Every Sunday night, back in a little town no one ever heard of
in New Jersey, whose only claim to fame was that it was about a
half hour outside New York City, Vince Lombardi and his wife,
Marie, used to go to a hole-in-the-wall club and listen to a
little-known singer perform. After his show, the Lombardis would
invite the kid over to sit with them, and they would buy him
dinner. This happened week after week, for a span of months.

The only reason why this story is significant is because this
week marks the 33rd anniversary of the death of Lombardi, the
greatest football coach to ever grace the sidelines, and this is
just one of the many stories that the public barely heard about,
which shows the overwhelming capacity of Lombardi’s heart,–that
and the “little-known” singer, Frank Sinatra.

Aside from occasionally eating dinner with the greatest singer
who ever lived and having drinks with one of the greatest boxers,
Jack Dempsey, Lombardi also graduated from Fordham University, a
Jesuit university in New York City, where he was a guard, on
offense and defense and, oh by the way, coached the legendary Green
Bay Packers to successive Super Bowl championships.

While a football player at Fordham he was one of the “Seven
Blocks of Granite,” a name coined by a young reporter, undoubtedly
a Grantland Rice reader, for a small Bronx paper referring to
Lombardi and his offensive-line teammates who appeared as
impenetrable as a solid granite wall.

The Seven Blocks of Granite were the 60-minute men, playing both
ways, at a time when the platoon system was still unheard of. And
these men were incredible, single-handedly winning the ’36 Fordham
team more games than most every previous season and becoming men of
football lore.

If heaven has a football team, aside from Notre Dame, the Seven
Blocks of Granite would be blocking for the Four Horsemen every
Saturday, until the end of time. And Lombardi is probably the
team’s player-coach. But as it is with all great men, Lombardi had
his priorities. First, to God. He was a Catholic grade school and
Jesuit university product, and his family was a walking, talking,
church-going Norman Rockwell painting, much like almost every other
Italian immigrant family living in Northeast at the time. His
mother even wanted him to be a priest. But the collar was not in
Lombardi’s blood. He did, however, see to it that he made it to
church every day and always had a priest in his team’s locker room,
even on road trips, leading them in prayer before and after every
game.

The second part of the triumvirate of success, a model taken
from the locker room to the board room, when he later served as a
motivational speaker, was Lombardi’s family. He was often seen as a
man constantly preoccupied with football, but that was not often
the case. He loved his family dearly.

However, his love and passion for football specifically, and
life in general, left him as a complicated enigma, that almost no
one could penetrate, including his children, which caused a lot of
tension throughout his life. He was always able to relate well to
people he barely knew, but when it came to his children, despite
his overwhelming love for them, they could barely have a civil
conversation with each other. His relationship with Susan and
Vincent was his Achilles’ heel; his Themopylae. It was the one
thing that, no matter how hard he tried, he could not master.

But then there was football–the last, and most celebrated, part
of Lombardi’s life. Long before the days of NFL Films and
“SportsCenter” made player’s household names, Lombardi’s already
was. He was well-respected by politicians, newspaper writers,
football players and everyday fans. His opinions were heard, and he
was constantly being asked for advice.

He was also, fittingly, the first member of the great Green Bay
Packer teams of the early days of the NFL to be inducted into the
Hall of Fame, but he was soon joined by seven other members of his
notorious team, most notably Bart Starr and Paul Hornung. Each man
gave a tearful discourse at their induction ceremony, first
thanking God, then their family and, finally, Lombardi and the
Green Bay Packers.

God, Family, Football: Lombardi’s keys to success. They were the
points that made him such an incredibly motivating and successful
coach and, later in life, also made him an excellent motivational
speaker.

He gave speeches the way Olivier delivered high tragedy, and
people loved him for it. He was a man stopped only by gravity, and
then finally, by cancer.

Vincent Lombardi died on Sept. 3, 1970, at approximately 6:30
a.m. Hornung, years later, recalled waking up in bed that same day
to an odd sensation, knowing that his mentor and coach had died.
Lombardi was a coach, a father, a husband and a devoted
Catholic.

He was known far and wide by men like Jack Dempsey, Wellington
Mara and even President Nixon. Yeah, and Frank Sinatra too.
Lombardi was a unique man. He was a believer in the concept that
there was no such thing as the impossible, deceptively witty and
smart, an unwavering advocate for the principle that there is good
in everything. And he was a football player, built like God
intended him to chase Spanish Bullocks down crowded streets in
Pamplona.

He’s the type of man I wish was still around today. If he was,
I’d buy him dinner. Frank too.