The Journal Times du lieu suivant : Racine, Wisconsin • 19

An uneasy feeling The Milwaukee Bucks are enduring one of their toughest struggles in recent years after losing five of their last seven games and they're not very happy about it. Page 3B. A tall order Racine's two big men, St. Catherine's Dave Mueller left) and Horlick's Robert Barnes, are making their marks on the high school bas ketball scene this season. Page 3B.

Kriog comes of age Former Milton College quarterback Dave Krieg is nearly flawless as he leads Seattle to victory over Denver in the Seahawks' first-ever NFL playoff game. Page 4B. if sf- O) 6) the Journal Times Dec. 25, 1983 Yin) wtrDDDnep 7TTV' Gregg given 'full control' of Packers 4 ,4 Good choice? No, this is a great one "I don't think this team was ever ready for the playoffs. I don't think we were ever shocked enough into wanting it bad enough." Greg Koch Tbe Green Bay Packers got tbe shock of their lives Saturday.

His name is Forrest Gregg. And the Packers had better respond to this shock, or else. If the Packer organization thought they needed a no-nonsense guy to replace Bart Starr, whose entire nine years as coach was noth- ing but nonsense, they got him in Forrest Gregg. Gregg, of course, is like Starr in many ways. Both Hall of Famers.

Both devoted disciples of Lombardi. Both personal favorites of their for- mer coach. Both bleeders of Packer green. Both -class acts. Both widely recognized as brilliant I football minds.

The only big difference between the two is that, as a coach, Gregg knows bow to get it done where it counts. On the field. Starr, with all his rhetoric about tbe Packers' character and their hopes for a bright future, never quite mastered that minor detail. iff- Armstrong i GREEN BAY (AP) The Green Bay Packers have a rtew coach Cincinnati Bengals Coach Forrest Gregg, a Hall of Fame offensive tackle on the Green Bay Packers' championship teams of the 1960s. The appointment, announced by club President Robert Parins at a news conference Saturday, came nine years to the day after the team hired Bart Starr as head Parins said Gregg would be given a five-year contract and "be given full responsiblity for football operations." He said Gregg would not be general manager, a position Starr held when first appointed.

Parins said the Packers would not have to buy Gregg out of the remaining two years of his contract with the Bengals. Gregg said in a telephone hookup from Cincinnati that he had parted on good terms with the Bengals. 'This would have been the job I wanted. I don't think I would have left Cincinati for any other job," Gregg said. He said he wanted to return to Green Bay, where be and Starr were teammates on the great Green Bay teams of the 1960s.

The late Coach Vine Lombard! once called Gregg the greatest player be ever coached. "Ever since I left Green Bay, 1 always hoped somehow to get the opportunity to coach this football team," Gregg said. "It is an opportunity 1 really desired. I appreciate the opportunity to come back. ''This is where my roots are as a player." Asked what made Gregg stand out from the other candidates, Parins said: "First of all, he (Gregg) has significant roots in Green Bay.

He had a genuine interest in returning." Gregf will be able to pick his own coaching staff. The staff was fired along with Starr, but was told it could seek new jobs with the team, Gregg said he would give first priority to picking frorrt among his Cincinnati staff. Many Packers have been vocal in their support of offensive coordinator Bob Schnelker, who was rumored to be a leading candidate for tbe bead coaching job. Quarterback Lynn among others, has gone on record as saying he hopes Schnelker is retained. is a good football team," Gregg "They're obviously strong on the offensive side pf the ball.

This team needs defensive help. I think we can get some of that help immediately." Paul Brown, vice president and genera manager of the Bengals said: "We felt that with his relationship with the Packers that be deserved, a chance to consider their offer. "Forrest Gregg was an outstanding coach. the Bengals. He contributed so much to our team, and we are particularly grateful to him.

Any time you have a coach who takes yon to the Super Bowl, you have to be someone special." Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Reggie Williams says he understands why Forrest Gregg left the team to take the Packers job, but wonders what will happen to team morale. "I can understand his desire to return to Green Bay, where he established a great career," Williams said. "As events like this continue to occur, it becomes more and more frustrating. There are at least a dozen other ballplayers in a position to leave." Williams said he thought Gregg was being straightforward. "I surely doubt personally if he knew the job was open during the season," he said.

