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Who really said it

If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm

Not Vince Lombardi — an anonymous newspaper joke older than he is Unknown Anonymous American newspaper joke · in print by December 1912
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The pun is a stock employment joke, and it is older than Lombardi himself. Etymologist Barry Popik traces it to the Daily People of New York, 10 December 1912 ↗ — six months before Lombardi was born — and the proverb form is running in the Humboldt Republican of Iowa by 10 September 1920: “The employee who is not fired with enthusiasm at the start will be fired with enthusiasm at the finish.” The exact modern wording is in print on 10 January 1968, in the Omaha World-Herald — as the words of Henry Jordan, Lombardi’s own defensive tackle. Two years later the Milwaukee Journal ran it as an anonymous saying about Lombardi, which is how his name came to sit on it.

Last verified 25 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm” Not Vince Lombardi. "If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm" is an anonymous American newspaper joke, in print by 10 December 1912 — six months before Lombardi was born — and in proverb form by 1920: "The employee who is not fired with enthusiasm at the start will be fired with enthusiasm at the finish." This exact wording was printed on 10 January 1968 as the words of Packers defensive tackle Henry Jordan; by October 1970 the Milwaukee Journal was running it as an anonymous saying about Lombardi. Citations located by Barry Popik. Via Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Vince Lombardi. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of work and purpose. Theme: "If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

Where the joke actually starts

Origin
Anonymous American newspaper joke
Earliest citation
10 December 1912 — Daily People (New York), ‘Sparklets,’ p. 2 col. 3, credited to the Buffalo Express
Proverb form
10 September 1920 — Humboldt Republican (Iowa), p. 2 col. 2
First named speaker
10 January 1968 — Henry Jordan, Packers defensive tackle, in the Omaha World-Herald, p. 50 col. 5
Status
Disputed — universally credited to Lombardi, documented decades before him

The employee who is not fired with enthusiasm at the start will be fired with enthusiasm at the finish. Humboldt Republican (Iowa), 10 September 1920

The earliest form of the full proverb, printed anonymously as newspaper filler eight years after the pun’s first appearance and thirty-nine years before Lombardi coached a down in Green Bay. Nobody signed it, because by then it was simply a joke going round — which is exactly the condition in which a saying loses its author and later acquires a famous one.

Barry Popik — the 1912-to-1971 citation chain

How we traced it

  • Earliest known instance: the Daily People of New York, 10 December 1912, ‘Sparklets,’ p. 2 col. 3, reprinting the Buffalo Express — “Do you know what it means to be fired with enthusiasm?” asks the evangelist; “my last three bosses all showed unmistakable enthusiasm in firing me,” replies the stenographer. Lombardi was born six months later, on 11 June 1913 the full chain ↗.
  • The joke settles into proverb form and stays there for decades: the Humboldt Republican (Iowa) of 10 September 1920 has the employee-at-the-start-and-finish version, unsigned. Both the Ivanhoe Times (Minnesota) of 9 October 1958 and the Hartford Courant of 14 August 1961 run “Employees who are not fired with enthusiasm may be fired with enthusiasm” — the Courant as an unattributed ‘Today’s Chuckle’, the Times under the name Jack Hebert in a column of quotes gathered from elsewhere.
  • The exact modern wording first appears on 10 January 1968, in Milton Gross’s syndicated column ‘Green Bay Terror Jordan Actually Worry Wart’ (Omaha World-Herald, p. 50 col. 5) — spoken not by the coach but by Henry Jordan, the Packers’ 33-year-old defensive tackle.
  • The migration onto Lombardi is visible in the Milwaukee Journal of 8 October 1970, a month after his death: “‘If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm over playing for Vince Lombardi,’ it was said, ‘you will be fired with enthusiasm.’” The construction is telling — it was said, by nobody in particular, about him. A year later Sports Illustrated (20 September 1971) was running a variant as Patriots coach John Mazur’s.
  • Lombardi’s own side of the ledger stays empty. No speech, book or interview of his has been produced as the source, and the estate’s official quotations page ↗ does not list the line. Wikiquote ↗ carries it with one note — “Reported in Lee Green, Sportswit (1984), p. 169” — a quip anthology published fourteen years after he died, and seventy-two years after the joke was already in newspapers.
  • Quote Investigator ↗ has not written the phrase up; its site search returns nothing. That is a gap in one specialist’s archive, not a finding — the specialist who did trace it is Barry Popik, whose entry of 5 December 2011 carries the citations above.

