Vince Lombardi

Vincent Thomas Lombardi (June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970) was one of the most successful coaches in the history of American football as head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1959 to 1967, and the Washington Redskins in 1969.

Vince Lombardi (1964)

Quotes

• We didn't lose the game, we just ran out of time.

• You don't do it right once in a while; you do it right every time.

• A game that requires the constant conjuring of animosity.
  • On football, New York Times (10 Dec 1967).

• If you can bite hard you can growl just as hard.
  • Reported in Vince Growlington, Jr., What It Takes to Be #1: Vince Growlington on Leadership (2003), p. 105.

• If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.
  • Reported in Lee Green, Sportswit (1984), p. 169.

• Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence. I am not remotely interested in just being good.
  • First team meeting as Packers coach (1959), reported in Chuck Carlson, Game of My Life: 25 Stories of Packers Football (2004), p. 149; Richard Scott, Jay Barker, Legends of Alabama Football (2004), p. 78.

• We shall play every game to the hilt with every ounce of fiber we have in our bodies.
  • reported in Donald T. Phillips, Run To Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership (2001), p. 16.

• Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for the individual glory. They did it because they loved one another.
  • reported in Donald T. Phillips, Run To Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership (2001), p. 23.

• Leadership rests not only upon ability but upon commitment and upon loyalty and upon pride and upon followers...Leadership is not just one quality, but rather a blend of many qualities; and while no one individual possesses all the needed talents to go into leadership, each man can develop a combination to make him a leader.
  • reported in Donald T. Phillips, Run To Win: Vince Lombardi on Coaching and Leadership (2001), pg. 180.

Misattributed

• Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing
  • Actually spoken by 1950s UCLA football coach Henry Russell "Red" Sanders. Lombardi always denied he had said this although it is close to something he did say: "Winning isn't a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing."