Vince Lombardi - Moving Up With The Giants

Lombardi turned forty-one during his first year with the Giants, approaching middle age in professional football. But he still had a lot to prove, and so did the Giants. Steve Owen had been the head coach for the Giants for twenty-three years. His glory days, such as in the 1934 Championship game against the Chicago Bears in a freezing rain, were behind him. Owen had one of his worst seasons in 1953, winning only three games. So the Giants offered Owen a front office job and brought Lombardi in as offensive coordinator, with Jim Lee Howell as head coach, and as defensive coach, Tom Landry, who later led the Dallas Cowboys to several championship games. Lombardi and Landry were as opposite as two people could be, except that they both had strong minds and huge imaginations that served the Giants well. They were very competitive and their respective squads got caught up in the contest to outdo one another.

The Giants reached a turning point in the mid-fifties and went all out, recruiting some of the top college players, including All-American Frank Gifford, whom Lombardi quickly recognized as one of the key players for the Giants' offense. Gifford had almost quit the team the year before and he was not sure Lombardi's arrival would make much difference. However Gifford quickly became his star, helping to take the Giants to first place in the Eastern Conference three years in a row, winning the right to play in the NFL Championship Games in 1956, 1957, and 1958.

If the Giants experienced a turning point upon Lombardi's arrival, Lombardi himself experienced one after successfully completing his fourth year with the New York team. In 1958, Earl Blaik decided to resign as head coach at West Point and most people thought that Lombardi would be Army's first choice to replace him. However, the academy decided to stick with tradition and to hire a West Point graduate. When Lombardi heard the news that he was no longer in contention for the position, he turned his attention to Wisconsin's Green Bay Packers, a team with a long winning history that had suffered through several losing seasons. The 1958 season ended with Green Bay eking out only one victory. Although the executives at Green Bay knew very little about Lombardi, Blaik and Paul Brown, head coach of the Chicago Bears, highly recommended him, and on January 28, Lombardi signed a five-year contract with the team in the dual role of head coach and general manager.