That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory

a good book of Vince Lombardi taking over the Green Bay Packers and turning them into winners.

In June of 1959 at the first Green Bay Packer pre-season quarterback camp new coach Vince Lombardi addressed six quarterbacks of which only three would make the team. One of the players at that meeting was future Hall Of Famer Bart Starr. Starr was not only "not" on the way to a Hall Of Fame career at that point... but his first two years with the Packers had resulted in won/loss records of 3 & 9 and 1 & 10. In fact their most recent season 1958 had been the worst season in the forty-year history of the Green Bay Packers. Coach Lombardi who had never been a head coach in the professional or college ranks... though he was an assistant coach on New York Giant NFL championship's... knew what he wanted to accomplish in Green Bay... and how he would accomplish it. Lombardi did not mince words... and the entire future legacy of a franchise was set when Lombardi delivered the following *OPENING* salvo:"GENTLEMEN... WE'RE GOING TO RELENTLESSLY CHASE PERFECTION, KNOWING FULL WELL WE WILL NOT CATCH IT, BECAUSE PERFECTION IS NOT ATTAINABLE. BUT WE ARE GOING TO RELENTLESSLY CHASE IT BECAUSE, IN THE PROCESS, WE WILL CATCH EXCELLENCE.""HE PAUSED AND STARED, HIS EYES MOVING FROM PLAYER TO PLAYER. THE ROOM WAS SILENT."I'M NOT REMOTELY INTERESTED IN BEING JUST GOOD," HE SAID WITH AN INTENSITY THAT STARTLED THEM ALL."When there was a break in the meeting an hour later... Starr ran to a phone and called his wife at home in Alabama and said: "HONEY, WE'RE GOING TO START TO WIN," HE SAID BREATHLESSLY. THE GUY TALKED ABOUT PERFECTION!"From that place in time forward the author details the fury and passion that defined the Italian-Brooklyn-born Lombardi who became a savior... in of all places... frigid Green Bay. He worked the ballplayers harder than they'd ever been worked. Former college All-Americans were throwing up on the practice field. Coach Lombardi threatened the team that if they didn't do things his way he'd get rid of them... and get rid of some of them he did. The players hated him... but in the end they loved him... for what he forced them to become.What the Green Bay Packers were before Lombardi's arrival was not only a losing team... but a team known throughout the league as quitters. When Lombardi reviewed the prior season's game tapes... especially the November 2, 1958 game against the Baltimore Colts in which they lost 56-0... it wasn't just the score... it was the fact the players quit trying. This added even more fuel to his fire and passion... if that's humanely possible... and every practice became a personal quest to transform Lombardi's desire for a team that would always leave every ounce of sweat... blood... and tears... on every field... whether in practice or in a game... all towards the goal of excellence... victory... and being able to look each other in the eye... knowing they never quit.Interestingly portrayed along with the Packer's coach and players are the opposing NFL stars of that generation... and the entire town of Green Bay whose lives are built around the fortunes of their hometown team. The reader will be made well aware of how Lombardi built the foundation of a team that in 1959 had its first winning season since 1947... that would play for the NFL championship in 1960 and win the NFL championship in 1961,1962,1965... and win the first two Super Bowl's in history in 1966 and 1967. And as all fans know today... the Super Bowl Trophy is called the *LOMBARDI-TROPHY*. All this reinvigoration of a once proud Packer franchise had to start somewhere... and where it all started was in... "THAT FIRST SEASON".

Much as been written about Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers dynasty of the 1960's, but John Eisenberg's book is the first to provide details about Vince Lombardi's first season with the Green Bay Packers.When Lombardi took over as head coach Green Bay was a losing team with a culture of losing, and even quitting, in games. He was starting at ground zero with a group of players who were used to and even accepted losing. Once a team establishes a culture of losing it is extremely difficult to break it out of that cycle. Losing becomes a habit and it becomes acceptable.But it was not acceptable to Vince Lombardi. After taking over the head coaching duties prior to the 1959 season Lombardi wondered what he had gotten into after watching game film of this woeful team.Through punishing practices and motivational tactics more akin to an Army drill sergeant than a professional football coach, Lombardi made it clear to his players that losing was not acceptable and he was gong to work them out of it, literally. His practices were brutal affairs and his drive for perfection a tangible force.While that first season ended with a mediocre 7-5 record, Lombardi accomplished one amazing feat. The Green Bay Packers were no longer losers and quitters. Instead Lombardi established the mental and physical groundwork for the dynasty yet to come.The most amazing thing about Lombardi's feat is he turned the team around with essentially the same players who were so woeful before. Normally a team breaking out of losing streak essentially has to clean house and build from scratch. Not Lombardi. He worked, cajoled, intimidated, and rebuilt this team from the inside out turning a can't do mentality into a can do winning one. And that is why Lombardi is praised as possibly being one of the greatest coaches of all time in any sport.Lombardi also made some key decisions that propelled the team forward. He finally settled on future Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr as his starter for the future. He created an offensive attack that utilized the unique talents of Paul Hornung instead of trying to turn him into a power running back, letting Jim Taylor handle those duties. And he helped players like offensive linemen Jerry Kramer, Forrest Gregg, and Fuzzy Thurston advance from good to great. And by practicing the bread and butter plays, especially the sweep, until it was second nature, he made the game more simple for his offensive players, and difficult to stop for opponents.This is a well written book where you get the inside story from many of the players of that era, like Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, and Jerry Kramer. Fans of professional football should enjoy this look back at how Vince Lombardi launched a dynasty.

The book gives a good and detailed account of lumbardis first season highlighting how each game unfolded and how the likes of bart starr started there journey to the hall of fame you don't have to be a packers fan to enjoy it even a cowboys fan like myself can appreciate the importance lumbardi plays in the nfls story

A really informative and well constructed book that gives insight into what made Vince Lombardi great. Well written in a style that meant I could hardly put the book down. For anyone interested in the history of the game and, particularly of the beginning of the modern era, this is an informative and entertaining read.

Great book. Fantastic value. Arrived extremely speedily. What's not to love?So nine more words required - how about these?

Halfway through, Really shows the detail Lombardi went to. Some operator!

I was really please with this book. It gives very detailed insides on how Lombardi turned the Packers Franchise around and made them a very well drilled, disciplined unit that, although talented, was before him in total disarray. If you are not familiar with the sport of Football, the detail game accounts will probably bore you a bit as they are written in a very newspaper reporting kind of way. I think not everything he did back in the 50's would work today as he took a very military oriented approach to instilling discipline which may or may not work today depending on the group you may be dealing with. But there are definitely lessons to be learned from it.