The second–ever Super Bowl, which was played 45 years ago on this day, was an emotional game for the eventual winners, the Green Bay Packers.
Their coach, Vince Lombardi, hadn't officially announced his retirement yet, but there were suspicions — on the street and in the Packers' locker room — that the game against the Oakland Raiders would be his last.
In his book about the 1967 NFL season, "Instant Replay," guard Jerry Kramer wrote about the days leading up to the Super Bowl and his thoughts and observations — and growing suspicions that Lombardi would be leaving.
At the team's afternoon meeting a couple of days before the game, Kramer wrote that Lombardi became unaccountably emotional as the team broke into smaller groups. Afterward, a teammate asked him what he thought it meant.
"Looked like there's no question about his retirement," Kramer replied.
Two days later, after the Packers beat the Raiders, 33–14, Kramer was one of the players who helped carry Lombardi off the field.
Earlier, Kramer had recorded Lombardi's pregame speech — his last, or so everyone thought at the time. Lombardi would return to the sideline a couple of years later to coach the Washington Redskins, and he gave pregame speeches to motivate the 'Skins in the 1969 season, but he would never again deliver another speech before a Super Bowl.
It may have been on this day in 1968 that I began my lifelong attachment to the Packers. I grew up in the South — never, to my knowledge, ever got close to Green Bay, Wisconsin — but I've been a Packer fan as long as I can remember.
I think my family may have had a TV set on this day 45 years ago, but I'm not really sure about that. I remember that we did have a TV the following month because that was the month that Peggy Fleming won Olympic gold in figure skating, and my mother insisted that we eat our dinner in front of our TV set when figure skating was on.
But that's another story to be told at another time.
I kind of think I may have watched this game at my friend Larry's house. His family had a color TV, and not too many people had those in 1968. My family sure didn't. We had one of those old black–and–white portables (with a screen that was probably 13 or 15 inches) with the rabbit ears, and that was our family television.
My family lived in the country, and Larry's house was about a mile or so from ours so, if the weather was nice that day, I probably rode my bike to Larry's house, and if the weather wasn't so nice — if there was ice or snow on the ground (and there probably wasn't because we hardly ever had ice or snow in central Arkansas) — I probably walked all the way.
I have spotty memories of seeing Lombardi and the Packers on TV when I was small so I can't be sure I watched the game at Larry's. I only suspect that I did. Larry was probably my best friend in those days, and he was a Packer fan, too. If we watched the game together, I'm sure we were whooping and hollering all afternoon.
For the second straight year, Green Bay quarterback Bart Starr was named the game's most valuable player — even though his numbers would pale next to the numbers that subsequent players piled up. He completed one pass for a touchdown and racked up a little more than 200 yards through the air.
That woulddn't have bothered me, though. Starr was my favorite player.
As it was, I spent most of that time not entirely sure that I saw the Packers play in that first or second Super Bowl — and wondering if I ever would see them play in one again.
A relentless perfectionist, Lombardi probably would be disappointed that, in 40 years, medical science hasn't conquered the thing that killed him. Medical science has made great strides against other forms of cancer, including the variety that killed Bears fullback Brian Piccolo less than three months earlier, but colon cancer remains a formidable adversary.
I guess that's fitting. During his life, Lombardi also was a formidable adversary.
In the 1960s, Lombardi may have been the most respected coach in the NFL. He became the first coach to lead his team to three straight NFL titles, and he was the winning coach in the first two Super Bowls.
Today, his memory is not so vivid in most minds. He is remembered by some for saying things that are generally considered cliches now — things like "Winning is the only thing" and urging his players to "run to daylight."
My personal memories of Lombardi are still vivid, though, and they are in black and white. That's because our TV was a black and white in those days — and the screen wasn't very big so Lombardi, who was not a tall man to begin with, looked even smaller to my elementary school eyes.
Actually, my family got its very first color TV in 1970, a few months before football season was scheduled to begin. Then as now, I loved football, and I was looking forward to seeing football games in color.
And one of the things I was looking forward to the most was finally seeing Lombardi, who was coaching the Washington Redskins by that time, in color.
In hindsight, I probably didn't miss much. Even in the color film I have seen of the Lombardi Packers, Lombardi was a black–and–white figure, almost always wearing dark pants and a white shirt, occasionally wearing a tan overcoat. He always appeared somewhat colorless, with his salt–and–pepper hair and his dark–rimmed glasses.
But appearances can be deceiving. Lombardi was far from colorless.
I was — and still am — a Packers fan. Lombardi was the reason for that, but, as much as he did for the Packers, he seems to have done even more for the Redskins in 1969, laying a foundation for the franchise's future success in the 1970s and 1980s.
