by Rich Watson
Vince Lombardi was such a big deal as a head coach in what became the NFL, they named the championship trophy for him. You know Green Bay, Wisconsin exists because of him. The shadow he cast over professional football was long.
Once upon a time, though, he was a young lineman on a team at a Bronx university called Fordham. The line on that Rams team was special.
They were granite.
College football in New York
People don’t think of New York as a college football town. We’ve got the Giants and Jets; why should they—although some have wished otherwise. Back in the day, though, we cared about it as much as people do in Ohio or Texas or Florida.
Along with Fordham, Columbia, Manhattan, NYU and the City College of New York were known for their football teams in the first half of the twentieth century. At one point or another they all discontinued their programs except Columbia.
Yankee Stadium has hosted Fordham games, as well as Notre Dame and Army games. Currently, it’s the site of a newer bowl event, the Pinstripe Bowl. Columbia, Fordham and Army played at the Polo Grounds, which also held a few Army-Navy games and some nineteenth-century Harvard-Yale contests. Even Ebbets Field briefly hosted LIU football in the thirties.
Fordham kinda won a championship in 1929. Whether the Rams did or not depends on who you ask. There was no method of declaring a definitive winner that year, which is stupid.
That team, however, gave birth to the original Seven Blocks of Granite.
Fordham and the 1929 Seven Blocks of Granite
Fordham was established in 1841, making it New York City’s third-oldest university. It’s a Catholic one. Many graduates pursued careers not only in sports but politics, entertainment, business and religion. Some became famous.
In football, the offensive line shields the quarterback at the line of scrimmage. The center, flanked on both sides by two guards and two tackles, controls the ball before handing it off to the quarterback. Sometimes a tight end will work at one end. If the quarterback gives the ball to the running back, the line clears a path for him to advance the ball. Alternately, if the quarterback throws the ball, the line buys him time to find a receiver.
A caption from a 1930 newspaper article is believed to be the source for the evocative nickname for Fordham’s line. Legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote a poem about them in 1936 which included the verse “The Fordham wall still stands.” The one may have inspired the other.
Why seven blocks? Because in those days, it was not unusual for offensive linemen to play defense, too—and the Fordham line did.
The original Blocks, in two years from 1928-29, were part of a Rams team that went 15-1, with two ties. Center Tony Siano captained the squad, an All-American. He played professionally for two seasons.
When Fordham produced another great line in the mid-thirties, the Blocks nickname resurfaced, only this time with a better-known team.
Vince Lombardi and the Blocks
Lombardi was born to Italian immigrants in 1913 in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. At twelve he played football in a local league. He aspired to be a priest, and after eighth grade enrolled in a seminary high school, but ultimately changed his mind. He continued with athletics. At St. Francis Prep in Queens, he made All-City as a fullback.
Then in 1933, he enrolled in Fordham on a scholarship. His coach was Jim Crowley, a member of Notre Dame’s fabled backfield from the twenties, known as the “Four Horsemen” (they called him “Sleepy”). Lombardi, despite being only five-foot-eight, started at tackle, then moved to guard.
The young men who played the roles of the Blocks during this time, including Lombardi, were:
- Al Babartsky,
- Joe Bernard,
- Johnny Druze,
- Ed Franco,
- Jim Hayes,
- Harry Jacunsky,
- Mike Kochel,
- Leo Paquin,
- Nat Pierce, and
- Alex Wojciechowicz.
Frank Leahy was the line coach.
In the photo at the top of this post, Lombardi is third from the left.
In 1935, Fordham went 6-1-2, shutting out their opponents five times, including four in their last five games. They opened the next year, Lombardi’s senior year, with a 66-7 slaughter of Franklin & Marshall at Randall’s Island, the first of four wins in a row. School publicist Tim Cohane revived the Blocks nickname.
The AP Poll for ranking teams, the system used today, began in 1936 after the news media declared a three-way tie for the championship the previous year (I told you it was stupid). By November the Rams were ranked third in the country. A trip to the Rose Bowl seemed assured.
Then came a heartbreaking upset loss, 7-6 to NYU at Yankee Stadium on Thanksgiving. The Violets avenged a loss to the Rams last year to spoil an undefeated season. Lombardi called it “the most devastating loss of my life.”
The Rams finished 5-1-2, ranked fifteenth, without a bowl appearance.
Lombardi and Fordham’s legacy
The 1937 Rams recovered to finish 7-0-1, ranked third. Babartsky went on to play six seasons professionally. Druze, the team captain, played three seasons as a pro and became a college head coach.
After World War Two, a new presidential regime deemphasized football at Fordham, but subsequent administrations reversed that decision. Currently Fordham plays in the northeastern Patriot League, where they’ve won three titles.
Lombardi played two seasons as a pro and coached in high school, college, and professionally. He spent two years as an assistant at Fordham. He joined the Green Bay Packers in 1959 and the rest is history: five NFL championships, including the first two Super Bowls.
In 1970, after Lombardi’s death from cancer, the Rotary Lombardi Award was established in Houston, given to college football’s best lineman. Last year’s winner was Kelvin Banks Jr. of Texas.
The trophy is a small block of granite.
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Have you seen Fordham football? Leave a comment and let me know!
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