Justs to set the record straight, Lombardi never said:"Winning isn't every thing, it's the only thing"
His quote is (according to Sports Writer Red Smith): "Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is"
There is a very big difference in the two quotes.

Quote from: George Thompson on December 12, 2011, 10:30:55 PM
These two questions were tricky, because they are from the same person and not who the people the public thinks.   

Who was the Wizard of Westwood?

Most people think it was John Wooden, the great basketball coach at UCLA.   Ah, but no, the first Wizard of Westwood (meaning Westwood, CA, home of UCLA) was actually Red Sanders, their great football coach from 1949-1957.

Sources:
By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2008/08/ucla-coach-red.html

by Charles Chiccoa
BruinReportOnline.com
http://ucla.scout.com/2/986553.html

"Red Sanders, of course, not John Wooden, was the original "Wizard of Westwood."    He was also a kind of Paul Bryant before there ever was a "Bear."    In fact, Bryant had been Sanders' first line coach at Vanderbilt and, in 1955, the only time they ever played each other, Sanders' Bruins shut out Bryant's young Texas A&M team, 21-0 at the Coliseum.   

I learned words like "juggernaut" from sports-section accounts of Bruin games.   The shy, bookish-seeming "Johnny" Wooden, who later as the legendary John R. Wooden, would cause every other basketball coach who ever lived to stand in line, could never, in the fifties, escape the shadow of the expansive, charismatic  Henry Russell Sanders."

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Who said "Winning isn't every thing; it's the only thing "?

Again, almost any football fan "knows" that was from Vince Lombardi, the famous coach of the Green Bay Packers.    Ah, but no it wasn't.    It was also Red Sanders who said it first, nine years earlier! 

Source:
By Keith Thursby
Times staff writer
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedailymirror/2008/08/ucla-coach-red.html


"It was also a little jarring to read that famous football quote--"Winning's not the main thing, it's the only thing"--without any reference to Packers Coach Vince Lombardi, who was famous for saying it.   Because Sanders said it first. The Times' Al Wolf suggested he said it "presumably in jest but actually kidding on the square."

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Russell_Sanders

"Winning isn't every thing, it's the only thing

Sanders actually spoke two different versions of the quote.    In 1950, at a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo physical education workshop, Sanders told his group: "Men, I'll be honest.  Winning isn't everything.   (Long pause.)   Men, it's the only thing!"

In 1955, in a Sports Illustrated article preceding the 1956 Rose Bowl, he was quoted as saying "Sure, winning isn't every thing, It's the only thing."[

The quote has since been erroneously attributed to Vince Lombardi as the originator."

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Another of Coach Sander's sayings:

"Beating 'SC is not a matter of life or death, it's more important than that."

While at UCLA, another famous quote was attributed to Sanders regarding the UCLA-USC rivalry, "Beating 'SC is not a matter of life or death, it's more important than that."    (I don't like that one, one bit!)

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Sanders coached the Bruins from 1949 to 1957. He was arguably the best coach in school history, having compiled a record of 66-19-1 (.773) at UCLA and earning the school its only national championship in football. As head coach of the Bruins, Sanders led them to three Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) titles, two Rose Bowls ('53 and '55 seasons) and to a 6-3 record over arch-rival USC.

Sanders instituted the distinctive football uniforms worn by the Bruins when he replaced the navy blue jerseys with "powderkeg blue," added the shoulder stripe to give the impression of motion, and changed the number style from block to clarendon. Sanders said these changes were made to make it easier to see his Bruins on the grainy black and white game films of the time.

The 1954 Bruins compiled a 9-0 record and climbed to the top of the Coaches' Poll, sharing the national championship with Ohio State, winner of the AP Poll's title. Due to the PCC's early "no repeat" rule, the undefeated Bruins were unable to compete in the Rose Bowl that season despite being the PCC champion. Second-place USC , who the Bruins defeated 34-0, played in the 1955 Rose Bowl instead and lost to Big Ten Conference champion and eventual co-national champion Ohio State, 20-7.

