This is an IHeart podcast.

Excellence must be pursued.

It must be wooed with all of one's might and every bit of effort that we have.

And each day there's a new encounter, each week is a new challenge.

From all of the display and all of the noise and all of the glamour and all of the color and all of the excitement,

and all of the rings and all of the money, these are the things that really linger

only in the memory. But the spirit, the will to excel, the will to win, these are the things

that endure. And you're listening to the late Vince Lombardi, and we celebrate great American

iconic figures, and there was no bigger one in the mid to late 20th century than Vince Lombardi, and we celebrate great American iconic figures, and there was no bigger

one in the mid to late 20th century than Vince Lombardi. He affected everything. And we love

talking to great writers, and we're going to talk right now with David Moranis, who wrote the book

on Vince Lombardi when pride still mattered. David's the associate editor of the Washington Post,

and David, thanks so much for joining us. Oh, my pleasure. Let's the associate editor of the Washington Post, and David, thanks so much

for joining us. Oh, my pleasure. Let's start in the beginning. Vince Lombardi's dad,

what did he do for a living and describe the world that young Vince grew up in?

His father, Harry, was a butcher. The family lived in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn.

Harry would commute over to the lower west side of Manhattan, where he had a butcher shop.

One of his nicknames was old 5 by 5, which described about how he looked.

He was short and squat and very strong and sort of

inculcated into his sons that there was no such thing as pain. He was tattooed, you know, before his time,

I guess, you know, he'd fit in with a modern-day athlete

in that sense.

...