Rating: 
Summary: A GREAT BOOK-A MUST READ!
Review: An excellent reading book on the life of Vince Lombardi! I've been a Colts fan my whole life(over 30 years),and never had a great indepth knowledge of Coach Lombardi. Whether your a Packers fan or follow another team,its a must read football book. The book starts a little slow then picks up like a old Packers sweep! GET IT!
Rating:
Summary: A good one
Review: Simply the best book I've read about honor, integrity, pride, and courage in the face of terrible adversity that I've read since The Triumph and the Glory. (I'm a Viking fan so that isn't easy for me to admit.) Lombardi IS a legend and always will be.
Rating:
Summary: "the man"
Review: picked up this book thinking it would give me a motivational boost...didn't get much of a boost, but did read an outstanding biography. i've heard this book quoted as the "best sports biography ever written", and i have no reason to doubt that. it is a book that looks at lombardi's life as if we were viewing it through a 1960's 8mm video movie camera. would recommend it to any and all!
Rating:
Summary: PERFECT GIFT
Review: If there's a better gift for a father or grandfather than "When Pride Still Mattered," I haven't heard of it. This is truly a masterpiece of a biography, probably the best I've ever read. Like most of the reviewers have already said on this page, the book is dripping with details and wonderful accounts not just from Lombardi's players, but his paperboy, high school classmates, golf caddies, etc. I'm not the world's biggest football fan, but it didn't matter reading this book. Lombardi's story is a true American classic. Can't wait for Maraniss' next biography!
Rating:
Summary: This is a winner
Review: When I first picked this book up I thought it might not be my cup of tea. I thought if I didn't like it I could give it to my dad. Now, I intend to give a copy to my dad and other male relatives for Christmas. What a book! Having grown up in Wisconsin after Lombardi, this book has filled in so many holes. But, more importantly, I can't put this book down. Every game that is recounted becomes a breathtaking moment. And the analysis of Lombardi, professional football, and our myth making culture is amazing. Anyone with an interest in football will love this book. Anyone from Wisconsin should read this book (it makes sense of the Packer phenomanon). Anyone who enjoys biography should read this. And, finally, anyone who enjoys a good read ought to read this. Happy holidays...
Rating:
Summary: I WAS SURPRISED
Review: My father used to tell me "Winning isn't everything, its the only thing." I knew the quote referred to Lombardi but I thought nothing of it until carousing through a brick-and-mortar bookstore and stumbled upon "When Pride Still Mattered". David Maraniss puts you in the front row on the insights of "Coach". Now I know Vince Lombardi truly was a great man with high morals and was not just a bunch of sportswriting hype.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent--but I had 1 question
Review: Like all of the other reviewers, I loved this book. But I did have one question which nagged me throughout. In the very first paragraph of the book, when discussing the derivation of the title, the author says that it was a phrase taken from Richard Ford's Independence Day (another great book) and that he suspected that Ford intended the phrase "with a certain irony". Maraniss also says that he was using the phrase "in the same spirit". I would have thought that, when it comes to Lombardi and his life, the phrase of the title would be taken at face value. So, my question for the author, which I would love to know the answer to, is: What is the "irony" intended by the title?
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best
Review: When I was a kid, I read Green Bay Packers lineman Jerry Kramer's book Instant Replay, his diary of the 1967 season, and to this day that era still has a mythical hold on me. Indeed, "When Pride Still Mattered: The Life of Vince Lombardi" continued the magic. After also reading David Maraniss' biography on Bill Clinton, I'm convinced Maraniss is one of the best non-fiction writers of our time. With Clinton and now Lombardi, Maraniss proves he has the ability to take a person who has reached unimaginable success, and show us their strengths, weaknesses and flaws, without taking away from what made them great in the first place. This is a book that you wish would never end. It's that good.
Rating: 
Summary: Learning from a master
Review: If you want to learn how to write a biography; or want to know more about a legend of our sporting culture- buy this book. Having grown up in the 50's and 60's in Wisconsin, the book brings to life the heroes of that football generation. Saying that Mr. Maraniss is a master of his craft is an understatement.
Rating:
Summary: A Rewarding Sports Biography and more
Review: Although I grew up in during Lombardi's rise to fame in the 1960's, I have never read any other sports book or biography that dealt with him, up to this time, motivated finally more by Mr. Maraniss's previous books on President Clinton, which I have read, than by any great desire to become knowledgeable about this football great.There is not much that I can add that hasn't already been said in all the other reader reviews that appear on this page. The author's biography presents a no-holds-bared look at this interesting sports coach and personality that fortunately, as another reader said, presents a man whose reality lives up to the myths that have been built up around him. What I would like to add is that this book also provides some very useful historical context around the Lombardi years that makes his life all the more vivid: life in the fifties and sixties, the rise of professional football to its prominence today and the rise and influence of the media in the sports world as well as in all other aspects of late 20th century life. This is a book ANYONE will enjoy, not only because of the subject matter it covers, but also due to the meticulous reporting, fluid writing style, and most of all, for the way the book sincerely tugs on the emotions of the reader, for Lombardi, his family and for a time period gone by. In sum, this is a book that rewards the reader all the way around.
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