Bart Starr Quotes

Did you know Granddaddy was a famous quarterback with the Green Bay Packers?” she said breathlessly. “My friends at school told me he won these things called Super Bowls and championships…” She didn’t

The greatest glory is being knocked to your knees and then rising again. Lombardi repeated this phrase often, until it rang in the head of every single Packer, like a ubiquitous radio jingle.

What he tried to explain to his players was that being humbled—having some sort of setback—was inevitable in life, but that the real measure of a man was how he reacted to being knocked down. Would he wallow on the ground feeling sorry for himself? Accepting his ultimate defeat? Or would he climb off the turf and go back to work, infused with a renewed determination to transcend the setback?

The whole atmosphere was team, team, team,” Bratkowski said, “and that was really refreshing.

Nobody had to say anything,” recalled halfback Donny Anderson, “because nine years of Vince Lombardi was in the huddle with

When Lombardi joined the Green Bay Packers in 1959, the team had gone eleven straight seasons without a winning record, and after winning only one of twelve games the previous year, the team fired Lombardi’s predecessor. Upon arriving at training camp as their new head coach, Lombardi made an immediate and indelible first impression on Bart Starr, a struggling third-string, fourth-year quarterback. After leading the players to a meeting room, Lombardi waited in front of a portable blackboard as the players sat down. He picked up a piece of chalk and began to speak. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we have a great deal of ground to cover. We’re going to do things a lot differently than they’ve been done here before . . . [We’re] going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because perfection is not attainable. But we are going to relentlessly chase it because, in the process, we will catch excellence.”6 He paused and stared, his eyes moving from player to player. The room was silent. “I’m not remotely interested in being just good,” he said with an intensity that startled them all.