Lombardi himself had a high standard of ethics that he expected his players to follow. He got to know his players by heart. He knew little things about them and treated them accordingly. He was the first coach to use this theory. He was quoted saying, "Some need a whip and others a pat on the back and others are better off when they are ignored." He knew little things about his players that other coaches wouldn't notice or car about. He knew, for instance, that Bob Skoronski had a great interest in the stock market, that Boyd Dowler didn't swear, smoke, drink, or gamble, that Max McGee had a great ability to relax because he was not a perfectionist, and that Bart Starr was tense by nature because he was a perfectionist. Treating each worker differently also required, out of fairness, a set of rules and standards that applied to everyone. No expressions of racial or religious prejudice would be tolerated. Players would follow a strict dress code and were to be on time for everything. He applied these rules to everyone, even his wife. In this paper, I will use Aristotle's Rhetoric, to show that Vince Lombardi was not only a great coach but also an excellent persuader.
Before we start to analyze Lombardi's speech, we need to identify what Aristotle called Proofs or Persuasive appeals. Two proofs were identified in class; they are Inartistic Proofs and Artistic Proofs. Inartistic proofs are beyond the persuaders control while Artistic Proofs are controlled by the persuader. Artistic Proofs come in the form of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos that will be discussed latter in the paper. The Inartistic Proofs are what we are going to focus on now. An example of an Inartistic Proof would be the way a camera shows different views of things while the speaker gives his/her speech. For instance, a woman trying to get an emotional rise, could be talking about her disabled husband. The camera would fade out to show him in his wheel chair.
