Vince Lombardi, whose name became synonymous with football excellence and discipline, died in Washington, D.C. at age 57. He had led the Green Bay Packers to five NFL championships in the 1960s, including victories in the first two Super Bowls, before a brief final season coaching the Redskins. The NFL's Super Bowl trophy was renamed in his honor.
Lombardi arrived in Green Bay in 1959 to take over a team that had gone 1–10–1 the previous season and was, by his own account, in a state of near-total organizational collapse. Within three years he had turned the Packers into champions, instilling a famously punishing, repetition-based system built around the power sweep and an unforgiving demand for precision. His practices were legendary for their intensity, and his players spoke of him with a mixture of fear and devotion that outlasted his career by decades.
He won five NFL titles in seven years, including the first two Super Bowls, in January 1967 and January 1968, cementing the Packers as the decade's defining dynasty. After a year away from coaching in the Packers' front office, he returned to the sidelines in 1969 with the Washington Redskins, immediately posting the franchise's first winning season in fourteen years.
He never got a second season. Diagnosed with colon cancer in June 1970, he died less than a month later. The NFL renamed its championship trophy the Vince Lombardi Trophy that same year, ensuring that every Super Bowl champion since has hoisted a piece of silver bearing his name.