When Pride Still Mattered: A Life Of Vince Lombardi
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Product Description
When Pride Still Mattered is the quintessential tale of the American family tree: how Vince Lombardi, the son of an immigrant Italian butcher, rose to the top, and how his character and will to prevail transformed him, his wife, his children, his players, his sport, and ultimately the entire country.
It is also a vibrant football tale, abundant with accounts of Lombardi’s thrilling life in that world, from his playing days with the Seven Blocks of Sandstone at Fordham in the 1930s to the glory of education the Green Bay Packers in the 1960s. It is also a study of national myths, tracing what Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer David Maraniss calls the fallacy of the innocent past, and an absorbing account of the mythmakers from Grantland Rice to Howard Cosell who shaped Lombardi’s image.
By the time he died of cancer in 1970, after one season in Washington during which he transformed the Redskins into winners, Lombardi had become a mythic character who transcended sport, and his legend has only grown in the decades since. In When Pride Still Mattered, Maraniss renders Lombardi as flawed and driven yet ultimately misunderstood, a heroic figure who was more complex and authentic than the stereotypical images of him propounded by admirers and critics.
Using the same meticulous reporting and sweeping narrative style that he employed in First in His Class, his classic biography of Bill Clinton, Maraniss separates myth from reality and wondrously recaptures Vince Lombardi’s life and times.Amazon.com Review
As coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1959 to 1967, Vince Lombardi turned perennial losers into a juggernaut, winning back-to-back NFL titles in 1961 and 1962, and Superbowls I and II in 1966 and 1967. Stern, severe, sentimental, and paternal, he stood revered, reviled, respected, and mocked–a touchstone for the ’60s all in one person. Which adds up to the myth we’ve been left with. But who was the man? That’s the question Pulitzer Prize-winner David Maraniss tackles. It starts with Lombardi’s looming father, a man as colorful as his son would be conservative. Still, from his father Vince Lombardi learned a sense of presence and power that could impress itself with just a look. If a moment can sum up and embrace a man’s life–and capture the breadth of Maraniss’s diligence–it is one that takes place off the meadow when the Packers organization decides to redecorate their offices in advance of the new head coach’s arrival: “During an earlier visit,” Maraniss reports, “he had examined the quarters–peeling walls, creaky floor, ancient leather chairs with holes in them, discarded newspapers and magazines piled on chairs and in the corners–and pronounced the setting unworthy of a National Football League club. ‘This is a disgrace!’ he had remarked.” In one moment, one comment, Lombardi announced his intentions, made his vision and professionalism clear, and started to shake up a stale organization. It reveals far more about the man than wins and losses, and is the kind of moment Maraniss uses again and again in this superb resurrection of a figure who so symbolized a sporting era and sensibility. –Jeff Silverman
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In case David Maraniss did not tell you in his book, Louie Anderson and his father had the honor of meeting Vince Lombardi in an episode of “Life With Louie”. In the tale, which recounts the annual trip that Louie’s dad takes to Green Bay to see the Packers with one of his children. That year, it was Louie’s turn and he got to finally meet him. He questioned Louie who he was and well, Louie clarified that his father was Crazy Legs Anderson and that he was Crazy Legs, Junior. All in all, it was an episode that would never be forgotten! BTW, it will be 30 years next year that not only we lost Vince, but Brian Piccilo as well!
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
READ THIS REVIEW!!! The leader (Dave Maraniss) is a fabulous writer and does a super job of building Lombardi and the additional people come to life. But, about half way through the book it dawned on me that the leader has an agenda: tear down Lombardi and sell a lot of this book.
Just about all prior books and articles written on Lombardi have been overwhelmingly positive, so why write another? It would not sell. Most of the book is spent on tearing down the legend using devious sneaky comments. Yet, there is the occasional begrudging acknowledgement of the greatness of Lombardi. By tearing down Lombardi, perhaps the leader has achieved “enlightened” status amongst the literary community he aspires to be accepted by and persons who lean far to the left politically that saw Lombardi as a symbol of the right.
