Run it!

"Run it! And let's get the hell out of here."  Those were the words the most renowned coach in football said on a very cold day--December 31, 1967.  The ensuing play would enter NFL lore and perhaps become the most famous play in NFL history.  As time goes by, the telling of this play has become legendary.  It is almost mythical.  It was a day like no other in the NFL. More than two generations have past, and it continues to hold the record of the coldest weather in which an NFL game was held.  But, it is also different for other reasons.   It deserves its status in the history and lore of the NFL.  The opponent of the Green Bay Packers that day was the Dallas Cowboys.  Dallas was coached by Tom Landry.  Landry and Vincent Lombardi had been defensive and offensive coordinators, respectively, under Jim Lee Howell with the New York Giants.  Green Bay meets Dallas once again at Lambeau Field, for a divisional playoff game.  The first meeting of the two programs at Lambeau in the playoffs since the Ice Bowl.

1967 Ice Bowl.  "Down, set...."

Lombardi's larger than life statute while made in Green Bay, really owed much to the sports press of New York.  His connections through Jesuit institutions at which he was educated, and his connections from coaching at West Point and with the Giants, would provide links that would make a man in the obscure small city in Wisconsin a national phenomenon.  The play of the pathetic Packer team for several years before Lombardi arrived, had the powers that be in the NFL thinking of kicking the team from the small city out of the league.  Time, it was believed, had passed them by and they were said to be an anachronism with its title held by the local American Legion Post, when other teams represented the best capitalism could provide by being privately held. The original professional football teams were born in many of the small cities of the Midwest.  Decatur, Akron, Kenosha, Muncie and Green Bay just to name a few.  George Halas, known to many as Papa Bear, realized that the loss of Green Bay would be a loss for the game.  As much as Halas loved the Bears, he loved the game more, and it was his love of the game that led him to recommend to Jerry Vainisi of the Packer organization to hire Lombardi.  Vainisi did a masterful job of searching for a head coach outside the executive committee and then making it seem to the executive committee as if it was their own idea.

Faithful Packer fans that day in 1967

With Lombardi in Green Bay, the Packers began to win championships which led to the self-proclaimed name of title town.  The pull and lore of a small town organization is at play yet today, and it contrasts with that of the Packer's opponent this Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys.  Last weekend Dallas defeated the Detroit Lions at the house that Jerry (Jones, the owner of the Cowboy's) built, ATT Stadium. During that game Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, a long-time Cowboy fan, was watching the game in the owner's box, and would hug Jerry Jones at the conclusion of the game. Christie would receive a number of comments on his action.  Showing a sense of humor in an ability make a dig, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker would send out a photo of a man wearing a foam cheese-head with the word "Owner" emblazoned on its sides and would tweet:  "This is the type of owner I'll be looking to hug after a #Packers win on Sunday".  The tweet, making a big-time jab at the New Jersey governor, would make news throughout the nation.  Perhaps the two Governors will hug Sunday at Lambeau Field.

Lambeau Field in 2003

Just as the Packers are the only community owned professional sports teams in the United States, so does Lambeau Field have a distinct personality.  This personality developed in large part due to Lombardi.  If it was not for Lombardi and the loyal fan base he created, the Packer organization would likely not be seeing the success it sees today.  It would simply be a smaller more parochial version of Buffalo.  Let us contrast ATT Stadium with Lambeau.  Lambeau is not named for a sponsor.  It simply has been known for almost 50 years as Lambeau Field.  Before being renamed on Sept 11, 1957, it was known as City Stadium.  Showing the importance of tradition to the small town, while Lambeau Field has been enlarged and expanded a number of times since its original construction was completed in 1957; it is the longest serving NFL stadium. Lambeau is the second largest NFL stadium. I know what Bear fans will say--Soldier Field is older.  Yes, it is, but it has not served as the home field for the Bears as long as Lambeau has for the Packers.  Contrast that with ATT stadium, which opened a few years ago.  History and tradition give Lambeau a certain mystique usually played up by the news media.

