D2 SOCCER
El Salvador vs. Guatemala What: Soccer friendly at RFK
Stadium. When: 8 p.m. Tickets: $30, $35. Preview: El Salvador has seized upon its sizeable following in the Washington area by making several visits in recent years, most recently a 1-0 loss to D.C. United in June in a charity match. The roster for this friendly against its regional rival is expected to include former United midfielders Christian Castillo and Eliseo Quintanilla, as well as veterans Rudis Corrales, Dennis Alas, Ramon Sanchez and Marvin
Gonzalez. On Saturday in Los Angeles, El Salvador lost to Honduras on penalty kicks after a 2-2 draw. Alianza forward Rodolfo Zelaya, 22, had both goals. Guatemala, which features Chicago Fire all-star midfielder Marco Pappa, routed Nicaragua, 5-0, on Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Comunicaciones forward Transito Montepeque scored twice. The Chapines’ 2-1 victory over El Salvador in March in Los Angeles improved their record in the all- time series to 28-14-20. —Steven Goff
DIGEST
EZ SU
KLMNO PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL Still in a league of his own SALLY JENKINS
haunting NFL locker rooms in photographs and sayings on the walls, a fedora covering his square-cut bristles, blunt teeth bared in a grin-grimace, shouting epigrams in that big steel drum of a voice: “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.”He is everywhere. His name is engraved on the Super Bowl trophy, and this fall he’s about to star on Broadway. “The remarkable thing is how
V
present he is,” says stage director Thomas Kail. “This is a man who is spoken about almost in the present tense.” Lombardi has never quite
JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST
Wizards forward Andray Blatche said he will be ready when training camp opens later this month.He had surgery on his foot.
GOLF
Hoffman’s 11 birdies winDeutscheBank Charley Hoffmanwas rolling
in somany putts he lost track of howmanybirdieshemadeMon- day. His final stroke on a Labor Day masterpiece was his 11th birdie,more thanenoughtowin the Deutsche Bank Champion- shipinNorton,Mass. The question is whether it
was enough tomake hima last- minutepick for theRyderCup. Hoffmanranoff four straight
birdies early to erase a four-shot deficit, seizedcontrolbyholinga bunker shot on the 13th and closed with a 9-under-par 62 at the TPC Boston for a five-shot victory over Geoff Ogilvy, Jason Day andLukeDonald. Tiger Woods had three
rounds in the 60s for the first time this year. He closed with a 69totiefor 11th,andkepthisNo. 1 ranking intheworldwhenPhil Mickelson implodedagain. Mickelsonneededonlytofin-
ishfourthtobecomeNo. 1 for the first time in his career. Instead, he took two double bogeys on the back nine and shot 76 to tie for 25th. Even if he doesn’t make the
Ryder Cup, the FedEx Cup is looking pretty good for Hoff- man. He was No. 59 in the stand-
ings and arrived at the TPC Bos- ton wanting to make sure he advanced to the third round of the playoffs next week outside Chicago.Hewoundupawinner, movingtoNo.2inthestandings. That ensures him a shot at the $10millionbonus, andputshim in all fourmajors next year after not playing any of them this year. As for the Ryder Cup? U.S.
captain Corey Pavin will make his four selections Tuesday morninginNewYork.The front- runners are Woods, Zach John- son and Stewart Cink, with no one standing out as the fourth choice.
PROBASKETBALL Andray Blatche said in a text
message that he will be ready when the Washington Wizards’ training camp begins Sept. 28. The power forward, who had surgery to repair a broken fifth metatarsal in his right foot last June, had his boot removed about 10 days ago, team Presi- dent ErnieGrunfeldsaid. Although Blatche has been
riding abike andworkingonthe elliptical machine in recent days,Grunfeld said he has yet to be cleared to participate in bas- ketball-related activites. Grun- feld added thatBlatchewas able to keep down hisweight despite limitedmobility. “He’smaking good progress,”
Grunfeld said, without commit- ting to a time when Blatche wouldbebackonthe court. “But
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we’renot going to rush.” . . . The Wizards last week ex-
tended a contract tender to sec- ond-round pick Hamady N’Di- aye, ensuring that they will re- tain his rights. The team had until Sept. 5 tomake the offer— which was a non-guaranteed contract worth the leaguemini- mum — before N’Diaye became anunrestrictedfree agent.. . . Veteran center Sean Marks
has accepted an invitation to try out for theWizards,accordingto two sources with knowledge of the situation. Marks has career averages of
3.0 points and 2.3 in a 10-year career in Toronto, Miami, San Antonio, Phoenix and New Or- leans, where the 35-year-old spent thepast two seasons.
—MichaelLee
HIGHSCHOOLS TheNo. 1highschool football
team in Texas has scored 80 points at Cowboys Stadium. Again. EulessTrinityroutedsix-time
Arkansas state championShiloh Christian, 80-26. Both schools are among the nation’s top high school teams. Last November at Cowboys
Stadium, Trinity beat Flower Mound, 80-27, in a first-round playoff game.
