Welcome to the American Story. Stories about what it is that makes America beautiful,

heartbreaking, funny, inspiring, and endlessly interesting. This is Chris Flannering with the

Claremont Institute. I call this one, Catching Excellence. Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing.

This quotation adorns the walls of locker rooms all across America. Spoken by the legendary football

coach Vince Lombardi. It has abiding appeal because Americans, like

sensible people everywhere, suspect without having to think much about it that winning is preferable

to losing. This seems even more true in real life than in sports, and you can see why not just

coaches, but generals and business executives

would make a note to themselves to remind the troops of this essential point at halftime.

Still, a small cloud of conscience always casts a slight shadow with a saying,

as if there is something there not altogether according to Hoyle, some

suggestion that success is the only measure of men. It isn't, of course. The truth, as

Coach Lombardi well understood, is more complex and interesting. But there is no denying that

Vince Lombardi was a winner.

The son of an Italian immigrant,

Vincent Thomas Lombardi was born in Brooklyn

on June 11, 1913.

He played guard in the famed seven blocks of granite offensive line

of Fordham University in the 1930s.

As a high school coach in New Jersey, he won multiple football championships, offensive line of Fordham University in the 1930s.

As a high school coach in New Jersey, he won multiple football championships and a regional competition in basketball, even though he admitted to knowing little about that sport.

He was an assistant to the revered Red Blake at West Point and won a championship as an

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