With their fedoras and game-day ties, Vince Lombardi and George Halas weren’t just trying to win football games during their illustrious careers, they were building a legacy.
Fierce rivals on the field, the two faced each other 18 times from 1959 through 1967 (and the Packers won 13 of those matchups. Go Pack Go!)
The two men drove their teams hard in the days leading up to those games. Each set a standard of such excellence, they earned early admittance to the NFL Hall of Fame. Halas, who was still an active coach at the time, joined the inaugural Hall of Fame class in 1963. Eight years later, (and a year after he died of cancer), Lombardi earned a posthumous induction. Halas’ Bears won six NFL titles. Lombardi’s Packers won five.
Mike Ditka, who played for the Bears from 1961 to 1966 and later coached them to a Super Bowl title, recalled how much the Packer/Bear rivalry meant to each franchise.
“Believe me, Coach Halas loved to beat the Packers,” he said in a 2013 issue of Packer Plus. “I had no clue about the rivalry, but I quickly found out. Every year, we had to play them twice, and those were the most important games of the year to him.”
That drive to win came from a mutual respect.
“Coach Halas had tremendous respect for Vince Lombardi,” Ditka said.
According to Packer guard Jerry Kramer, that respect went both ways.
“George Halas was a towering figure in the NFL,” he said. “Without question, Coach Lombardi had a lot of respect for Halas. More than respect, even a reverence.”
Packer quarterback Zeke Bratkowski played for both coaches, and he found them equally exacting. He told Bob Fox in this 2017 piece, that the two demanding coaches had a lot more than football in common.
“Coach Halas and Coach Lombardi were good friends,” he said. “At least until they played each other. But they had great respect for one another. They had the same character. Both of them were devout Christians.
“When I was with Coach Halas, he would go to mass every morning in Chicago. Likewise, Coach Lombardi did the same thing in Green Bay. Both were very conscious of their character and their team’s character.
“We had some pretty good games when they coached against each other.”
Much has been made about the oldest rivalry in football, which dates back to 1921. Two of its most decorated coaches navigated that rivalry with a fierce competitive drive, and an ability to win with grace and lose with dignity.
When Coach Lombardi passed away, Coach Halas wrote a tribute to him.
“i loved him as a friend and a man,” Halas wrote.
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I’m sure both were watching from Heaven at the recent game. Sorry Pack came up short on the one this year, but at least it was a well-played game and close.
It was definitely close. I said if NFL games were just 30 minutes long, we’d be undefeated. 😂