Packers greats to visit Valley Stream

Anyone who has been following football for sometime has probably heard of Vince Lombardi, the legendary Green Bay Packers coach in a fedora who led his team to numerous NFL championships.

Royce Boyles, who has penned books on Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers, will be coming to Valley Stream this weekend through the “Green and Gold Legends” program. He will be joined by Dave Robinson, who played with Packers from 1963-72 and was recently inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame, and Brad Dowler, who was named to the 1960s NFL All-Decade team at wide receiver and is a five-time NFL champion.

The event is being hosted by the village, and will raise money for three purposes. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Olive 74 Assistance Fund, which aids former Packer players and their families. Money will also go toward the Valley Stream’s Performing Arts program, and the eventual conversion of the Village Hall courtroom into a theater. The A-T Children’s Project, which supports kids with a rare genetic, neurological disease, will also benefit.

The program will be held on Saturday afternoon at Village Hall, beginning at 1 p.m. There will be an introduction narrated by radio sportscaster and Packers play-by-play voice, Wayne Larrivee. The next part will be hosted by Boyles who has written three books, “The Lomardi Legacy,” “The Lombardi Impact” and “Lombardi’s Left Side,” which were all written with Robinson.

Boyles’s first book served as a resource for HBO’s Emmy Award-winning documentary, “Lombardi.”

Village Clerk Bob Barra said he has read 14 books on Lombardi in the past few years, including the three by Boyles. He found Boyles’s contact information in one of the books, and emailed him. The two struck up a conversation, and Barra learned about the Legends program.

Barra noted that there was a play on Broadway, “Lombardi,” a few years ago. “Those were actors,” he said. “This is going to be the real guys talking.”

The program will include several video clips, and the players will share their stories about the Lombardi years. “We do a lot of talking about why the Lombardi teams were successful,” Boyles said. “They won, certainly. Why did they win?”