Since you don't even know who actually "gets credit" for that--it's "Red" Sanders, Lombardi merely popularized it after he heard it from him--thanks for making my point.
And it would be a sad oversimplification. Do you want to start faking drug tests, schmoozing on the sly with high school bigwigs, and the like in order to piece together that mighty team?
Tebow has shown the high road and it works. He inspires the rest of the team to do its best.
Red Sanders was perhaps the most underhanded coach to ever lead a football team in the Pacific Coast Conference. His cheating at UCLA was notorious, but he was a winner. Thus, despite the penalties UCLA was given he managed to hold on to his job. After all, then and now, at UCLA winning is everything (and it will be looking for a new coach at year’s end).
So it’s even older than Lombardi. Again, what generation of kids were brought up differently - WWI or WWII? Seems to me that the mythoogical non-importance of winning never existed outside of non-athletic types and liberals.