\"Everything s
Coming Up Roses\"
Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
Stops with the shore.
--Lord Byron， Childe Harold s Pilgrimage
On Labor Day weekend， 1970， funeral services for Vincent
T. Lombardi were held， appropriately enough， in St. Patrick s
Cathedral in New York. It was a High Mass， dignified and ma-
jestic， conducted by the late Terence Cardinal Cooke， and no
one who was there will ever forget the somber farewell to the
legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers and the Washington
Redskins.
I sat with my wife， thinking of all the years I had known
Lombardi， all the way back to Brooklyn， where we had each
grown up. And then he went on to Fordham， and I ended up at
his school s archrival， New York University. I thought， too，
about his devotion to his God， his family， his craft， and the men
who played for him， and how his simple and singular virtues
were often fw/sted and misrepresented by the media.
In the hush of the great cathedral， you could hear people
weeping， people from all walks of life--statesmen and soldiers，
priests and politicians， athletes and owners. And it seemed that
the bigger they were， the harder they cried， especially the men
who knew him best， the men with names such as Robustelli
and Gifford and Rote， Homung and Kramer and Starr and
Jurgensen. ..
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