With the Packers in town to face the Giants, Post columnist Steve Serby huddled with Vince Lombardi Jr., the son of the legendary Green bay coach.
Q: What would your dad have told these Scott Tolzien Packers?
A: Everybody’s gotta step up their game and pick up a little bit of slack. If he’d have gotten up before this squad, there would have been absolutely no doubt they were gonna win the game, even with Scott Tolzien. When he got up before that team, there was never, ever, ever a second of doubt. Whatever he was selling, he was selling. He often times saw himself as a salesman. He’d sell his players on the game plan, approach, whatever.
Q: That’s a gift.
A: I don’t know if it’s a gift or an attitude a little bit.
Q: How would your dad have handled any type of Richie Incognito-Jonathan Martin incident?
A: “If you use this word, that word or that word about your teammate, you can’t play for me. If you have an ounce of prejudice in your body, you can’t play for me.”
Q: Your dad knew his locker room.
A: My dad knew his players better than they knew themselves.
Q: What was your favorite Vince Lombardi saying?
A: (Laugh). Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. In professional football, that’s a truism — if you don’t win, you can’t work. He took some heat and he felt obligated to reframe it as the will to win.
Q: Why did he take heat?
A: In Little League, they use that word, it’s not what he meant at that level. When you apply it to Little League or high school or whatever, people said, “Gee whiz, that’s not right.” He felt compelled to say, “What I meant to say was ‘the will to win.’ ”
Q: What about fatigue makes cowards of us all?
A: That’s applicable to all of us. Take care of yourself physically.
Q: Describe the The Ice Bowl.
A: I was on the sidelines.
Q: How cold was it?
A: It was cold. The game in ’62 in New York [Packers 16, Giants 7 in the NFL championship], the weather in my opinion, was tougher conditions for the players than the Ice Bowl, because of the wind, and the [Yankee Stadium] field was like glass. I was more uncomfortable that game than I was the Ice Bowl.
Q: Where were you on the sidelines at the Ice Bowl?
A: I was probably standing on the 30-yard line.
Q: How far from your dad were you?
A: I tried to stay as far away as I could from my dad.
Q: What was he like during a game?
A: A lot of emotion, which, of course, you don’t see today. It was a different time, a different era. Quarterbacks were pretty much in charge of the game. Hopefully, you prepared them enough during the week. My dad was just in charge of the emotion of the game.
Q: What was it like after the Packers beat the Giants 37-0 in the 1961 NFL championship?
A: The town was rocking afterwards. It was New Year’s Eve.
Q: Which one victory was your dad’s favorite?
A: You could certainly make a case anytime they beat the Giants.
Q: Why was that?
A: Because he was a New York guy. Anytime you beat your hometown team and the team you worked for, it’s gotta be a good feeling. My parents were New York City people. You can have great respect for the Maras, it doesn’t mean you’re not satisfied when you beat ’em.
Q: What do you of the talk that Wellington Mara had an understanding that your father would return to coach the Giants, after Jim Lee Howell retired.
A: I don’t pretend to have any inside knowledge about that.
Q: Describe Super Bowl I.
A: You didn’t know how good the AFL was. There were some hard feelings because they were signing away people, paying more than the NFL wanted to pay their players. There was some animosity and hard feelings. My dad felt they were representing the NFL, and a lot of NFL owners said, “Gee whiz, you’re representing us.” My dad felt a lot of pressure.
Q: You were on the sidelines?
A: Yeah.
Q: What was your dad like?
A: I’ve never seen a [pregame] locker room with more stress and tension than that one.
Q: And after the game?
A: A lot of euphoria. Just to have it over with, I think.
Q: Who are some memorable people you met as the son of Vince Lombardi?
A: I would tell you Well Mara was one of the most outstanding people I’ve ever been associated with. I had the good fortune to know him when my dad coached on the Giants. He was on the management council when I worked for the NFL [as a labor negotiator]. He was on our board. Just a prince of a human being. He wasn’t a stuffed shirt or anything like that. He was just himself.
Q: How did you become friendly with Bill Parcells?
A: We lived in the same neighborhood in Oradell [N.J.] We played a lot of pickup ball on the community fields. We had some common friends.
Q: Your thoughts on his Hall of Fame induction?
A: He was a helluva coach and a positive addition to the NFL. I don’t think you could say anything negative about him.
Q: Your son Joe is quarterbacks coach for the Saints. How did you feel about a Lombardi going into coaching?
