion."
Jim Taylor was loving life. After a dismal rookie year, his second season was off to a terrific start.
As a rookie he had spent countless hours trying to make sense of Scooter McLean's complex playbook, and ended up on the bench. Now, Lombardi's playbook was simple, the assignments made sense, and Lombardi had even sent Red Cochran to Louisiana during the off-season to tutor him, just so Taylor would completely understand what was going on. How nice was that? And then Lombardi had all but handed him a starting job by trading Howie Ferguson.
Taylor couldn't help thinking Lombardi liked him. The guy never said s
o, and Taylor certainly received his share of the coach's brutal criticism, from which, it seemed, no one was spared. Taylor, you dumb ass, what in the hell are you doing? But Taylor didn't mind; his skin was thick. And Lombardi didn't tear into him nearly as harshly as he did some of the others. Maybe, Taylor thought, the coach just liked the way he played, giving and taking punishment without saying a word. Built low and stocky with his sandy hair in a squared-off flattop, Taylor had bulging muscles in his arms, shoulders, chest, and trunk. When he broke into the secondary during scrimmages, he ran right at his pursuers rather than angling away. You can dish it out but you're going to take it, too.
Taylor felt Lombardi's offense, with its emphasis on straight-ahead football, had almost been devised with him in mind. He had sat, transfixed, as Lombardi explained the philosophy in an offensive meeting one evening in camp.
"Most plays last just three or four seconds," Lombardi said. "So you have to execute immediately, upon the snap of the ball. You have to know where you're going and move decisively. Linemen, you have to win that initial conflict, make the hit, drive your man, stay on your man. If you can move him back even just a foot or two, he doesn't beat you and the play can succeed. This is how we're going to win. Defenders want to penetrate. Once they cross that line of scrimmage, the play is destroyed. So our mentality is simple: 'Snap the ball, hit your man, move him back a step or two.' We win right there. We're going to go man on man, run it at you, send runners into the holes, pick up four or five yards, move those [first down] chains. And there isn't anything you can do about it because we're going to execute better."
Taylor wanted to stand up and cheer.
Damn! God damn! Now that's football!
Taylor's background was unusual for an NFL player. Growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as the middle brother of three, he was his family's only athlete. His brothers studied business (and would become, respectively, an accountant and a real estate developer). Taylor's first athletic love was basketball; he made the Baton Rouge High School varsity as a freshman and developed into a pounding forward who chased rebounds, sank jumpers, and made a national all-star team as a senior.
Unlike his brothers, he wasn't much of a student. But he was curious, open to new ideas, and that led him to Alvin Roy, a pioneering strength coach who lived in Baton Rouge. Roy had become a believer in weight training while in the Army in the 1940s and helped manage the gold-medal-winning U.S. weightlifting team at the 1952 Olympics. Returning to Baton Rouge, he convinced the football coach at Istrouma High School to put players on a weightlifting program, no small feat when the football world believed lifting weights slowed players down. Istrouma, led by Billy Cannon, a future Heisman Trophy winner, won a state title, and Roy's influence spread. Taylor, while still in high school, went to Roy's gym, curious about this new way to get stronger. He became an avid weightlifter.
He didn't even go out for football until he was a high school junior, but he was so strong that he quickly became a two-way star, playing linebacker and fullback. As a senior he threw Statue of Liberty passes, kicked field goals, and attracted the attention of college scouts. But low grades limited his options and he wound up at Hinds Junior College in Raymond, Mississippi, where he played one season of football (he had given up basketball by now) and got himself together in the classroom. The University of Miami and University of Colorado wanted him, but he elected to stay home, play at Louisiana State, and continue to work with Roy.
LSU coach Paul Dietzel, another Red Blaik disciple, sat Taylor early in the 1956 season, but Taylor played his way onto the field as a linebacker, fullback, and kicker. He led the Southeastern Conference in scoring as a junior and played well enough in 1957 to earn an invitation to the Senior Bowl, where, playing both ways, he butted heads with Ray Nitschke, then a hard-hitting fullback-linebacker from Illinois. Nitschke's team won, but Taylor was named the game's MVP.
Jack Vainisi attended the Senior Bowl and wrote Taylor, asking if he wanted to play pro football, and if so, what he thought his best position was. Taylor wrote back that, yes, he wanted to play pro ball and saw himself as a ball carrier. The Packers took him in the second round of the 1958 draft and selected Nitschke a round later.
At odds with the game's prevailing beliefs, Taylor prepared for the Packers' training camp by lifting weights and running up and down the steps at LSU's Tiger Stadium. He was a chiseled specimen when he reported to St. Norbert in July 1958, but his struggles with the playbook landed him on the bench next to Nitschke, who, the Packers had determined, was probably better at linebacker. Finally given a chance late in the season, Taylor ran the ball with abandon, startling his teammates.
