Losing Legacy in Green Bay : Titletown: The name has a certain ring to it. It's a map-dot town which adopted the name for itself in the '60s, when its football team was in the midst of five world championships in seven years, including the first two Super Bowl titles. Since then, however, nothing.

By HAL BOCK

Nov. 29, 1992 12 AM PT

ASSOCIATED PRESS

GREEN BAY, Wis. — For $25.95, you can still get a single room at the Titletown Motel, just up the street from Victory Blvd, a couple of blocks away from Lombardi Avenue and Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers. The place is a little frayed at the edges, but then, until the last few weeks, the Packers have been, too.

Titletown.

That has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? This map-dot town adopted the name for itself in the ‘60s, when its football team was in the midst of five world championships in seven years, including the first two Super Bowl titles.

Since then, nothing.

Except for the NFC Central championship in 1972 and cameo appearances in the playoffs that year and after the 1983 strike season, the Packers have drifted aimlessly, losing since Lombardi with depressing regularity.

Now, with three wins in the last four weeks, Green Bay is stirring and the long-suffering fans love it. Each Sunday, they gather at the Candlestick Lounge to watch the Packers play. “We’re quite used to the losing,” said Debbie Dalebroux, who owns the bar. “We expect them to win everytime. We hope they’ll win. But . . . “

Lately, they have been. After a 2-5 start, victories over Detroit, Philadelphia and Chicago have made November a good month for the Pack. Under a new administration, they’re 5-6 now, threatening .500, the mark of mediocrity they’ve topped just five times since Vince Lombardi left town.

The prosperity is nice, a welcome change from 25 years of living in the past, thinking of those first two Super Bowls when Lombardi’s team ruled football.

A sign on the back of the bar at the Candlestick offers a Packers Special--$1.75 drinks for a $1 anytime the Pack scores. “It doesn’t cost me a lot,” Dalebroux said with a shrug. “I get off real cheap.”

Defensive end Robert Brown sat on the locker room bench, slowly unwrapping tape. As long as he’s been at this post-game ritual, he can do it without even looking.

Brown has been a Packer for 11 years, drafted in the fourth round in 1982 from Virginia Tech. No one has been here longer. He has played 160 consecutive games and started 103 straight non-strike games. He is the model of consistency, even if his team isn’t.

“All the losing is very frustrating,” he said. “But I keep busting it, no matter what. That’s what keeps me going--my attitude. Nothing will change that. You come into camp every year thinking, ‘This is it. This is the year we turn it around.’

“And you know what? One day we will. One day, history will repeat itself and the Packers will win again.”

Is that day finally at hand?

Offensive guard Ron Hallstrom, a first round pick from Iowa who arrived with Brown in 1982, certainly hopes so. He and Brown are playing for their fourth coaching staff and going into this season, their teams were 60-88-2 with just two winning seasons, one of them their strike-shortened rookie year.

“This team can play with anyone,” Hallstrom said. “Mistakes hurt us. It’s something that happens with a young team.”

Still, like Brown, Hallstrom sees hope, generated by new coach Mike Holmgren and general manager Ron Wolf. “This is probably the best coaching and best organization we’ve had since I’ve been here,” he said. “You hope we turn it around soon. I see progress. We’re a couple of players away. It will turn around.”

Teams are not bad for 25 years by accident. They must have a combination of sorry draft choices and terrible luck to be more than 50 games under .500 and to win more than eight games in a season just twice in a quarter century.

Bad drafts. Bad luck. The Packers qualify on both counts.

Stuff keeps happening to this team. Their history is full of wasted draft picks, especially in the first round where mistakes can be devastating.

“The draft has a lot to do with it,” said Hall of Famer Paul Hornung, a cornerstone of the championship years. “In order to maintain excellence, you have to draft well. It compounds. If you have five or six poor drafts, you add 10 years to the rebuilding. They’ve drafted terribly.”

The record supports Hornung. Green Bay has just one player, cornerback Vinnie Clark, left from its 1991 draft. Tackle Tony Mandarich, drafted No. 1 in 1989, has been plagued by injury and illness and may not play again. Running back Brent Fullwood, drafted No. 1 in 1987, is out of football. Defensive back Mossy Cade, acquired in a trade for Green Bay’s No. 1 in 1986, wound up in jail. Tackle Bruce Clark, drafted No. 1 in 1980, opted instead to play in Canada.

“A first round pick should be a star for 10 years,” Hornung said. “They’ve drafted terribly. Sterling Sharpe is the only one who’s a terrific player. Every No. 1 should be. They should help a team immensely. Their’s haven’t.

“They drafted so poorly and they got some bad breaks. Second and third rounders never came through. Sometimes, you’ve got to get lucky. They’ve never had one of those. Everybody has the same lists of players.

“They’ve drowned in inferiority. They have people starting who shouldn’t be starting. They’ve got guys starting who should be on special teams. They went three years without a 100-yard game. By accident, somebody should gain 100 yards. They went 28 straight quarters this season without a rushing touchdown. Jim Taylor and I used to get 15 or 16 touchdowns each in a 12-game season. That’s 30 rushing touchdowns.”

If Hornung sounds upset, he is. And he is not alone.

