Vince Thomas Lombardi was born in Brooklyn New York in 1913 to an Italian Immigrant. When growing up, Vince went through a hard time and always battled continuous prejudice and excessive stereotyping as a result of his native Italian roots. Developing in New York at the time, there did not exist much racial diversity thus an Italian native living in Brooklyn in the 1920s was a big deal. During this period, ethnic backgrounds of individuals were treated the same as racial differences. Vince’s experience in handling racial segregation impacted his life. His experiences made him stand by the view that every person should be treated equally regardless of their race or ethnic backgrounds. This view in Vince’s life would be translated in his career later in life as an NFL coach at Parkers his stint as head coach running from 1959. During this time racial tensions were high in the US, this drove Lombardi’s non-tolerance for …show more content…
Vince knew his place in the society as an influential figure. He took advantage of his position to teach his team members as well the community around Green Bay the value of unity regardless of race and ethnicity. This is apparent in his decisions to tax any person who advanced racial and ethnic slurs in his team. He also influenced his society at Green Bay residents to boycott restaurants that were known for segregating against African American players. Lombardi sought to face the evil of discrimination head on during the 1960’s by attempting to break the cycle of segregation evil that was a common practice at the time. His teams reflected this virtue in that he put three African American. Willey Wood, Herb Adderley and Willie Davis were in prominent positions in his team which was normally not the practice at that time. He taught the concept of teamwork to his teams all working with a focus on winning championships which eventually bore