After the 1958 season, Taylor went back to Baton Rouge and took the remaining courses he needed to graduate from LSU with an education degree, figuring he would coach football one day. He also ran the stadium steps and lifted weights under Alvin Roy's supervision, moving through an intense progression of squats, presses, and lifts. (Roy would formally introduce strength training to pro football in 1963 when the AFL's San Diego Chargers hired him and promptly won a title.) His hard work had paid off early in Lombardi's camp. The intensity had shocked some players and ended careers, but Taylor sailed through, smacking into defenders with fresh legs during the nutcracker drill, smiling as his teammates vomited during calisthenics.
Taylor was right that Lombardi liked how he played. In New York, Lombardi's offense had included fullback Mel Triplett, a tough, up-the-middle runner. Taylor was the same size, ran just as hard, and could catch passes out of the backfield. Twenty-three years old and married, with a small child, Taylor was, Lombardi felt, somewhat difficult to categorize. He was friendly but didn't seem to have many close friends, smiled a lot but didn't say much. He lifted weights before practices and was so strong that, as a joke, he went through the lunch line upside down one day, walking on his hands the entire way. His teammates, and Lombardi, stared in disbelief.
But boy, he ran hard with that ball.
There had been times during camp when Lombardi looked at the Packers' modest talents and dubious attitudes and wondered if they would win one game in 1959. But he always felt better when he watched Taylor take the ball, slam into a pile of humanity, and move it five yards.
Maybe we'll have something good here after all. Maybe we will.
9
INSTEAD OF RETURNING to St. Norbert after their morning practice on Friday, August 14, the players boarded a bus, rode to Milwaukee, and checked into a hotel. The next night they would open their exhibition season with a game against the Bears at County Stadium.
The players felt like they were on vacation, even with a game to play; a hotel room seemed like the height of luxury after three weeks in Sensenbrenner Hall. Lombardi took a suite with Marie and received interview requests from Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Chicago reporters wanting to know how he felt before his first game as a head coach. To avoid spending all day talking to the press, he arranged a group session in his suite at 5 P.M.
The reporters arrived to find that an open bar had been set up and food put out. Marie buzzed around with a smile, graciously hosting. Lombardi, drink in hand, conducted his interviews and was looking at his watch within an hour. This worked out well, he thought. Seeing that he could satisfy reporters and control his message by doling out inoffensive quotes in a relaxed setting, he pledged to make the "Five O'clock Club" part of his routine.
Saturday was warm and cloudy, and a light mist started falling late in the afternoon. The Packers and Bears cast long shadows as they warmed up under the stadium lights. A charity promotion, the game would attract more than twenty-eight thousand fans, a larger throng than the Packers had drawn for any regular-season game in Milwaukee since 1956. Sports fans in Wisconsin's largest city cared much more about their winning baseball team, the Braves, than the stumbling Packers, but the football team, with its long history, still had support, and people wanted to see if this new coach from New York could make a difference.
Lombar
di and Bears coach George Halas met, shook hands, and spoke on the field as their teams warmed up. Each wore dark slacks, a short-sleeved white dress shirt, and tie. Lombardi admitted he was nervous; even though the game didn't count, he wanted his team to make a positive first impression. In 1954 the Giants had lost miserably in their first exhibition game with Lombardi running Jim Lee Howell's offense. That had not helped them convince the players—or fans—they were on the right track. A similar scene could unfold now, Lombardi feared. The Bears were serious playoff contenders, winners of eight of twelve games the year before.
But Halas complimented Lombardi on how the Packers looked. At age sixty-tour, after almost four decades in pro football, the Bears' crusty owner/coach could gauge an opposing team just by watching it warm up. Did the players hustle? Did they seem eager? Were they in shape? Halas could tell Lombardi's team was more fit and organized than Scooter's and Blackbourn's sloppy Packers. Green Bay would no longer be a pushover, Halas said. Lombardi nodded. He still had so much work to do, but things were moving in the right direction.
Starr warmed up by throwing passes and reviewing what had transpired in Lombardi's planning session with the quarterbacks earlier in the week. Lombardi would meet with them regularly, he said, to discuss how to attack their next opponent; Lombardi always had ideas but wanted the players' input, he said, since they called the plays. Somewhat startlingly, he dropped his taskmaster's persona and became a progressive schoolteacher in these meetings, encouraging dialogue and thought. Offensive theory was his specialty, he said. He showed them a reel of the Chicago defense in different alignments, stopping the film to discuss options as he went along.
Starr, what do you run when you see the safeties cheating forward like this?
I'd say a thirty-four, sir.
Good. McHan, look, they're clearly showing red-dog here. Do you check off to another play or try to beat it?
That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory Page 12
