Vince Lombardi

American Catholic History

Noelle & Tom Crowe

History, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Education

5 • 724 Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Vince Lombardi, legendary coach of the NFL's Green Bay Packers, was arguably the greatest football coach of all time. What made him a great coach was his ability to motivate his players, and get their best out of them. His coaching philosophy came largely from his Catholic education, and sounded a lot like how Catholics talk about virtue. As a coach he never had a losing season, and took the Green Bay Packers from a decade of futility to a decade of success, including winning the first two Super Bowls. But the sudden onset of cancer took his life after just one season of success with the Washington Redskins.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to American Catholic History, brought to you by the support of listeners like you.
0:11.0	If you like this podcast and would like to support our work, please visit Americancatholichistory.org
0:17.5	slash support. I'm Noelle Heister Crow. And I'm Tom Crow.
0:21.5	Today we're talking about Vince Lombardi, who is regarded by many to be the best football
0:26.7	coach of all time.
0:28.5	Lombardi was the coach for the Green Bay Packers from 1959 to 1967, winning five national
0:35.1	football league championships, including the first two Super Bowls.
0:39.2	And beginning with Super Bowl 5 played in January of 1971, the trophy given to the winner of the Super Bowl is named in Lombardi's honor.
0:48.1	This honor wasn't only because he won the first two, it was because of how respected he was as a coach and a leader.
0:54.3	He never had a losing season as a head coach. He took over two different franchises that were
1:00.0	just awful and made them successful practically overnight. And he inspired the admiration of
1:06.2	everyone whom he coached. This last bit that he inspired his players was the biggest reason he was so
1:11.7	successful. Yes, he was good at drawing up plays. The Packer Sweep was practically unstoppable in
1:17.2	its day, but what he did better than anyone else was getting the most out of his players. Or,
1:22.8	to put it more rightly, he inspired his players to give their best and to be the best football players that
1:28.7	they could be. And that sounds a lot like the Christian life well lived. It does. Do the best you
1:34.5	can with what you are given. It fits because Lombardi was a lifelong Catholic, a daily
1:39.4	communicant, and he even considered being a priest for a time. Right. And if you read through
1:44.0	the many, many quotes that are available from him,
1:47.1	a fair number of them sound an awful lot like Christian calls to virtue,
1:50.7	things Catholics believe about the sacraments or like Bible passages.
1:54.6	Like when he said, the greatest accomplishment is not in never falling,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Noelle & Tom Crowe, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Noelle & Tom Crowe and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.