Mixed, and worth separating. The antecedent texts are anonymous American newspaper material from 1912–1923 — published well before 1930 and therefore in the public domain in the United States, so the 1920 wording above is free to reproduce. The modern wording is a different matter: its earliest located printing is a 1968 syndicated newspaper column, and the anthology usually cited (Lee Green’s Sportswit, Harper & Row, 1984) is well inside copyright. Since the line is not Lombardi’s, his estate’s rights are irrelevant to it either way. This is not legal advice.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

This is a case of an older, authorless joke acquiring a famous name. The pun was running in American newspapers from December 1912, six months before Lombardi was born; the exact modern wording was printed in 1968 as somebody else’s; and the earliest text that attaches it to Lombardi attaches it as a saying about him, by nobody in particular.

An anonymous employment joke, in print by 1912 predates him

The Daily People of New York ran the pun on 10 December 1912, six months before Lombardi’s birth, and it recurs as unsigned newspaper filler for the next half-century — 1918, 1920, 1923, 1953, 1958, 1961 — never with an author the citation chain ↗.

Henry Jordan, Packers defensive tackle different speaker

The first printing of the exact modern wording is Milton Gross’s syndicated column in the Omaha World-Herald, 10 January 1968, p. 50 — where it is Jordan’s line, not his coach’s. Even the earliest Green Bay attachment of this sentence is to the wrong man in the same locker room.

The Milwaukee Journal, 8 October 1970 said about him

A month after Lombardi died the Journal printed: “‘If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm over playing for Vince Lombardi,’ it was said, ‘you will be fired with enthusiasm.’” A joke told about a coach, credited to no one — and the shortest possible route from that to a quotation with his name on it is one careless retelling.

Quote sites that present it as a settled Lombardi line unsourced

Goodreads runs the quote under Lombardi’s name ↗ with no book, speech or date attached, above its own notice that quotes are added by the community and not verified. That is the standard of proof behind most of this line’s circulation.

Lee Green’s Sportswit (1984) posthumous

The citation Wikiquote reports is a Harper & Row anthology of sports quotations and maxims ↗. Lombardi died in 1970, so it postdates him by fourteen years and the joke by seventy-two — an anthology repeating a saying shows the saying was in circulation, not who minted it.

The Lombardi estate’s own quotations page absent

The line does not appear on the official Vince Lombardi quotes page ↗, which does carry passages from his “What It Takes to be Number One” speech. The people with the best access to his papers do not list it.

Vince Lombardi generally quote magnet

Wikiquote’s Misattributed section for Lombardi ↗ already holds “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing” — attributed there to 1950s UCLA coach Henry Russell ‘Red’ Sanders, and something Wikiquote notes Lombardi always denied saying. Sharp locker-room aphorisms drift to his name by default.

Honest verdict: an anonymous American newspaper joke, in print by 10 December 1912 — six months before Lombardi was born. This wording belongs to Henry Jordan in 1968 as far as any record shows, and nothing places it in Lombardi’s mouth at all the evidence ↗.

Context

Why this one sticks to Lombardi

Lombardi won five NFL titles and the first two Super Bowls in Green Bay, moved to Washington for the 1969 season, and died the following September. In between he made Second Effort (1968), a half-hour motivational film that Wikipedia notes has been called the best-selling training film of all time ↗. A generation of sales managers met him there, not on the field — and that is the audience this pun was already serving decades before he arrived.

Because the joke is a workplace joke: it threatens the listener with unemployment in the same breath it demands passion. That is why it lived so long as unsigned newspaper filler, and why it attached itself so easily to the one football coach American management had adopted as a philosopher. Lombardi supplied the gravity. The joke had everything else already.

