The Trouble With This Game

Vince Lombardi's struggle with a common coaching affliction

Author

Cody Royle
May 12, 2025

In 1963, a revolutionary book was released called Run To Daylight.

The entire book is a week in the life of Green Bay Packers head coach Vince Lombardi, written in minute-by-minute, day-by-day detail.

As the reader, you sit in traffic with Lombardi on the way to practice, and hear coaches’ room banter as the iconic leader helps his defending-champion team prepare for a home game against the Detroit Lions.

This was the pre-Super Bowl, pre-merger, pre-national television NFL, so insights of this nature were extremely rare at the time.

And while the 60s were slower, simpler times, you are shot right into modernity from the opening sentence of the book:

❝

Monday, 3:15am

I have been asleep for three hours and, suddenly, I am awake. I am wide awake, and that's the trouble with this game. Just twelve hours ago I walked off that field, and we had beaten the Bears 49-0. Now I should be sleeping the satisfied sleep of the contented but I am lying here awake, wide awake...

Yeah…Vince Lombardi couldn’t sleep either.

The sleeplessness of being a head coach is something only those who've done the job can fully appreciate. It is ceaseless, and as Lombardi points out, doesn't abate with success or achievement.

I love stories like this because it helps us realize that everyone in our community is struggling with the same things. There is a shared struggle in coaching which binds us together.

While sleep is crucial to our success, I'm yet to meet a great coach who isn't lying in bed, wide awake, ruminating at 3:15am. For some, it’s post-game reflections, for others, it’s the night before announcing team selection. What I’ve come to believe is that our nightly restlessness is an indicator of success — a sign of deep care — rather than a 'flaw'.

Any performer that's striving towards greatness has a level of unease that drives them.

That unease revisits Lombardi on the eve of the game, as he struggles to calm his mind in anticipation of such a crucial early-season encounter:

❝

Saturday, 11:15pm

The others have gone to bed, but there is no point in my trying to sleep, so I’m watching an old movie on television.

My favourite Amazon review for Run To Daylight explains why it’s important for us to learn from this kind of story about Lombardi, and not merely gravitate towards the caricature of him, and his fistful of famous quotes:

“I liked that the book is not all rah-rah. You see Lombardi's exhaustion, how the season takes a toll on him, how he's unsure of his decisions. You don't just see the ‘Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing’ cartoon that has come down to us.”

If you’re a head coach and you struggle to get to sleep, here’s the technique that I recommend most often (because it’s the only one that has worked for me).

It’s called ‘the military method’, and you go through this cycle repeatedly:

  1. Relax your head: release the tension in your forehead, temples, and jaw. 

  2. Drop your shoulders: release the tension in your shoulders, and let your arms flop down beside you.

  3. Focus on your breath: inhale to 80% lung capacity, then exhale longer than you normally would.

  4. Let your legs go: release the tension in your legs and glutes, and feel them sinking into the bed.

  5. Picture black: rather than images or thoughts in your mind, have your inner voice repeat the mantra: "picture nothing but black".

For the best results, I recommend practicing this technique for naps, nightly sleep, and returning to sleep after staring at the ceiling at 3am.

Sleep is a practice, after all.