But even though he took a team that was unaccustomed to winning and molded it into a contender, Lombardi worried that he hadn't been as tough as he should have been. Sonny Jurgensen said that, before he was stricken with cancer, Lombardi told him he had been "too easy" on the players after taking a year off from coaching and pledged to be tougher.
In the spring of 1970, it seemed all but certain that, with Lombardi at the helm for the second year, the Redskins would be televised beyond their local viewing area. That was good news for a young Lombardi fan living in Arkansas.
And, in that spring of 1970, there was no ESPN where football fans could get offseason news, but the sports writers I read in the Arkansas Gazette in those days all seemed to feel the Redskins were poised to make a real run for the playoffs.
That was an unfamiliar feeling, even though Washington could have been in the playoffs in 1969 if the Redskins had defeated the Dallas Cowboys in their two meetings (in fact, they didn't really come close to winning either game).
The old NFL and its upstart rival, the American Football League, merged earlier in 1970, then divided into the NFC and AFC, and folks expected big things from the Redskins (who actually would have been in the running for a wild–card playoff spot in 1969 if such a thing had existed at that time).
But it was not to be. Lombardi was stricken with cancer that summer. The oncologist who treated him called it the most aggressive he had ever seen, and Lombardi died about 10 weeks after his diagnosis.
His memory is honored, of course, in the name of the trophy that is awarded annually to the team that wins the Super Bowl — a fitting tribute to the man who coached the winning team in the first two Super Bowls, even though those victories had none of the drama of the legendary "Ice Bowl."
I still remember when I heard that Lombardi was dying. It was a week night in early September 1970. My father, a college professor, had been spending the previous eight weeks taking continuing education courses in Chicago, and he was returning that night.
My mother took my brother and me, along with some family friends, to the Little Rock airport to meet his plane — only to be told at the airport that Dad had called. He had missed his flight — I think he got stuck in Chicago traffic — and was booked on another flight. He would be arriving late that evening, we were told.
So we turned around and drove back to our small hometown about 30 miles away to have some dinner and kill a few hours. I clearly remember, on that drive home, hearing reports on the radio that Lombardi was near death. And, by that time the next day, he was gone.
After Lombardi died, one of his former players from his glory days in Green Bay, Jerry Kramer, put together a book about Lombardi that was primarily transcriptions of interviews he did with people who were influenced by the legendary coach.
He had had some experience with this kind of thing. In 1967, he kept a diary of the football season, which, as it happened, was the last season Lombardi coached the Packers. The diary was published as a book called "Instant Replay" and became a best seller.
Kramer played one more season, then retired, publishing another book titled, "Farewell to Football."
Most of the people he interviewed for his book on Lombardi were men who played for Lombardi. One was his brother. Another was a college teammate who became, along with Lombardi, one of Fordham's "Seven Blocks of Granite." Kramer also interviewed legendary Army coach Red Blaik, who hired Lombardi as an assistant coach in the late 1940s.
And the final entry came from Kramer's conversation with Sonny Jurgensen, a talented quarterback who was trying to come back from rib and elbow injuries at the age of 35 when Lombardi arrived in Washington. They had one season together.
When Jurgensen met with Kramer, he told him, "I envy you ... all you guys from Green Bay. You had him for nine years. We only had him for one — just long enough for him to educate us as to what it takes to win."
When the transcription was finished, Kramer wrote, "I think I felt sorrier for Sonny than I did for any other man affected by Vince's death. He'd waited so long to be a winner. He'd waited so long to find a Vince Lombardi."
Some people never find a Vince Lombardi, and others, like Jurgensen, don't have their Lombardi long enough.
On the surface, his lessons were about football, but they were really about life.
"If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive," he said, "and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done."
And, while there was no way he could have known it at the time, he had good advice for those people in the 21st century who find themselves in a poor economy and working at a job for which they have no passion.
"If you aren't fired with enthusiasm," Lombardi said, "you will be fired with enthusiasm."
Lombardi. His wisdom still rings true 40 years after his death.
A "tomato can" is a fighter who is believed to be past his prime and an "easy" or "guaranteed" win for an up-and-coming fighter who wants to pad his record.
Sometimes, though, the "tomato can" doesn't cooperate. For example, in 1990, undefeated heavyweight champion Mike Tyson lost the title to a 42-to-1 underdog named Buster Douglas.
Another heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, almost lost his title to lightly regarded Chuck Wepner in 1975. Wepner nearly went the distance against Ali and inspired the original "Rocky" movie.
I got my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and I got my master's degree in journalism from the University of North Texas. Most of my adult life has been dedicated to writing and editing in one form or another. Most recently I have taught writing (news and developmental) as an adjunct journalism professor at Richland College, where I advise the student newspaper staff. Go, Thunderducks!