A: I tried to talk him out of it way, way, way back when. I said, “Don’t do it unless you can’t absolutely live without it.” Because of the hours and the pressure.
Q: You also advised his wife.
A: I said, “Do you really know what you’re doing? He’s not gonna be home. You better think about it.” I went to my dad when I was a senior in high school, and I said, “I’m going to go off to college, I want to be a coach.” He said, “If you do, I’ll not put one penny towards your education.” I couldn’t get into football until my dad passed away.
Q: Why was that?
A: We forget, when my dad was with the Giants, he had to have a second job in the offseason to live at the level he wanted to live. There was no money in football. Today, every coach’s son is in football because the money is so good. No. 2, he was of a generation where he wanted his son to wear a white shirt and tie and be a quote-unquote professional. After he passed away, fortunately I could pick up the phone and call the commisioner, Pete Rozelle.
Q: Shortly afterward, you worked for the expansion Seahawks under John Thompson.
A: I was an assistant to an assistant to an assistant (chuckle). I ran training camp, I did all the travel, did a little scouting, did a little signing, became director of ticket sales and marketing.
Q: What would your father have said if you insisted you wanted to get into coaching?
A: I don’t think I would have gotten help (laugh). I went into Georgetown while he was passing away. I walked into the room and I had a suit on. He gave me a smile: “You look like a lawyer.” He was happy.
Q: What was that period when he was in the hospital like for you emotionally?
A: My dad was a perfectionist and he had a hairtrigger on his temper — great qualities for a coach, not so great for a parent. Our relationship was strained. I said many times, I had to grow up to his level before we could probably communicate.
Q: Why was that?
A: He was an authoritarian. He was of a generation, “You will respect me before I’m gonna worry about whether you love me or not.” We were getting there, but he passed away before that could happen.
Q: Any regrets?
A: Oh sure. Who doesn’t have regrets? But it is what it is.
Q: Who are you more like, your mom or your dad?
A: (Laugh). That’s a good question. Probably somewhere in between. I’m not that volatile. My dad would discipline me at the moment. I would kinda tell the [four] kids: “You think about it, I’ll be up in about an hour.” They would tell me, “Waiting for you to come was a whole lot worse than the discipline.” I didn’t want to do to them what happened to me.
Q: What happened to you?
A: He would whack you if you did something wrong. I didn’t want that to happen with my kids.
Q: Your oldest is Vincent.
A: He’s an assistant U.S. Attorney. He puts bad guys in jail. My second son, John, is a sales manager in Nashville. He just premiered a beer in Green Bay called Lombardi Lager.
Q: How’s the beer?
A: It’s really good! Tastes good, and you can drink more than one. My daughter Gina works for Microsoft, she manages 30-35 lawyers. Joe is in New Orleans [Saints]. I’ve got 12 grandkids.
Q: You still root for the Packers?
A: Yeah, sure. I root for the Seahawks, I root for the Giants … after the Saints, there’s a pretty big dropoff.
Q: When you were hired by Al Taubman to work in the USFL for the Michigan Panthers, tell me about the time you flew to Houston for the league meetings.
A: There was a young couple on the plane and this fellow is asking me all these questions about football, and telling me time and time again I don’t know what I’m talking about — “who the hell is this guy?” Well, it’s Donald Trump and Ivana. He was going down to complete the deal to buy the New Jersey Generals.
Q: Do you still do motivational speaking?
A: No. My wife passed away last February, and she battled cancer for about nine years. Towards the end, I kept having to cancel speeches because I was taking care of her. It just got to a point it didn’t make any sense. I’m fortunate enough that I don’t have to work anymore.
Q: One of your motivational topics was High Performance People.
A: What do they do? How do they do it?
Q: How would you sum it up?
A: It’s all about your belief system. If you think you can do it, you can. If you don’t, you’re not gonna do it. We have these fears, these attachments. We get in our own way. We have so many hangups and whatever. We’re our own worst enemy.
Q: You went to law school, became a Minnesota state legislator, but never truly felt comfortable outside the football arena. Why was it like for you outside football?
A: People whispering behind your back. … When I got into football, it was a piece of cake — “Yeah sure, that makes sense.”
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: St. Augustine, George Washington, Father Thomas Keating.
Q: How would you sum up what it’s been like being Vince Lombardi’s 71-year-old son?
A: Like everything else, pluses and minuses. I wouldn’t change anything, net-net.