Waiting is hard, and it’s hardest when you know you’ve got little to do but wait or give up. I think that’s my biggest takeaway from Chapter 5, a short look at a short, frustrating stint in Lombardi’s life. 

Let’s take a look at a quick summary of Lombardi’s life to this point:

• He knows he doesn’t want to be a priest

• He knows he doesn’t have the academic chops to be a lawyer or something along those lines

• He knows he’s not cut out to be an athlete

• He knows coaching is a great fit for him, but it’s hard to find a spot

The only real conclusion from that set of facts is that Lombardi has to either find a place he can coach, wait for a spot to open up, or quit looking for a job in coaching. We already know he doesn’t want to stop coaching, so he either has to find a job that’s a fit or wait. Coaching at St. Cecelia’s isn’t much of a job, at least not for a person with aspirations like Lombardi has, so he has to keep looking while he waits. And then he finds the job: Fordham. His alma mater. A path to the top spot in the works. The chance to make his beloved Rams a national power again.

Except it wasn’t.

“Lombardi had not found his way home after all, but had merely drifted through two more lost years” writes Maraniss in the final paragraph of the chapter.

It’s hard to imagine something more frustrating than thinking the waiting is at an end, only to find you may be back further than square one. Not only had the door at Fordham closed, it was apparent that it would never open again. Lombardi really had to start all over again, and it would have been totally understandable if he’d just given up at that point.

I mean, think about it. He was still fairly newly married. He had a young child. He needed money and stability, and coaching wasn’t providing it. He’d waited for years already and nothing worthwhile had turned up.

Fortunately, his eternal advocate Tim Cohane was at work behind the scenes. We should all be so lucky to have a friend like that. Things would soon be looking up for Lombardi. He only had to wait a little longer

Interesting notes

• As great as the food sounds at an Izzo family gathering, I’m not sure I could tolerate a family reunion with 96 people. 

• We get another look at how the war affected football in this chapter. Not only were soldiers heading back to school after the war, they were playing sports, and some of the best and brightest ended up at Fordham.

• Related to this, it’s obvious in hindsight why Lombardi was never going to work at Fordham. His aspirations had clearly outgrown the school, as shown by his willingness to bend Fordham’s rules to get players that they otherwise wouldn’t have considered. It wasn’t anything untoward, per se, but his actions certainly weren’t in line with what Fordham’s Jesuit leadership seemed to envision for the football program. Just as importantly: Lombardi’s efforts seemed to go by the boards. 

Packers connections

• Ed Danowski, under whom Lombardi coached in his return to Fordham, had a long but certainly not very storied NFL career. The Packers benefitted from one of the very worst games of his career, too. In the 1939 NFL Championship, Danowski completed just four of 12 passes, throwing three interceptions, as the Packers cruised to a 27-0 win and their fifth championship under Curly Lambeau.