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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

What would Nancy do?
The sleuth of my mother's youth reveals life's mysteries.
By Amy Benfer
[10/07/99]

Perky fellows in a gay-looking speedwagon: The Hardy Boys return
At last, a revival of unexpurgated Frank and Joe.
By Steve Burgess
[10/07/99]

She wins bread, he loafs
Raised to be helpless, partial to pipe dreams, this dad sings the praises of the working wife.
By Rob Ryder
[10/06/99]

Make the dough, do the laundry: Life as a breadwinner mom
Dad's at home, Mom's raking in the bucks -- everything's cool, right? Not exactly.
By Dianne Lake
[10/05/99]

Hurting young men put pen to rage
A writing teacher who works with juveniles sees familiar pain in the diary of Eric Harris.
By Jill Wolfson
[10/04/99]

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Adderley was the first of the Packer veterans to join the club, and for a time he resided with the more transient players, in a Dallas Holiday Inn. That's where I got to know him. Because he had gone where I feared to go, into the valley of the shadow of Lombardi, and emerged victorious, like a triumphant knight, Herb from the beginning was someone special to me. He was disarmingly open and friendly -- unusual for a veteran of his stature, who normally wouldn't pass the time of day with an obscure rookie. On more than one occasion, Herb joined me for a meal, and until he arranged for his own transportation, often rode with me to practice.

Of course I asked him about Lombardi. Yes, Lombardi could be brutal, Herb confirmed, but he also felt that characteristic of his coach was in service of something else. He talked about the togetherness of the Packers, the love the players had for one another, the amazing feats they were able to accomplish -- all out of a passion that had been inspired by Lombardi. But was it because of Lombardi, or in spite of him, that those feelings arose? I didn't have the nerve to ask the question, but one thing was certain. If Herb was a product of Lombardi, then Lombardi the man couldn't be as bleak as I'd imagined.

I was beginning to wonder, though, about Landry. By this time, I had been exposed to him for several months, and it was becoming clear that the two coaches occupied alternative football universes. Squat, blunt, volatile, Lombardi was an earthy Italian who valued simplicity and directness, while Landry was tall and aloof, a born-again Christian who had an almost prissy aversion to anything of the earth. An industrial engineer and World War II bomber pilot, Landry valued intellect over instinct, thought over feeling, science over the chaos of Lombardi's emotional alchemy. As far as coach Landry was concerned, players were responsible for their own motivation, while his job was to put them in position to make plays. The schemes he devised to accomplish this task were labyrinthine. While Lombardi's defense might be described as "Tackle the man with the ball," Landry's Flex defense required recognition of offensive patterns, internalization of the probable outcomes of those patterns and a corresponding reaction. Locating the football only came after following the branches of his logic tree -- a counterintuitive approach that could take years to master.

For a defensive end, for example -- which was my position -- if you were in the off-set of the Flex, your key was not the immediate threat of the gigantic tackle across from you, who wanted to grind you into hominy grits, but rather the guard positioned next to the tackle, who was hardly a concern. It was the movement of the guard that dictated whether you met the tackle with your outside shoulder or simply caromed off him to slide inside if the guard happened to be pulling -- all according to some larger plan that only Landry understood. The advantage of this approach, for me, was that it eliminated those head-to-head encounters with much bigger players that I could never fail to lose, giving me instead a gap to fill on one side of the tackle or the other, a contest I could always hope to win. For this reason, Landry, unlike Lombardi, was not a big proponent of the Nutcracker Drill, since it simply didn't serve him -- which I also found appealing.

But what would happen, I wondered, if a truly great player were inserted into this mechanism, someone hard-wired to his instincts, who hadn't been trained to ignore them -- someone gifted like Herb, a refugee from the instinctive world of Lombardi? What would happen? Herb shrugged off the notion, saying he was just happy to have an opportunity to play football. But as we rode out to practice on those hot, late summer afternoons, sometimes, it seemed, I could smell the smoke.

That was a private thought, of course, one I was reluctant to share with teammates. What I was willing to share with them was my enthusiasm for Herb. No need, though, as it turned out, because everybody was enthusiastic about him. A consummate professional, sporting a glittering Packer Super Bowl ring, Herb, who is black, was a magnetic figure in the locker room, for both black and white alike. "Peace, love and happiness" was how he concluded nearly every exchange. "Brother A" was what he came to be called. Herb's soothing presence in the locker room defused racial tensions that had plagued the team for years.

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