Today’s blog entry features a side of Lombardi that people rarely think about... Lombardi the average football player. Vince Lombardi, back when he was being yelled at by the coach instead of doing the yelling. In 1933, Lombardi accepted a football scholarship to Fordham University in the Bronx to play for new head coach Sleepy Jim Crowley, one of the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame in the 1920s. Lombardi was an undersized guard (5'8" 185 lb.) on Fordham's imposing front line, which became known as “The Seven Blocks of Granite.” It held Fordham's opponents scoreless several times during a string of twenty-five consecutive victories. Frank Leahy, future head coach at Notre Dame, was Lombardi's position coach. In the classroom, Lombardi was, at best, a slightly above-average student. He was awarded his bachelor's degree from Fordham in June 1937, five days after his 24th birthday.
