A former ND punter was the RA on my floor in Grace Hall my freshman year. He had made the 1985 Bears as a punter but then got sick and ultimately cut -- probably haunts him to this day (I know it did that year).
Anyway, he didn't like Faust much. Faust was friends with the priest that lived in Mike's room the prior semester and would call all the time. He started having other people answer the phone for him because of that.
One day I answered the phone for him and the person on the other end asked to speak with XXX. I asked who was calling (I knew it wasn't Faust). "This is Bart Star, head coach of..."
After nearly shitting myself, I ran over to get him. He was actively trying to make another NFL team at the time, so was getting calls like that every now and then.
best QB in NFL in a given season, for 3 hours every Sunday, he almost invariably seemed to be the best QB on the field upon which he happened to be playing.
He executed, he minimized mistakes, and he had a knack for hitting the big play when it counted. He was rarely outplayed by his counterpart, and his leadership was second to none. He was the perfect QB for Lombardi’s system.
Starr cared so deeply about the franchise that he couldn’t turn down the Packers’ offer to become the head coach and general manager in 1975, even though, as he would admit years later, he was unprepared for the job. He had spent the ’72 season as Dan Devine’s quarterbacks coach, but had no other coaching experience.
Plus, he inherited a mess. Devine had traded five high draft picks for washed-up quarterback John Hadl, basically bankrupting the team’s short-term future.
“He inherited a team that didn’t have a strong nucleus,” said Bratkowski, Starr’s quarterbacks coach from 1975 to ‘81.
And had been going to Packers games since I was 4.
We had season tickets then, which are now mine.
He’s got a lot of company there.
But to be fair, he didn’t inherit a good team in the first place.
The Tigers went to 4 major bowls under him, winning twice. He is the only Mizzou HC since 1921 to finish w/ a W/L % of over .700. He could've retired from there as a local legend. While there were 3 mediocre Bengston years separating Lombardi from Devine, the Lombardi expectations persisted through Devine's tenure. We both personally recall how the Parseghian expectations were applied to Devine at ND. He was endured his first 2 1/2 years, and he was tolerated thereafter.
So I'd hope long term he had no regrets, but I would have to think he regretted going to the NFL in the same way Lou Holtz regretted it, and many other college coaches who did the same.
I also always got the impression that he was a "don't look back, look forward" guy.
Rudy suit up, either:
I once read that the packers were trying to hire Bob Devaney from Nebraska but some front office guy for the packers mixed up the names.
I googled the subject and found an article but it won'y let me insert the link
Cliffy
First of all, Devaney retired from coaching completely after the 1972 season, to be athletic director at NU only, comfortable in turning the coaching reins over to Tom Osborne.
Second, Devine had a stellar record at Mizzou.
Third, nobody is that dumb.
From the article
"Over time, members of the Packers organization from back then told me Olejniczak got his names mixed up during the search. He contacted Devine when he meant to pursue Bob Devaney, coach at the University of Nebraska.
Several people shared that story with me, but with different scenarios that I never thought added up, especially long after the fact. But your question got me digging through old interviews and files, and the most credible of my sources was personnel director Pat Peppler, who had been hired by Lombardi and was running the Packers’ football operation during the coaching search.
Peppler admitted he couldn’t prove the story was true, but the way he told it was more plausible than other versions I’ve heard. Most never explained how the seed was planted. Innocently was Peppler’s explanation
Peppler, who died three years ago, said someone simply recommended Devaney to Olejniczak and the latter got the names confused"
Cliffy
Was “How did they manage to lose with all that talent?” Both did well to make the playoffs once each with those motley crews.
Tagge was overrated coming out of college because he was on great Nebraska teams that won consecutive NC’s. He had a very good college career but those teams were so loaded that it made him look better than he was as a pro prospect. Didn’t hurt that he beat Devine’s Mizzou teams either.
There was almost nobody left on the Packers from the Great Lombardi teams.
His heir was Bud Keyes.
Little know fact: Green Bay has shithole public schools. Just fucking dumps. I think they have built one in the last 50 years, Southwest. And that place is a dump too.
Green Bay East - dump. West - dump. Preble - dump.
My defunct high school was a dump, but that was part of its Chocolate War charm, as editors of the Milwaukee Journal and WSJ can attest.