Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Lombardi Impact

Former Green Bay Packers linebacker Dave Robinson and author Royce Boyles have teamed up again to produce entitled The Lombardi Impact: Twenty People Who Were Brushed by Greatness.

This book is a follow-up to their similarly-titled 2002 book The Lombardi Legacy: Thirty People Who Were Touched by Greatness. Subtitles are apparently not their strong suit.

I was stuck by two things in the colorized photo on the cover.

First of all, Vince is wearing his gorgeous monogrammed "GB" cap.

But secondly, and more interestingly, it looks as though the players are wearing jerseys from the 1950s. The Northwestern stripes on the sleeves are the giveaway.

The helmet logos indicate that the picture was no earlier than the 1961 season. It would appear that the Packers were using jerseys from previous seasons in practice and/or training camp, and the artist who colored this photo either didn't know or didn't care.

2 comments:

Tom Farley said...

Chance, the cover caught my eye, too. I know I've seen Lombardi conducting practice as the players wore the pre-Lombardi jerseys, but I can't seem to find them in the Life Archive at Google. ("green bay packers source:life") If you want to kill your productivity, go over there.

I was clicking through the photos, trying to find a link for you, when I came across a picture of Ron Kramer, buck naked, on the trainer's table. Did not expect to see that ...

Chance Michaels said...

I know I've seen that image before, but I can't seem to find it now either.

Love that Life archive. Great stuff, lots of photos left unpublished for many reasons. I'm hoping they get around to uploading the "outtakes" from their 1939 article on the Packers.