A famous Vince Lombardi quote (and there are a lot of them) suggests that he cared about faith, family, and football in that order.

The reality shows that wasn’t quite the case, and as such this was a bit of a hard read for me. We’ve talked about how difficult things were for Lombardi’s family in previous chapters, but this one shines a light on their difficult home situation in a way that others really haven’t.

I can’t get the image of a tense dinner at the Lombardi household out of my mind. How is it possible for a man who was so gregarious and charming to have such a terrible relationship with his own family? How could a guy who read his players so well not understand how his actions impacted his children? How could someone so consistently scream at his wife?

I know Lombardi is not exactly unusual in this respect. Plenty of people, both men and women, have bad home lives despite being successful in their day-to-day work and careers. Plenty of people are mean to their kids. Plenty of people speak harshly to their spouses. That Vince Lombardi did these things doesn’t make him some kind of strange outlier, but it’s hard to reconcile with the saintly profile many give of him elsewhere.

I find myself circling back to Mark 8:36, which (paraphrasing) asks “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?” I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but becoming the world’s most famous football coach while having a horrible home life seems a little bit like that, and it’s made worse by his devout religious observance.

It’s often said that we make time for the things that are important to us, and Lombardi got to Mass every day despite his busy schedule — but never managed to see one of his son’s football games. What would God really want in that situation, anyway?

The back half of the chapter is, somehow, a little bit lighter despite taking on the weighty topics of racism and discrimination. As someone who has never had to live life that way, it was eye-opening to see what guys like Willie Wood and Emlen Tunnell went through on a consistent basis. It’s hard enough to be an NFL football player. It’s harder still when you have to constantly be thinking about basics like “Am I allowed to sleep or eat here?” and “How will I get to the stadium?”

Lombardi, to be sure, had the awareness to understand those challenges, or at least attempted to understand them. That’s obviously a good thing, but it does make you wonder why he couldn’t do the same at home. 

Interesting notes

• Imagine how upset Bart Starr had to be that he had four beers. Just imagine.

• Describing a football player who understands the scheme as having “freedom within discipline” is a perfect turn of phrase. I don’t know if analysts successfully communicate that idea well when we talk about guys understanding the game. What makes players good is how well they do what they’re supposed to do. What makes players great is how well they do what they’re not supposed to do.

• It’s nice to hear about Marie Lombardi punching back a bit. “You may be coach of the year to everybody else but you’re still just Vince Lombardi to me” is quite a rejoinder. Vince Lombardi means very different things to different people!

• Learning that Vince Lombardi collected cookbooks was an enjoyable, humanizing detail. Historical figures get so distilled over time, reduced to their most famous facts, that we forget that they were human beings who had interests other than what they were famous for. It’s fun to picture Lombardi on the sidelines in his famous coat and fedora, knowing that he might crack open a cookbook for fun when he got home.

• Marie Lombardi’s crabmeat dip sounds like it might stop your heart: cream cheese, crabmeat, mayo, mustard, and wine. I mean, I’d eat it. But I’d pay for it, too.