The legendary coach’s vision on winning can be applied to just about all professions and occupations.
No head coach in NFL history has been quoted more on winning and leadership axioms than Vince Lombardi. He was really ahead of his time in the 1960s, creating a winning system as a classic model of leadership for all professions and occupations to emulate. Nowadays, mention “Lombardi” and a certain magic still lingers in the name.
When speaking about winning and character-building in organizations, Lombardi comes to mind. If business people speak about the importance of punctuality and preparedness, they are reminded about “Lombardi time” (i.e., 10 minutes earlier than the scheduled time) and a “commitment to excellence,” sacrificing for the greater good, the organizational goal, to ensure enhanced quality of a person’s life, as examples. It does not stop there. “Lombardi-isms” have permeated every sector of society, instilling confidence and achievement efforts among employees in organizations throughout America.
There will probably never be a coach and leader with a better ability to organize, rally the troops, and just plain win. In many school, sporting, and corporate structures, Lombardi contributions are revived every time there is a call for team improvement and winning. It is a tremendous accolade for a deserving and great coach, but it was not without plenty of sacrifice and hard work on his part. Lombardi learned from his parents, his religion, the Jesuits at Fordham, and great coaches like Fordham’s “Sleepy” Jim Crowley, a disciple of Notre Dame’s Knute Rockne, Earl “Red” Blaik, West Point’s legendary coach, and Jim Lee Howell of the New York Giants.
Lombardi was an attentive and engaging student of the game who embellished the work of coaching notables to a new height of coaching genius and sports leadership. According to Lombardi, hard work and the will to win, a character-in-action, is what makes people and organizations thrive and succeed. Therefore, learning from Lombardi should be encouraged as an ongoing process of promoting character-in-action for today’s leaders when improved team performance and winning are the company goals.
Everything that Lombardi spoke about – leadership, character, commitment, and discipline – naturally lead to winning. The name, Lombardi, in America, has become associated and synonymous with winning. After all, one of his most quoted lines is, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing”. That celebrated axiom is probably recalled more often than anything else Lombardi has profoundly stated in his great coaching tenure. However, it should be noted, it was first spoken by UCLA Coach Red Sanders in the 1940s, but it is attributed to Lombardi time and time again.
Afterwards, Lombardi regretted making that statement; he retorted with this explanation: “I wish to hell I’d never said the damned thing. I meant the effort. I meant having a goal…I sure as hell didn’t mean for people to crush human values and morality.”
Verifiably, like it or not, Lombardi did say it, and history has recorded it as his property on winning philosophies. Poignantly, that hard-hitting axiom has concisely framed the very essence of the Lombardi legacy for most. The intensity of such an enormous statement on winning is received differently by people as is evident, but its impact is surely felt by most. Along the same lines, Coach Lombardi also wrote: “The will to excel and the will to win – they endure”. This statement really reflects what Lombardi wanted to say originally because he was always focusing on the will – “The will to win is what fuels the run to win.” The goal for Team Lombardi was winning. Winning was the company mission.
Lombardi spoke about the rigors of the football organization and its objective on winning: “Being part of a football team is no different than being a part of any other organization – an army, a political party. The objective is to win, to beat the other guy. You think that is hard or cruel – I don’t think it is. I do think it is a reality of life that men are competitive, and the more competitive the business, the more competitive the men. They know the rules, and they know the objective, and they get in the game. And the objective is to win – fairly, squarely, decently, by the rules, but to win.”
As a result, Lombardi was criticized for making winning the most important goal in a game of brutality among men. Lombardi’s critics accused him of callousness and insensitivity. In defense of his strong emphasis on winning, Lombardi fired back, repeatedly saying: “If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”
They keep score because the winners need to be recognized and rewarded for their commendable efforts. Lombardi affirms the grace of winning: “I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he was worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on field of battle – victorious.”
Part II will include Coach Lombardi’s vision on leadership.
About the Author: Al Bruno is a special education and English teacher for the Buffalo Public School system. He has worked for the Buffalo school system for 18 years and six years as a vocational trainer and counselor. Bruno holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications and three Master of Science degrees, all in education.