When Pride Still Mattered Chapter 8 - No Substitute for Victory
I don’t have one overarching thought for this chapter, but I think there are three interesting threads to pull on that dovetail with Lombardi’s overall career arc and the book itself.
First, I think the resurrection of Army’s gutted football program might be Lombardi’s biggest coaching challenge and one of his biggest successes. It’s one thing to come in from the outside and build something from the ground up. Maraniss rightly identifies it as one of the two great coaching challenges, the other being sustaining success once you’ve achieved it. But I think that’s an entirely separate thing from rebuilding a team that you’re already a part of. How often does a team get reduced to rubble like Army’s while retaining most or all of the coaching staff?
And Lombardi seems to have succeeded by more fully becoming the version of the coach he was always supposed to be: gruff, demanding, and willing to push people for all they were worth. I think Lombardi intuitively understood how to be the bad guy in a way that didn’t hurt his team, but forced them to rally “against” him, becoming all they could be (Army style!) in the process. Here’s Maraniss describing his style: “Watching [film of former Army great Glenn] Davis, listening to Lombardi, worrying about the distance between the coach’s expectations and their own talents, many of the young Cadets felt intimidated; some thought of quitting, but, no, they couldn’t quit, that would depress them even more; they became angry, determined to show that blankety-blank coach — and Lombardi had them right where he wanted them.”
Second, it’s impossible to ignore how the military affected Lombardi’s career, and you have to imagine there may have been some struggles with self-image involved in Lombardi’s time at West Point. Lombardi was, for a lot of his life, defined by things he was not. He was not a priest, he was not a lawyer, he was not a college football coach, he was not a professional coach, he was not a head coach. He was able to eventually erase a few of those “nots,” but a series of deferments during World War II added another to the list: he was not a soldier, which made him something of an exception at West Point.
But he was still shaped by his time there, first by being directly involved in football there (duh!), but also by some comparisons to the real soldiers he encountered, specifically Red Reeder. Reeder was a consummate soldier, the “real deal” as Maraniss puts it. But just as importantly, he was Lombardi’s friend and helped him understand what it took to be a stern leader without losing yourself in the image of the authoritarian.
Lastly, I love that we have access to modern technology that we can use to dissect actual plays from nearly three-quarters of a century ago. Check this out:
The chapter closes with a story about a semi-miraculous play from Army’s late win over Duke, and I think Maraniss actually undersells the story in an attempt to explain how contemporary writers undersold the story. Maraniss writes “In truth, sportswriter [Red] Smith underplayed [Bob] Mischak’s accomplishment at the expense of an irresistible joke about the running abilities of anyone named smith. No one on the field or the sidelines expected Mischak to catch him. Gerry Lodge, pursuing from his linebacker spot, was ten yards behind Mischak as they ran after Smith and was shocked that his teammate made the tackle, one that he could remember vividly nearly a half-century later. ‘He grabbed Smith on top of the shoulder pads and pulled him straight down. The runner, and all of us, were so surprised.’”
But you don’t have to just settle for the description. You can see the actual thing! Take a look at the video and see how cool it was for yourself:
Interesting notes
I like Colonel Blaik’s tradition of “shepherding his team onto the field hours before kickoff and leading them on a leisurely stroll across the grass in their traveling clothes.” My college coach did this, too, and I always felt like it helped do away with any nerves that came with seeing a stadium on gameday for the first time. Once we were out there for warmups, we’d already been out to have a look around. It was easier to get down to the business at hand.
I love the story about Blaik finding out about Lombardi and another assistant coach picking up what they thought was a secret round of golf. I’ll ask again: as a disciple of Colonel Blaik, do you think Lombardi really didn’t know that Paul Hornung and company were up to some interesting extra-curricular activities?
At the time Lombardi surely had larger ambitions, but it would have been hard to find a better place to be than a resurgent Army program as he waited for his next big opportunity. Even if it was frustrating, Army was a former great power in college football, and it’s certainly not impossible to imagine a future where, had he been willing to wait, he’d have been able to succeed Blaik for the top job at Army.
Packers connections
One of the late triumphs of the 1953 Army football season was a scoreless tie against Tulane and their star player, a future Packers legend named Max McGee.