When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi

David Maraniss

Oct 1999 · Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

The New York Times–bestselling biography that captures all of football great Vince Lombardi: the myth, the man, his game, and his God.

More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor of the American experience. The son of an Italian immigrant butcher, Lombardi toiled for twenty frustrating years as a high school coach and then as an assistant at Fordham, West Point, and the New York Giants before his big break came at age forty-six with the chance to coach a struggling team in snowbound Wisconsin. His leadership of the Green Bay Packers to five world championships in nine seasons is the most storied period in NFL history. Lombardi became a living legend, a symbol to many of leadership, discipline, perseverance, and teamwork, and to others of an obsession with winning.

Written by Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss, When Pride Still Mattered “forges a near-perfect synthesis of fine writing and fascinating material. May be the best sports biography ever published” (Sports Illustrated).

“An astonishingly good book . . . A triumph, a classic American biography.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Both the reach of the research and the grasp of Lombardi’s character are impressive. It is a wonderful work.” —Chicago Tribune

“A superb book, one of the best on football that we have.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer

“A monumental biography.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Ratings and reviews

As inspiring, insightful and reassuring a book as the subject himself. As a life-long, neck-deep Packer fan who lived and breathed much of the Glory years of the 60's this was the most enjoyable book in my long list of reads. Thanks so much for bringing the special values of that era back to their eternal relevance. Required reading for those seeking to understand the mantra of those over 60 complaining about the loss of traditional values. Thanks so much.

Just a great read. Very interesting man.

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About the author

David Maraniss is an associate editor at The Washington Post and a distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and was a finalist three other times. Among his bestselling books are biographies of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Roberto Clemente, and Vince Lombardi, and a trilogy about the 1960s—Rome 1960; Once in a Great City (winner of the RFK Book Prize); and They Marched into Sunlight (winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and Pulitzer Finalist in History).