Lombardi grew up in an ethnically diverse, middle-class neighborhood. Ĭhurch attendance was mandatory for the Lombardis on Sundays. Mass would be followed with an equally compulsory few hours of dinner with extended family members, friends, and local clergy.
Outside their local neighborhood, the Lombardi children were subject to the rampant ethnic discrimination that existed at the time against Italian immigrants and their descendants. As a child, Lombardi helped his father at his meat cutting business, but grew to hate it. At the age of 12 he started playing in an uncoached but organized football league in Sheepshead Bay. Lombardi graduated from the eighth grade at P.S. He then enrolled in the Cathedral Preparatory Seminary, a division of Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception in Brooklyn, a six-year secondary program to become a Catholic priest. At Cathedral, he played on the school's baseball and basketball teams, but his performance was hindered by his poor athleticism and eyesight.
Against school rules, he continued to play football off-campus throughout his studies at Cathedral.