Here are just a few numbers to underscore Lombardi’s greatness.
Vince Lombardi is one of the greatest head coaches in American sports history. During the 1960s, Lombardi helped a struggling Green Bay Packers team become one of the most dominant football powerhouses in history. In addition to being one of the most respected head coaches of all time, Lombardi held various roles, including general manager of the Green Bay Packers and executive vice president and head coach of the Washington Redskins.
Lombardi’s greatness wasn’t just an opinion. The numbers back up the claim.
Coach with Bart Starr (photo courtesy PennLive and the Patriot-News
2: Lombardi was named the NFL Coach of the Year twice. He won the award for the first time as the Packers’ rookie head coach in 1959, and again in 1961.
3: Vince Lombardi was a head coach three times: St. Cecilia’s, a high school in Englewood, New Jersey (1942-1946), Green Bay Packers (1959-1967), and Washington Redskins (1969).
5: Lombardi is a five-time NFL champion, winning the championships in 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, and 1967, the last two being Super Bowl years.
6: Lombardi secured six conference titles as the Packers’ coach: from 1960 to 1962 and then again from 1965 to 1967.
7: Seven assistant coaches who worked under Vince Lombardi and became head coaches at the college or NFL levels: Bill Austin, Phil Bengtson, Jerry Burns, Tom Fears, Norb Hecker, Mike McCormack, and Harland Svare.
9: Lombardi garnered nine postseason wins as a head coach for the Packers, a winning percentage of 90%, which is the highest all-time playoff winning percentage.
10: Lombardi had ten winning seasons as an NFL head coach, and never suffered a losing season.
Graphic courtesy National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution
36: As St. Cecilia coach, Lombardi’s teams reeled off 36 consecutive victories. In 1943, St, Cecilia won the high school national championship with Joe Paterno, the future head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions, at QB.
57: That was Lombardi’s age when he passed away from colon cancer. The Super Bowl trophy was officially renamed in his honor.
96: The number of wins Lombardi had as a Head Coach during the regular season, with a winning percentage of 73.8%
105: The number of wins overall for Lombardi as an NFL head coach (75% win-rate).
Vince Lombardi’s approach to winning wasn’t a now-and-then kind of thing; it was an all-the-time kind of thing. “ You don’t win occasionally; you don’t do the right thing occasionally; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit.”
