Reading
Bud Lea's review of Next Act Theatre’s production of “Lombardi: The Only Thing.”
Here are some great quotes from Lea about Lombardi-
I wasn't ready for Lombardi when he came to Green Bay in 1959. Nobody was.
I had been assigned as the Packers beat writer for the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1954 and the best they could do during a five-year stretch was 6-6 and a third place finish under Liz Blackbourn in 1955. Then the whole thing collapsed when Scooter McLean took over in 1958 and the Packers hit rock bottom with a 1-10-1 record.
McLean was a nice guy - too nice, too decent, too gullible. I was in Baltimore that infamous day when Johnny Unitas and the Colts clobbered the Packers, 56-0. This was a Green Bay team that had Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Jim Taylor. Forrest Gregg, Ray Nitschke, Jim Ringo - all future Hall of Famers.
56 to nothing! How could this team ever recover?
There were no rules under McLean's command. When Lombardi arrived, everything changed.
The Sentinel didn't cover training camp or road pre-season games in 1958, and I was pulled off regular season games.
Lombardi's first rule: "If you're going to cover my team you must come up and stay at training camp." That's the way they did it in New York when Lombardi was an assistant coach with the Giants. And this was the way it would be in Green Bay.
That meant checking into St. Norbert College and being assigned to a room with another writer on the second floor of Sensenbrenner Hall, where all the rookies were quartered. Because my roommate snored so loud, I packed up my things and moved in with my parents, who lived in Green Bay. Lombardi was so wrapped up in turning things around, he never noticed I wasn't making bed check at St. Norbert.
I never felt comfortable talking to Lombardi. It was always a tense atmosphere. He was on guard, never giving out any information you could develop into a meaningful story. He had absolutely no patience with anyone asking, what he said, were stupid questions.
When I couldn't make it up to Green Bay on Monday, I was allowed to call him at 11 a.m. sharp for a follow-up story. If I phoned a few minutes late, he would not take the call. I'd write out my questions ahead of time so I wouldn't waste his time. He'd answer the first, shrug off the second, curtly answer the third, and then say, "that's enough, gotta go."
He was a very intimidating person, and it had a lasting effect on the media that covered the team. None of us wanted to be accused of asking a stupid question.
That didn't bother writers from New York who jumped on Lombardi's bandwagon when he turned the Green Bay franchise into a dynasty. There was a game in Milwaukee County Stadium and the Packers won a very low-scoring game, something like 6-3.
Jerry Isenberg of the Newark Star Ledger started Lombardi's post-game press conference by questioning the Packers' offense. He began hammering away and Lombardi got hot, and they really went at it.
"The trouble with you, Jerry," Lombardi fumed, "you don't know a (expletive) thing about football." And Isenberg replied, "The trouble with you, coach, you don't know a (expletive) thing about journalism."
It was great for us peons to sit back and watch this fiery exchange.
Here is a link to the Theatre that is producing this play.