The leader perpetually refers to Lombardi as “the Pope”. This is clearly meant as a derogatory smack against Lombardi, Italians and the actual Pope. Lombardi never referred to himself in such a manner. No man as religious as Lombardi would ever do this. So why woudl the leader? Does the leader have a hidden prejudice against Italians? Perhaps. Maraniss grew up in Wisc and probably was not exposed to more than a handful of Italians since that is not a state where the Italians tended to settle.
The leader spends an entire chapter discrediting the most legendary quote attributed to Lombardi “Winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing.” He traces the lineage of the quote to prove Lombardi was not the originator. Did Lombardi ever aver to be the originator? He really claims Lombardi never even uttered such a quote. Did the leader question any ex- players if he uttered such a quote?
Throughout the book Maraniss quotes dialogs of Lombardi when he was a child, high school student, college student, and on all the way through his life. These are quoted as if Maraniss was really standing there and recording the conversations. So, with Maraniss’s willingness to discredit Lombardi, I can’t help but throw it back at Maraniss and marvel if 90% of his quotes were fictitious. Was he there? Is it preposterous to conclude that what Maraniss passes off as actual quotes are in reality merely manufactured/altered for dramatic effect? As a result, I have to marvel about anything he has ever written. Maraniss even claims this quote (“Winning isn’t…”) made legendary by Lombardi is what lead to the Watergate break-in. I read his comment over and over. I could not judge he would try to stretch his tearing down of Lombardi that far.
In a few additional instances, Maraniss claims Lombardi had received credit for certain innovations, yet Maraniss claims there is no evidence of Lombardi truly making such innovations. Maraniss seems to reflect Lombardi needed to patent everything he did. Maraniss likes to trace all of Lombardi’s innovations back to the head coach of Army, when he was on his staff. Maraniss writes as though there is something incorrect with Lombardi taking what he learned and taking it to the next level. That is known as innovation and it goes across most inventions the world has seen.
At copious points in the book the leader does an effective job of showing the tyranical scenery of Lombardi as a coach, yet this was the way most coaches were prior to the Lombardi era, during that era, and beyond that era and on into the 80s. He would like you to reflect Lombardi was the only coach who had this personality.
Is Maraniss using this book to send a message to his own father for perhaps failures in his own upbringing? Perhaps Maraniss was a child that never played sports and has had a long disdain for athletes and the culture that causes athletes to thrive on overcoming pain, fatigue and achieving the thrill of victory. Afterall, he grew up in Wisconsin and as a teenager lived through the Lombardi era. Maybe Maraniss was just the standard wimpy kid the jocks selected on and here was his chance to tear down a legend that he perceived was his tormentor because Lombardi represented the jock mentality that he did not fit into. These are just my own hypotheses on the leader. Only Dave knows his own dark secrets and whatever he may have tried to overcome of his own shortcomings by trying to tear down a legend.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
I bought the book based on Paul Gigot’s review in the WallStreet Journal, where he said it was worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. It’snot. It didn’t really make the man come alive the way a goodbiography does. It’s a quick read and it’s a book I don’t plot to keep on my bookshelf.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
If you are in search of knowing every nook, crook, and cranny of Coach Lombardi’s life from childhood on, then you have the right book. It is full of excellent things, but becomes rather monotonous and slow as it is a small too many intricacies about his life. The book turned into a very long read for me even though I am glad I read it.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
There is a excellent book here. Sorry to say, it lies buried under layers of pointless detail. Do we really need to know the recipes for Lombardi’s mother’s meat pies? Do we really need to know the names and geographical backgrounds of all of Lombardi’s fellow freshman recruits at Fordham? Or the perfect lyrics of the school song the Lombardi-coached high school team sang to the nuns following a victory? Mannerisms, personality quirks, and pointless anecdotes of peripheral characters? Thorough research is a excellent thing, but a writer should choose the most telling details to use rather than simply dumping them all out for the reader to wade through. Still an appealing read, but the book could have used a excellent editor with a sharp red pencil.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5