We’re still figuring out the changes to Blogger's system, and we are posting this to see how it goes. Green Bay Packers Head Coach Vince Lombardi stepped down from that role on February 1, 1968 to become the team’s general manager only. By most accounts, this was a terrible mistake — the better move would’ve been to hire a GM and concentrate on being coach only. But the Packers were aging and after winning three championships in a row (1965-67), the only place to go was down. A challenge would be to build another winner, in another city. In February 1969, Lombardi was offered and accepted the positions of head coach and general manager for the Washington (then “Redskins”) Football Team. This was only to last for one 7-5-2 season until cancer gripped him in the summer of 1970 before what would’ve been his second training camp with that franchise. The greatest coach in NFL history (we’re biased) passed away on September 3, 1970.
Here we present a cover story from the July 28, 1969 issue of Sports Illustrated about that first summer in Washington, when all was positive and the sports world was watching to see if Lombardi could work the same magic that he had in Green Bay from 1959-1967.
This issue is part of the Packerville Archives, and was originally owned by Sports Illustrated subscriber Gerald Burkard of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Because we always have to know more, we searched to see if we could find this gentleman. We found his obituary which showed that he passed away just last year (2019) at the age of 93 — still a resident of his hometown. He was a Packers season ticket holder, and “was proud to say that he attended the historic Ice Bowl” on December 31, 1967. If his family should come across this, his copy of Sports Illustrated will be preserved safely in our archives for years to come in his honor.