WOMEN’SBASKETBALL The Atlanta Dream made
WNBAhistory for themost loss- es inaseasononlytwoyearsago. Nowcomes a shot at a record to brag about: The Dream is one win from reaching the WNBA Finals. The Dream will try to complete a two-game sweep of theNewYorkLibertyinthebest- of-three Eastern Conference fi- nals onTuesdaynight. Atlanta finished 4-30 in its
inaugural 2008 season. “At the start of the year Iwas
wondering how good we could be and I had no thoughts we could be a champion,” forward IzianeCastroMarques said. Included in the playoff run is
a sweep of theWashingtonMys- tics.
COLLEGEFOOTBALL While Southern Mississippi
wide receiver DeAndre Brown has undeniable talent, Coach Larry Fedora isn’t thrilled with his attitude. In Thursday’s 41-13 loss to
South Carolina, Brown caught four balls for 65 yards and a touchdown — but all of his catches came inthe fourthquar- ter, after the gamewas basically decided. Fedora and offensive coordi-
nator Blake Anderson particu- larly questioned when plays weren’tdesignedto gohisway. Brown is arguably the most
touted recruit in school history, picking SouthernMiss over sev- eralBCS schools. —Fromnews services
died, though he was memorialized on Sept. 7, 1970 with a requiem mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral after succumbing to colon cancer at the age of just 57 at Georgetown Hospital.He is continually revived via highlights and memorialized in bronze, frozen in his priest’s overcoat and thick- framed glasses, until he’s become almost the high cleric of football. Now the Steppenwolf Theatre is making Lombardi come alive on the stage, in a portrait drawn less from priestly legend than the complex reality of the man. What makes Lombardi worthwhile theater is “the drive to perfection of a very imperfect man,” says Washington Post associated editor DavidMaraniss, author of “When Pride StillMattered,” the authoritative biography on which playwright Eric Simonson and director Kail have based their play, which opens in previews at the Circle in the Square Theatre on Sept. 23. The play, like the biography,
tries to get beyond the Lombardi of speechy epigrams such as “run to daylight,” or “fatigue makes cowards of us all,” or “winning is the only thing.” The living Lombardi was
conflicted about his excesses, and he came to regret his association with the reductive phrase: “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” He wasn’t even the first to say it; he merely paraphrased another coach named Red Saunders. Still, it stuck to him like gum to his shoe, and he repented of it. “I wished I’d never said the thing,” he said, almost desperately. “I meant the effort. I meant having a goal. I sure didn’t mean for people to crush human values and morality.” The play focuses on that
tension in Lombardi, using five characters: the coach, played by Dan Lauria; his wifeMarie, played by Judith Light; two of his players, Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung; and a reporter who follows the Green Bay Packers and observes the price of Lombardi’s ambition, the human exchange rate as he won five championships in nine years. Using the physical structure of the Circle in the Square theatre, director Kail aims to give the audience a sense of what it was to play for Lombardi, to be the subject of his electric focus, and incessant demands. When actor Lauria, who played linebacker at Southern Connecticut State, first stood on the stage and looked
NFLNOTEBOOK Ravens get Houshmandzadeh, and trade Clayton BYMARKMASKE
Wide receiver T.J. Housh- mandzadeh agreed to a contract with the Baltimore Ravens, the team announcedMonday. “The first things thatpopout at
youaboutT.J. are thathehasbeen very productive and durable in his first nine years in the NFL,” Ravens General Manager Ozzie Newsome said in a written state- ment released by the team. “Plus, wesawhimmorethanwewanted making a lot of plays against us. We had interest in him a year ago when he first became a free agent before he signed with Seattle. “He’s another proven weapon
for our offense — a big receiver with good hands and toughness. The one other thing that every coach and player we talked with about him indicated is that T.J. is a driven player with an excellent work ethic.” The Ravens add Housh- mandzadeh, a former Pro Bowl selection with the Cincinnati Bengals who was released after
one season with the Seattle Sea- hawks, to a group of wide receiv- ers that includes Anquan Boldin and DerrickMason. TheRavens traded wide receiv-
er Mark Clayton to the St. Louis Rams for an undisclosed draft pick. l JETS: Cornerback Darrelle
Revis ended his holdout by agree- ing to a new contract with the team, the club announced. Revis’s new deal is worth $46
million over four seasons and includes $32 million in guaran- teed money, according to reports. The deal means that Revis,
who finished second in last sea- son’s NFL defensive player of the year balloting, will be in the Jets’ lineup for next Monday night’s season opener against Baltimore. Revis missed all of training
camp and the preseason, and Jets officials had said they weren’t confident that Revis would re- turn to the team this season. “I reallywasn’t optimistic,” Jets
General Manager Mike Tannen- baum said in a conference call with reporters early Monday
morning, according to the team’s Web site. “I really wasn’t. It was a hardset of dynamics. I’moptimis- tic by nature, but gosh, this was really hard. There was a lot of heavy lifting. This honestly and truly was really, really hard.” Ryan also said the team will
re-sign veteran fullback Tony Richardsonaday after cutting the popular player, the Associated Press reported, adding that cor- nerback Brian Jackson will be released to clear a roster spot. l TEXANS: Quarterback Matt
