Bro, the Washington Redskins Commanders are wrong for this.
The legendary Vince Lombardi an ally of the LGBTQIA+ community?
This would never fly up in Green Bay, I guarantee it.
But the Washington Football Team wrote an entire article about it since Lombardi would become the mediocre Redskins' head coach in 1969 after winning seven NFL championships, including the first two Super Bowls, with the Packers.
I'm not kidding.
Let's dive into it:
‘Long before it was fashionable, Lombardi was a champion of gay athletes, if only because he was a champion of all athletes, at least those who helped him score more touchdowns than the other guy,' wrote sportswriter Ian O'Connor in a 2013 piece for ESPN.
Wow, ESPN was gay all the way back in 2013? I never would've guessed.
Vince Lombardi was a devout Catholic, by the way, so that sort of throws this whole article into the moot bin.
But because ESPN wrote a gay article about Vince Lombardi in 2013, and Vince's brother was gay, Vince Lombardi was an ally to the gays. And that's not all. There were apparently three players on Washington's roster in 1969, which I thought didn't happen until Michael Sam entered the league in 2014.
Back to the gay article:
If there was any confusion or uncertainty about where Lombardi stood on LGBTQ+ people being treated fairly, it would have been cleared up when he was in Washington. For whatever reason, and one can only speculate, the literature seems to suggest that Lombardi was around more gay men in a football operation in Washington than in his previous head coaching jobs.
Funny how when you move from Wisconsin to Washington you encounter more gays than you could've ever imagined.
According to Out Sports and other sources, three players in Washington's 1969 training camp -- running backs Ray McDonald and Dave Kopay as well as tight end Jerry Smith -- were gay. David Slatterly, Lombardi's assistant general manager, was also gay and so was public relations director Joe Blair. Kopay described Blair as Lombardi's ‘right hand man.'
Lombardi found a player who was struggling in McDonald. His on-field performance in 1967 and 1968 left a lot to be desired, and the young running back had other challenges off the field. He was arrested in D.C. in 1968 for having sex with a man in public.
When Lombardi arrived, the new coach and general manager wanted to help turn things around for the former 13th overall pick.
‘Lombardi wanted to give him every benefit of the doubt, and every chance,' Marranis said.
One way he helped with McDonald's confidence was by trying to mitigate the homophobia that might be around.
In his book, When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi, Marranis notes that Lombardi told running backs coach George Dickson, ‘I want you to get on McDonald and work on him and work on him -- and if I hear one of you people make reference to his manhood, you'll be out of here before your ass hits the ground.'
McDonald would be cut from the team early in training camp immediately after showing up to a meeting late.
Typical.
The Washington Commanders of modern day spend the rest of the article talking about Lombardi's friendly relationship with Jerry Smith.
Jerry Smith played tight end. And that's all I have to say about that.
It sounds like Vince Lombardi was a normal guy who treated people with respect no matter who they were. That's not being an ally to the LGBTQIA+ community — known in those days as gays and lesbians — that's being a normal person who knows how to treat their employees. If Lombardi and his gay brother could see what the "gay" community is up to in modern times, they'd probably immediately start praying for the wellbeing of the human race.
And if they could see how gay the NFL has become — the Washington "Commanders" writing up an entire article celebrating Lombardi as some sort of gay-loving icon as they go into their gay Pride football game on Sunday — they'd lose all faith in the game that was once the greatest on Earth. They'd head to Australia, where they play real football, and nobody's a sissy.
