Haunted in Green Bay

Dan Devine was worried sick. It was the morning of a Green Bay Packer preseason game this summer, but the head coach was not concerned about the outcome of the contest. He was wondering if it would ever take place. Striking Packer veterans had ominously announced that the exhibition game would be stopped. Devine feared that physical violence or sabotage might take place at the stadium. Then he had an even more unsettling thought. For several hours, he had been getting no answer on his home phone, though he knew that two of his teen-age daughters were there. Thoughts of kidnaping or other foul play crossed his mind. Devine immediately dispatched two husky equipment managers to his house. The girls, they discovered, had simply overslept.

"Titletown, U.S.A." If Devine seemed paranoid, he could hardly be blamed. In the four years since he abandoned a distinguished career at the University of Missouri to join the Packers, Devine has been the target of physical threats, personal insults and professional criticism. He has been sabotaged by assistants, undermined by owners, and harassed by hostile fans, who have literally pursued him and his family to their front door. Early one morning two years ago, the Devines were awakened by a sharp bang: one of their dogs had been shot outside the house. "It's been vulgar, malicious and ugly," Devine told TIME Staff Writer Philip Taubman last week. "It just makes me sick."

It is ironic that Green Bay, which has made football a municipal religion, has become a purgatory for its coach. Part of the reason is that the ghost of the revered Vince Lombardi still haunts the town. During the '60s he led the then awesome Packers to five National Football League championships and gave Green Bay an excuse to call itself "Titletown, U.S.A." Even now noon Masses are canceled on Sundays when Packer road games are telecast back home at that hour; music piped through the halls of the local Ramada Inn is supplanted on Sunday afternoons by radio coverage of "the Pack."

Everyone feels that he has a stake in the team. The Packers are, in fact, the only community-owned team in pro football. (Packer stock was sold at $25 a share 25 years ago, when the club was nearly bankrupt.) Green Bay (pop. 90,000) is also the smallest city with an N.F.L. franchise. Says one Packer coach: "People here have only four things to do--eat, sleep, make babies and root for the team."

Screaming Insults. The Lombardi cult has grown, rather than diminished, since he quit as coach seven years ago. So it did not take long for Green Bay to start comparing Devine unfavorably with Lombardi. Shy and softspoken, he lacks the bluster and magnetism of the late leader. Like any coach fresh from a college campus, he arrived on the chilly shores of Lake Michigan with quite a bit to learn about the pro game.

Impatient Lombardi holdovers on his staff quickly concluded that he was incompetent and let that be known around town. Nevertheless, Devine managed to turn around the losing team he had inherited from Lombardi's immediate successor, Phil Bengtson. He took the Pack to the play-offs his second year in Green Bay and was selected as conference coach of the year.

Then, last year, the dam broke. Suffering from injuries and the lack of a strong quarterback, the Packers, considered potential Super Bowl contenders, faltered through a losing season (5-7-2).

Devine quickly discovered that Green Bay has a peculiarly personal way of taking out its football frustration. Fans started to scream insults at Devine's family as they sat in the stands, an ordeal that continues today. The Devine phone started ringing in the middle of the night as anonymous callers registered their complaints in obscene language. Now, on weekends, cars frequently pass the house with horns honking.

Ugly--and untrue--rumors about the family began circulating freely. Devine's marriage was said to be breaking up. When his wife Jo started to walk haltingly, word spread that she was an alcoholic. In fact, she suffers from multiple sclerosis. Devine's daughters became known as town sluts. One day Jill, 13, came home in tears. Other students on the school bus had attacked Devine's performance as coach, and then showered her with spittle. "It's all so personal," says Jo Devine. "It's hard to escape the abuse when even the boy who carries out your groceries at the supermarket tells you that Dan is a lousy coach."

Beaten Look. That the Packers' losing record produced some discontent among players was not surprising. But Devine's aides were a good deal less than fair when they told the community that the team's beefs added up to a major mutiny. Chuck Lane, who has since departed as the Packers' public relations man, still insists: "The players can't stand Devine. They want him out." The players themselves say that their complaints about Devine's strict discipline and lack of strategic imagination fall far short of rebellion; most echo Middle Linebacker Jim Carter when he says: "In rough times, it's easy to point a finger."

Devine, who doubles as general manager, has received less than solid support from the stockholders' seven-man executive committee that runs the team. Some members openly bad-mouth him. During the recent strike, the committee arranged to have some picketing players arrested without consulting the head coach.

"I try not to let it affect my relations with my family and friends," says Devine. "I try to let it slip by, but it does get me down. It saps my energy and my emotions." With a sad, almost beaten look in his eyes, and deepening lines across his forehead, Devine, 49, seems to have aged ten years in the past four.

Despite his troubles, he is determined to stick it out. "I only wish this town would give me a little loyalty and support," he says. "I know that given a fighting chance, I can make this club a winner." Devine's contract with the Packers expires next year. To whip the ghost of Lombardi by then, he will need nothing less than another N.F.L. championship for Green Bay.

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