It seemed to me that the laughter, crossing 2,000 miles and bubbling up over 52 years, is one of the best indications of Vince Lombardi’s success as both a Super Bowl and civil rights champion. After seeing a photo of herself and Ruth Pitts as part of the “Delay of Game” exhibit at the Neville [...]
You could fill a library with books about legendary Packer Coach Vince Lombardi and wallpaper a stadium with his quotes. So ubiquitous are the images of him stalking the sidelines in his trench coat and fedora that children whose parents weren't even born during the Lombardi Years still dress like him for Halloween. Coach Lombardi [...]
In what turned out to be one of the NFL's strongest classes ever, my dad, Ron Kostelnik, was chosen 26th overall and, at the time, he didn't even know he'd been drafted. In December of 1960, my dad's mind was on other things. A defensive tackle for the University of Cincinnati, he had just played [...]
We celebrated his birthday in the house my father built, which sounds a lot more Biblical than it should, given the proven humanity of all involved. Still, we honored him the best we we knew with hard work, a little American ingenuity, a big ole fire and corn popped in bacon fat. That last delicacy [...]
Bless me Father, for I have sinned and you might want to make yourself comfortable because this one covers several commandments. I killed the garlic. Dead. You might recall, my dad's high school friend Nick sent me a box of garlic to honor my Pap. It came from a line of garlic traced through generations [...]