When Pride Still Mattered Chapter 12 - The Packer Sweep
“I want it understood that I am in complete command.”
There are a lot of famous Vince Lombardi quotes, but there might not be a more important one than that. The defining feature of Lombardi’s early tenure in Green Bay seems to have been his complete control over the Packers, accompanied shortly thereafter by what he did with that control.
What he did, first and foremost, was make a long string of successful small decisions. He hired an experienced group of assistants. He talked Paul Hornung out of retirement. He shipped malcontent Billy Howton out of town. He acquired Henry Jordan, Emlen Tunnell, and Fuzzy Thurston via trade. He laid the groundwork for a successful working relationship with his entire staff by inviting them over for a party.
Deciding against any of these things — or misfiring on one of these decisions, for that matter — probably wouldn’t have meant all that much in the aggregate. But it’s crucial that Lombardi hit on so many. Landing Jordan, Tunnell, and Thurston alone gave him quite a foundation on which to build, and build is exactly what he did.
The biggest way he built was through getting buy-in. Lombardi’s legendary motivational speeches, some of which are detailed in this chapter, seem to come down to a simple choice: do you want to be here or not? The guys that decided they wanted to buy what Lombardi was selling were willing to do whatever it took to meet his demands. The guys that didn’t self-selected out of his program, saving Lombardi the trouble of cutting them himself.
It wasn’t always perfect, he did have his misses. But nailing the small stuff and getting buy-in from everyone, from the front office staff to the last guy on the roster, Lombardi set himself up for success in Green Bay. Once that work was done, getting the power sweep (NOT the Packer sweep, Mr. Maraniss) to run correctly wasn’t much of a problem.
Interesting Notes
Important hiring note from Lombardi: he only wanted assistants with previous NFL experience. I wonder what kind of cultural difference that made for him early on
It’s hilariously of the era that Lombardi did assistant coach interviews in a lounge at an airport.
“They call it coaching, but it is teaching. You do not just tell them it is so, but you show them the reasons why it is so and you repeat and repeat until they are convinced, until they know.”
“The White Fathers” of St. Norbert sounds extremely metal and I am definitely going to steal it for a D&D campaign in the future.