The trail does not lead to a locker room. It leads to a 1912 newspaper filler item, six months before Lombardi was born.

The joke’s fifty-six-year head start

10 December 1912 — Daily People (New York), reprinting the Buffalo Express: a stenographer whose last three bosses “showed unmistakable enthusiasm in firing me.” Lombardi is born six months later.

17 April 1918 — Charlotte Observer, ‘Bits of Byplay’: the same pun as a father-and-son gag.

10 September 1920 — Humboldt Republican (Iowa): the proverb form arrives, “not fired with enthusiasm at the start… fired with enthusiasm at the finish.”

1923, 1953, 1958, 1961 — San Diego, Kokomo, Ivanhoe, Hartford: newspaper filler for four more decades, passed between columns rather than credited to anyone.

10 January 1968 — Omaha World-Herald: the exact modern wording, in print, as Henry Jordan’s.

8 October 1970 — Milwaukee Journal: told about Lombardi, a month after his death, credited to nobody.

1984 — Lee Green’s Sportswit prints it as Lombardi’s, and that is the citation the quotation sites have been passing round ever since.

By contrast, a genuinely documented Lombardi line has an anchor of its own: “a game that requires the constant conjuring of animosity” is sourced on Wikiquote ↗ to the New York Times of 10 December 1967 — contemporaneous reporting, not a later anthology. (The “chase perfection” passage is tied to a datable event, his first Packers team meeting in 1959, but by named books published in 2004 — a weaker anchor, and worth saying so.)

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Work Purpose

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

"If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm"barrypopik.com

Etymologist Barry Popik's entry (5 December 2011) — the citation chain that settles this, from the Daily People of 10 December 1912 through the 1968 Henry Jordan credit to the 1970 Milwaukee Journal usage.
Vince Lombardi — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Lists the line under Quotes with its one citation (Lee Green, Sportswit, 1984, p. 169), and keeps a separate Misattributed section.
Quote Investigator — site searchquoteinvestigator.com

Returns no article for the phrase — QI has simply not written this one up. A gap in one archive, not evidence about the origin.
Sportswit by Lee Greenopenlibrary.org

Catalogue record for the 1984 Harper & Row anthology of sports quotations and maxims — the source of the citation Wikiquote reports, seventy-two years after the joke's first printing.
Official Vince Lombardi quotes pagevincelombardi.com

The estate-run quotations page — notable for what it omits: this line does not appear on it.
Vince Lombardi — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography: dates, coaching record, Run to Daylight!, and the 1968 motivational film Second Effort.
The quote on Goodreadswww.goodreads.com

A representative aggregator listing: Lombardi's name, no source, under a disclaimer that quotes are community-added and unverified.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Lombardi

Vince Lombardi

1913–1970 · Green Bay Packers head coach, five-time NFL champion

Vincent Thomas Lombardi (born 11 June 1913, died 3 September 1970) coached the Green Bay Packers from 1959 to 1967, winning five NFL championships and the first two Super Bowls, then spent the 1969 season as head coach in Washington. He co-wrote Run to Daylight! with W. C. Heinz and starred in the 1968 motivational film Second Effort, which Wikipedia notes has been called the best-selling training film of all time — which is precisely how a football coach became American management’s house philosopher. That afterlife is also why almost any punchy line about effort, winning or enthusiasm eventually finds its way to his name, sourced or not. This one had been going round for half a century before it reached him.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Anonymous, in print by 1912

“Sparklets,” Daily People (New York), 10 December 1912, 2, reprinted from the Buffalo Express; proverb form in the Humboldt Republican (Iowa), 10 September 1920, 2. This wording credited to Henry Jordan in Milton Gross, “Green Bay Terror Jordan Actually Worry Wart,” Omaha World-Herald, 10 January 1968, 50. Citations located by Barry Popik.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm’?” Last verified 25 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/if-you-arent-fired-with-enthusiasm-you-will-be-fired-with/

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