Bob Harlan, president and chief executive officer of the Packers, has been in the organization since 1971, a year before Titletown’s last mini-title. The burden for losing now lands on his doorstep.

“Our drafts have not been as productive as they should have been,” he said. “The system is there to help. We have not taken advantage of the system.”

Harlan also believes the Lombardi dynasty may have caused some of the problems Green Bay experienced after he left.

“One of the things that hurt was that Lombardi was so successful and we thought one person could always handle both jobs,” he said. “I think the GM-coach concept hurt. It was successful with Lombardi. You don’t find many Lombardis.”

Green Bay tried, first with Phil Bengtson, a Lombardi assistant, then with Dan Devine, then with ex-Lombardi stars Bart Starr and Forrest Gregg. It never worked. “We were late in transforming to two people,” Harlan said.

The Packers finally did in 1987, hiring Tom Braatz and taking the GM duties away from Gregg. A year later, Gregg left, succeeded by Lindy Infante. Last year, both Braatz and Infante were dismissed, replaced by Wolf and Holmgren.

“Now, it’s fully Ron Wolf,” Harlan said. “The feeling has been that the executive committee and board of directors make football decisions. That’s not true.”

That was not always the case. The Packers are unique, a publicly owned franchise with 4,627 shares of stock, 1,866 shareholders and a seven-member Executive Committee that governs the corporation. In 1971, Devine was hired as general manager-coach by team president Dominic Olejniczak.

“There were some internal jealousies that go with a small town,” Devine said. “I was Ollie’s choice. I told him I wouldn’t come there unless I was the unanimous pick of the board, all seven people. I found out later it was five. Two others wanted somebody else. Those two hurt my team to make Ollie look bad.”

The two holdouts sided with running back John Brockington in a contract dispute, renegotiating his deal over Devine’s protests. “When they did that, my days were numbered,” Devine said. “I was the general manager. They cut the legs from under me.”

That was not all Green Bay did to him.

Unaccustomed to losing and upset by his trade of five draft picks, including consecutive No. 1’s in 1975 and 1976 for quarterback John Hadl, the fans were in revolt. One disturbed individual even shot the coach’s dog.

Shaken, Devine left for Notre Dame where he won a national championship, but he still never quite shed the Packers experience.

“I think it comes down to a small town with petty jealousies,” he said. “That was the common denomenator, the small town atmosphere.”

Can all of this be repaired? Wolf’s first draft--seven players made the team--and the trade that delivered quarterback Brett Favre encouraged Hornung.

“Now they’ve got the main ingredient, a quarterback who looks like he could be great,” Hornung said. “Sharpe gives him someone to throw to. They need some running backs. They need some defensive players. They’re out there. You’ve got to find them. Two defensive linemen is enough. They need a third down back, a guy to give the ball to on third-and-one.

“Free agency will help the Packers. They’ve got $50 million in the bank and no mortgages to pay. They’ve got the cash. Don’t worry. In free agency, they’ll get five or six players. Six does it. They’ve got one in Sharpe. They’ve got a young quarterback with potential. They need two running backs.”

What about offensive linemen? Hornung guffawed.

“You just find some big, fat guys and there’s your offensive line,” he said. “That’s all you need.”

Harlan, too, believes the team is pointed at last in the right direction and that Wolf and Holmgren will get them there.

“I think these two would be disappointed if, by 1994-95, this is not a competitive team,” he said. “This year we had a successful draft. Terrell Buckley is playing. Robert Brooks is playing. Our No. 2 (Mark D’Onofrio) got hurt. We got (Heisman Trophy winner) Ty Detmer and Fauvre. You’ve got to have three drafts to do it. We’ve had one.

“We will do what we have to do to build and make the Packers better. We’ve got to have the best fans in the league. Lambeau Field seats 68,000 and is sold out with a waiting list of 12,000. The support is phenomenal.”

In the hours before a road game, the team’s Hall of Fame, located across the street from Lambeau Field, is all but deserted. Jim Zemezonak, visiting from Chicago, is making his annual pilgrimage to this shrine to the Packers past.

“They’ve been rebuilding for 25 years,” he said. “Sometimes you get tired waiting.”

For this trip, Zemezonak has brought along his son, introducing the youngster to some glorious history. The little boy is not impressed.

“He just keeps saying, ‘The Packers stink! The Packers stink!’ ” Zemezonak said, sounding a little sad at this lack of respect. After all, the boy’s grandfather, Bob Conrad, headed the team’s chain gang for 35 years.

Everywhere in Green Bay, a town of less than 100,000, everyone seems to have a link to the Pack past or present. Nuclear engineer Guy Holmes wears a team sweatshirt celebrating 11 world championships on the front and with a picture of the 1966 team on the back.

“You see the players around town,” he said. “We used to live up the street from Bob Skoronski.”

Skoronski, a tackle, played on three of the Packers champion teams--including the ’66 one pictured on Holmes’ back. That club, 12-2, was a trifle more consistent than the current one, who produce high-fives and $1 beers all around at the Candlestick when they score.

“You’d better have one,” the barmaid warned. “With them, you never know when you’ll have another chance.”

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