Lambeau Field in 1965

Part of that mystique goes back to that game on the last day of the year 1967.  Temperatures when the players, at least most of them, went to bed was about 30 degrees.  The next morning it was a negative 13. The temperature would drop through the time of the game.  Lambeau Field had installed, under the watchful eye of the Packer head coach and general manager a heating system.  The prior day, when players did their walk through, even Tom Landry thought the field to be in excellent shape, though possibly a little damp.  Lombardi would give the project engineer a thumbs up on the that Saturday. Come game time it would be a different story.  The field was cold, it was frozen.  By half time it was like concrete.  Small clumps of earth would freeze solid, and make the field, as one player noted, like playing on stucco.  The heating system had been purchased by Lombardi the previous spring from General Electric.  Most interesting is that the GE representative was the nephew of George Halas.  In his biography of Vince Lombardi, David Maraniss would note that people on the field were struck by the odd juxtaposition of a sign reading "THIS FIELD IS ELECTRIFIED" when it was like concrete.  It was this stucco-type field that would lead to the now well-known moniker--"Frozen Tundra."  When Green Bay replaced its field several years ago, they would sell small boxes containing earth from the field.  That is how well the field has become known, how well it has become appreciated, and how well it is thought of here in Wisconsin.  No sponsor would dare have this stadium renamed in their honor.

Giant brain trust.  Landry, Howell, Lombardi

Lambeau is electrified again, but a system that seemingly works better.  They even use grow lights in the late fall and winter to assist with growth of the grass.  It is not a full natural field, the grass is interwoven with artificial threads.  It is technology that makes the differences between 1967 and today.  In 1967 the only gloves worn, and then only by lineman, were the brown cotton gloves.  The common scuba insulated glove used today did not exist.  They did not have the fabrics we have today that better wick away sweat, but keep the body warm.  They did not have heat in their benches, although they had side line heaters.  Hands were stuck in the front of the pants to help keep some semblance of feeling.  Today we have hand warmers that fit in pockets built in a jersey. Packer right guard Jerry Kramer would wear a wool dickie, and cut off his long underwear below the elbow and below the knees that now famous Sunday.  Lombardi would not be in a hoodie, or a parka, but in a shirt with tie, Russian type hat (rather than his standard fedora) in his dress overcoat.  It was a different era than we have today.

Curly Lambeau

That Sunday it was late in the game about 13 seconds left on the clock.  The home team has third and goal from the Dallas one yard line.  No time outs.  They had not scored since the first half.  A pass into the end zone would either be caught and win the game, fall incomplete and stop the clock or of course be intercepted.  Using their last time out Starr would suggest to Lombardi that they use the wedge (dive) play, the most basic play in all of football.  The golden boy, Paul Hornung is standing next to Lombardi and does not think the coach is paying attention to what Starr is saying.  Hornung thinks a roll out pass should be attempted, as if it were incomplete the clock would stop, and they may have time for one last play.  Fullback Chuck Mercein hears the call and thinks this will be his moment--the fullback up the middle.  Film study had shown the Packers that the Cowboy tackle Jethro Pugh tended to go in high, making for a possible block if Jerry Kramer can get good footing.  Not really paying attention to Starr, Lombardi simply says--"Run it! "And let's get the hell out of here."

Winning touchdown

According to Maraniss, as Starr trots on to the field, a member of the Packer staff asks Lombardi what play Starr was going to run, Lombardi, proving Hornung's hunch correct, says:  "Damned if I know."  In a serendipitous moment Kramer would find a foothold for his left foot and change his position to drive off the left, rather than right foot.  Starr would call the 31 (full back in the one hole), but would at the last minute keep the ball not wishing to risk a hand-off.  Mercein would not enter the lore of the NFL. Starr would add to his growing resume.

Lombardi celebrating the touchdown

As you may gather to watch the Packers play Dallas this weekend, much will be said about the ice bowl, showing the pull that game has to the present day.  Not unlike relics of the cross able to build a ship, so too would those who have claimed to have been at the Ice Bowl, be well more than the 50,000 the stadium would actually held.  People may scoff at history, but we all keep going back to it.  History is part of what makes our humanity.  Our stories make our history, they make us.  A thing with as little consequence as a football game still holds large in our human psyche.  It draws our attention.  Lombardi, the high school chemistry teacher was made by tradition and history, and I have to think he would be proud of the way this moment has stood out among many others.

Statue of the "Old Man" at today's Lambeau Field

Note:  Images from Google images