Leinart agreed to a one-year con- tract, according to multiple re- ports. The former first-round draft
choice had been released by the Arizona Cardinals. Leinart seemingly was in line
to inherit the starting job in Ari- zona after Kurt Warner’s retire- ment. Instead, the Cardinals de- cided to go with Derek Anderson as their starter and made Leinart an unrestricted free agent. Leinart is expected to be the
No. 3 quarterback in Houston behind starter Matt Schaub and
top backup Dan Orlovsky. l STEELERS: Coach Mike
Tomlin named Dennis Dixon the team’s starter at quarterback. Dixon is to be backed up by
veteran Charlie Batch. Ben Roethlisberger is serving a four-game suspension by theNFL for violating the league’s personal conduct policy, and Byron Left- wich suffered a knee injury in the preseason finale. l BUCCANEERS: Tampa Bay
claimed rookie running back LeGarrette Blount off waivers. Blount had been released by the Tennessee Titans after signing with them as an undrafted free agent. His draft prospects plunged
after the University of Oregon suspended him for eight games of his senior season for punching a Boise State player last September. l 49ERS: San Francisco
waived third-string quarterback Nate Davis and signed former Ravens quarterback Troy Smith.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
ince Lombardi was buried 40 years ago this week, and yet he’s still alive,
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2010
ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO Vince Lombardi remains relevant 40 years after his death—his life will be featured in a Broadway play.
around, he said, “Oh, we’re back in the locker room.” The Lombardi worth remembering was a fascinating study in emotional contrasts and competing qualities, both tough and bookish, a sometimes neglectful family man yet capable of bonding a roomful of unrelated men into a family. As an undersized player at Fordham he was viciously physical—he weighed 180 but it was said that when he hit you it felt like 250. Once an assistant coach named Frank Leahy caught him with a blind-side block. “Try that again,” Lombardi snarled, and next time he laid Leahy out. Leahy picked himself up. “Okay, kid,” he said, “you’ll do.” But Lombardi was also unapologetically intellectual, and immensely proud of his Jesuit education, to the point that he sometimes exaggerated his credential. Still, he was learned enough that in his early stint as a high school teacher inNewJersey he taught Latin, algebra, physics, and chemistry. He was both guilty, and dutiful.“I don’t think Vince was ever a child,”Marie Lombardi told Time magazine back in 1963. “I think he was born conscientious.” Yet his conscientiousness
didn’t make him an attentive husband. FromMonday through Wednesday, when he game- planned for the Packers, “We don’t talk,”Marie said. On Thursday, when practice wound down, “We say hello.” On Friday “he is civil,” and on Saturday “downright pleasant,”Marie said.
According to Kail, a main
theme of the stage play is that Lombardi was, at times, closer to his teams than to his own relations. In re-reading old Lombardi stories and listening to his voice again, what survives is his deep understanding of and buried sympathy for his best players. There is no other term for it than intimacy. Packer greats Bart Starr and Paul Hornung were among his honorary pallbearers, and two of the last people to visit him in the hospital were two of the Redskins who gave him his last winning season, Sonny Jurgensen and SamHuff. Jurgensen considered him the finest coach he ever had, and never forgot what Lombardi said to him. “I don’t want you to be anybody else but you,” he told Jurgensen. “I need you to be the best version of who you are.” It was that Lombardi, a demanding and yet feeling man, who was such an incalculable loss to the coaching profession. The real Lombardi certainly did not believe that winning was everything.He understood that the scoreboard was just a façade, a small surface reflection beneath which was the real action, the tangle of relationships, the push and pull, and the cycle of work that was a form of mutual giving. Lombardi said this about the men who played for him, and it should apply to every professional regardless of the field. “Every time a football player goes to ply his trade he’s got to play from the ground up—from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads.
That’s okay. You’ve got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you’ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you’re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field second.” Or take this Lombardi
reflection on mental toughness, a phrase we so often use without really defining it. It’s made up of “many things,” he said. “It is humility because it behooves all of us to remember that simplicity is the sign of greatness and meekness is the sign of true strength.Mental toughness is spartanism with qualities of sacrifice, self-denial, dedication. It is fearlessness, and it is love.” The man who said that was
the Lombardi really worth admiring, memorializing and bronzing—and the Lombardi who hopefully survives. As Maraniss observes, what was truly great about Lombardi was his grasp of “a timeless idea that is as applicable in jazz and dance and writing and other art forms as in football—freedom through discipline.” Lombardi had a supreme gift
for teaching that central competitive equation.He enunciated and conciliated the dueling qualities and principles required to succeed, freedom and discipline, pride and punishment, what it takes and what it costs. Which was why his best quotes were far longer than a sentence, and why he is deserving of 90 minutes of theater.
jenkinss@washpost.com
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