Vince Lombardi

On August 31, 1940, he married his sweet-heart Marie Planitz with whom he had two children, a son named Vincent Harold Lombardi (Vincent Jr.), and a daughter named Susan.

A fourteen foot statue of Lombardi was erected on a plaza outside the stadium as a part of Lambeau field renovation. The statue was in an overcoat grasping the program, as he often did on the sideline. In 1968, highland avenue in Green Bay was renamed Lombardi Avenue.

The NFS Super Bowl trophy was renamed the Vince Lombardi trophy after him. In 1970, the rotary club of Houston created the Lombardi award which is given annually to the best college football offensive or defensive, lineman or linebacker.

He was born to an Italian immigrant Enrico ‘Harry’ Lombardi and his wife Matilda ‘Mattie’ Izzo and was the oldest of their five children. He was raised in a strict Catholic household and was made an ‘altar boy’ at St. Mark’s Catholic Church.

At the age of 12, he started playing in an organized un-coached football league in Sheepshead Bay. In 1928, he enrolled in the Cathedral College of Immaculate Conception to study for the priesthood. After completing four years there, he enrolled at St. Francis Preparatory high school where he became a charter member of ‘Omega Gamma Delta’ fraternity.

In 1933, he went to Fordham University on a football scholarship to play for the Fordham rams and coach Jim Crowley. He was one of the footballs team’s ‘Seven Blocks of Granite’, a nickname for the team’s sturdy offensive line there.

On June 16, 1937, he graduated from Fordham’s University and attended the law school in the evening while working for a finance company during the day. But he soon dropped out from the Law College since his grades were poor.

In 1939, he became the assistant coach at St. Cecelia high school, a Roman Catholic high school in Englewood, New Jersey. In addition to it, he also taught Latin, chemistry and physics at the high school and soon became the head coach there in 1942.

In 1943, St. Cecelia’s football team reached the pinnacle of glory under his coaching. While there, he also became a member of the Burgen County Coach’s association. He stayed at Cecelia for eight seasons and then returned to his alma mater.

In 1947, he became the coach of football and basketball at Fordham University. In the following year, he served as an assistant coach there for Fordham’s varsity football team and gave up his coaching career at the University after few seasons.

He continued his coaching career at West Point as an offensive line coach under legendary head coach Earl ‘Colonel Red’ Blaik. During this time, as an assistant to Blaik, he identified and developed what later became the hallmark of his great team- simplicity and execution. He served there for five seasons and then switched on to the other team.

In 1954, he began his New York football league career with the ‘New York Giants’. There he took a job of offensive coordinator under new head coach Jim Lee Howell. He worked there for five years and led them to five winning seasons, culminating with the league championship in 1956.

He signed a five-year deal, in 1959, to head the football team ‘Green Bay Packers’ and transformed the struggling packers in to an emerging champion. During his career there, he led the football club to five championships including victory in Super Bowl I and II and the team never encountered a losing season.

In 1969, he left Green Bay and returned to the field as the head coach of the ‘Washington Redskins.’ He led the club to its winning record in more than a decade and brought a winning attitude to the team.