On Vince Lombardi

The Super Bowl week buildup continues unabated. My team is involved and I find most of it to be practically unbearable. It must be awful for those of you who are still paying attention or have been unable to convert all of the blather into soothing white noise. Ralph Whitehead, Jr. had a nice piece on Vince Lombardi in The Boston Globe that might remind you of, as others say in a different context for a very different purpose, the reason for the season, or at least one of them. Here is the introduction:

BECAUSE THE Super Bowl trophy bears the name of Vince Lombardi, yearly media countdowns to the game often revisit his triumphant years as coach of the Green Bay Packers. But too often these portraits of him are skewed. They depict him as a severe taskmaster - but play down his achievements as an innovator.

In such portraits, he is a George Patton. In fact, however, he was a Steve Jobs.

The whole thing, as we blogger types are wont to say, is worth reading.