CHARACTER IS WHAT COUNTS

The legendary football coach wins NFL titles, promotes racial justice, and weathers a troubled marriage in this fictionalized portrait.

Brown’s narrative depicts Vince Lombardi as a strict disciplinarian while he was still in high school in New York City—“Shut up, you morons!” he bellows when left in charge of his classmates—and a larger-than-life presence. He’s an avid student of football during assistant-coaching gigs at West Point and with the New York Giants, but despairs of getting a head- coaching position because of anti-Italian bias. Finally, in 1959, he lands the top spot with perennial losers, the Green Bay Packers, and comes into his own as a football strategist and orator: “I say we roll up our sleeves, get down in the dirt, and revive this team,” he declaims to his new secretaries. He drives players with merciless drills and hectoring until they collapse or rebel: “Now this is the attitude I want to see!” he exults when an enraged offensive lineman attacks him. Lombardi also mentors Black recruits, prohibits displays of bigotry from his players, and bans them from patronizing segregated businesses. Brilliant results follow as the Packers win three conference championships and two Super Bowls over nine seasons. However, at home, he constantly bickers with his neglected, alcoholic wife, Marie. Brown’s rendition of Lombardi’s life stays close to the facts and the coach’s popular image as a prophet of competitiveness, teamwork, and character-building. The depiction of his marriage gives the work additional complexity; Lombardi’s a flawed husband and Marie’s an unsettled person who still lends her spouse vital support. Brown’s workmanlike prose occasionally strays into corniness, but he also delivers evocative game scenes—frigid players “moved like bison on frozen tundra with clouds of white escaping their nostrils”—and engrossing passages of Lombardian analysis: “There, see? The receiver blocks the cornerback and boom—the lead running back takes on the safety and the ball carrier runs to daylight.” Fans of football heroism and Lombardi’s strict ethos will be hooked.

A stirring, if sometimes-hagiographic, dramatization of a storied career.