Sanders died suddenly of a heart attack on August 14, 1958, just before the 1958 season. His assistant coach George W. Dickerson rushed in on an interim basis to take his place for the first three games, suffered a nervous breakdown, and was replaced by William F. Barnes.

Year     Team     Overall     Conference     
Vanderbilt Commodores (Southeastern Conference) (1940-1942)
1940     Vanderbilt     3-6-1     0-5-1     11th             
1941     Vanderbilt     8-2     3-2     6th             
1942     Vanderbilt     6-4     2-4     8th             
Vanderbilt Commodores (Southeastern Conference) (1946-1948)
1946     Vanderbilt     5-4     3-4     7th             
1947     Vanderbilt     6-4     3-3     5th             
1948     Vanderbilt     8-2-1     4-2-1     4th             
Vanderbilt:          36-22-2     15-20-2     

UCLA Bruins (Pacific Coast Conference) (1949-1957)
1949     UCLA     6-3     5-2             2nd             
1950     UCLA     6-3     5-2             3rd             
1951     UCLA     5-3-1 4-1-1     2nd         
1952     UCLA     8-1     5-1     2nd         

1953     UCLA     8-2     6-1     1st     
1954     UCLA     9-0     6-0     1st         
1955     UCLA     9-2     6-0     1st     

1956     UCLA     7-3     5-2     T-2nd             
1957     UCLA     8-2     5-2     3rd         18     
UCLA:           66-19-1   47-11-1     
Total:     102-41-3     
      National championship         Conference title       

Coach Sanders was considered by most peers as the best football coach on the West Coast in the 1950s.   His record ranks him as one of the all time great coaches.   

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As a youngster, I had the privilege of attending three of those 1954 UCLA games at the LA Memorial Coliseum.   First, I saw them demolish Stanford, who had a future NFL QB named John Brodie, 72-0.   Then a few weeks later, they manhandled Oregon 41-0, who also had a fine QB named George Shaw.     Then, in their last game,  they whipped USC, who went on to the Rose Bowl, 34-0.

I have never seen a better non-NFL team in person than that 1954 UCLA team.


GT

Folks I don't really give a rip what the metrics are for measuring the growth or lack thereof of DIII football, but rather than just gnashing your teeth, let's look and see what has happened to the sport over the last seven year and perhaps compare to other growth over earlier periods. I pushed out give or six possible metrics -- I'll leave the specifics to someone who is a stats freak to figure out the specifics.

But really it does not seem that this has been bad for DIII football. At least to me it seems that there is growth in the number of teams in the DIII pool.

If everyone has their nickers in wad over the fact that UWW and MU have done all of the winning over the last seven years, then that is another topic. Do either UWW or MU have an advantage that other schools do not have?

I will say that the DIII is central US/east coast dominated (by that I mean that is where the majority of schyools are located) and therefore those teams do seem to get more of a benefit of doubt than the rest of the pool;

Two cases this past season were Linfield going all the way to Wesley and Wesley going to MU. If you reverse the home field advantage you might have seen different results in each of those games.

Well the question is "Are the Purple Powers bad for D3?".
So the first question to answer is what is "Bad".
A couple of metrics might be:
      1.) Has division III attendance declined over the last seven years?
      2.) Has attendance at the Stagg Bowl declined over the last seven years?
      3.) Has the number of DIII school participating in Football over the last seven years declined?
      4.) Has the number of athletes participating in DIII programs declined over the last seven years?
       5.) Has the amount of media coverage of DIII football games declined over the last seven years?

Ok I am sure that there are other metrics -- but these should give a least a snapshop of what is going in the DIII football world over the last seven years.

Of course whatever the results are there is nothing at this writing that proves causation -- but it would interesting to look at the numbers and get an idea of what is happening within the world of DIII.

Perhaps the better question is "Do UWW or UMU have an advantage that other DIII schools do not have (or can not replicate)?