That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set It on the Path to Glory

by John Eisenberg

In early January, Evashevski, a square-jawed former star quarterback at the University of Michigan, emerged as the Packers’ top candidate. Iowa hadn’t won a Big Ten title in three decades when he took over in 1952, but he had remade the Hawkeyes into a power, winning Big Ten titles in 1956 and 1958. At age forty, he was just the kind of coach Ole wanted. Much of the committee supported going after him. Evashevski expressed interest when Ole contacted him shortly after the Hawkeyes pounded California in the Rose Bowl. Ole, Vainisi, and Canadeo interviewed him at the National Collegiate Athletic Association convention in mid-January and then quietly brought him to Green Bay for a second interview. But Evashevski abruptly took himself out of the running after that. He didn’t plan on coaching much longer (1960 would be his last year on a sideline) and the rebuilding of the Packers figured to take years.