"Bart Starr was dismissed Monday, The Bengals season had ended by then." The reign of Starr ended with his firing Monday, the day after the Packers completed an 8-8 season with a 23-21 loss to Chicago that eliminated them from playoff contention. The Bengals ended this season last Saturday with a 20-14 loss to Minnesota. Their 7-9 record was the first losing one since 1980. "This game was pretty much typical of Cincinnati Bengals football all year long, especially the first half of the season," Gregg said after the game. "We made one million mistakes." Troubled by the four-game suspensions of two players for admitted cocaine purchases the signing of future USFL contracts by Dan Ross and Crit Collinsworth, and the loss of their offensive coordinator, the Bengals started the season 14.

They rebounded to win sii of their next eight games before the Minnesota loss. "I'm so happy this football season is over with." Gregg also said after the game. "I've ymwwjiwwpffwiwwwww 'I 4 if mki a i hi iih. ii I jii II I I J.I.- 'M So Gregg now has a chance to do what Starr failed so miserably at: To walk, instead of trip, in Lombardi's hallowed footsteps. To relive the legacy he carved as a player by coaching the Packers back to the greatness Lombardi led them to during the '60s, the decade other teams wanted but the Packers owned.

The Packers might not own the '80s under Forrest Gregg, but they'll probably rent some very good seasons. They might or might not make it to the Super Bowl, but you can bet tbe grocery money they will consistently qualify for the playoffs, a notion that had become a pipe dream under Starr. And there's something else you can bet on. Forrest Gregg will get tough with a team that desperately needs someone to get tough with it He will rule the Packers with the iron fist he used upside so many defensive ends' heads. He will do it his way and only his way.

And if there is a dissenter among the players' ranks, Gregg will do to him what Lombardi did to another former All-Pro Packer, Jim Ringo. It was Ringo who made the mistake of hiring an agent to squeeze a few extra bills out of the Packer tightwads. Legend has it that, after he had grown weary of bartering with Ringo's agent on the phone, Lombardi put htm on hold, and when he got back to him a few moments later, Ringo was a Philadelphia Eagle. Every player has an agent these days, of course, and Gregg will probably never be involved in any contract negotiations. But you get the picture who will be the boss in Green Bay.

If they haven't already, the Packer players will start getting the picture come training camp under July and August's stifling sun. It is then that Gregg will make Darth Vader look like Santa Claus. And if Greg Koch bolts camp and heads for Houston again for "personal" reasons, he might as well keep on going. It can be tough on a player when Forrest Gregg is his coach, but the results can make it all worthwhile. The Cincinnati Bengals, who will not find as good a man or coach to replace Gregg, proved that by going to the Super Bowl under him in 1982 after three straight years of floundering in futility.

The Bengals had long been a team of considerable talent that didn't play up to it, much like Starr's Packer teams of the past few years. What the Bengals needed when they hired Gregg was motivation, and that's just what they got. "There is no better motivator in football right now than Forrest Gregg," said Bengals wide receiver Cris Collinsworth at the time. Of course, Collinsworth was last seen taking the money and running to the USFL, and the Bengals were last seen in third place in the AFC Central Division with a 7-S record, a game worse than the Packers. But Gregg's ability as a motivator, organizer, strategist and most of the other qualities that go into the makeup of an excellent head coach should not be questioned.

To top off a great week in Packer history, Gregg jumped at the chance to return to the scene of his greatest triumphs as a player. He didn't have to be convinced to carry Lombardi's flame, the one that Starr extinguished long ago. Every force within him wanted to become a Packer again. While Bart Starr proved he couldn't, Forrest Gregg will now try to prove a man can go home. There are big differences between each man's circumstances, though, differences that will all work in Gregg's favor.

In the first place, Starr never really left home, but Gregg has been gone for more than a decade. He didn't even finish his playing career with the Packers, instead moving on to Dallas because he (Turn to ARMSTRONG. Pa 2B) 6 i AP laserphotos Forrest Gregg, whose mud-caked face once graced Land." Gregg brings impressive credentials with him the cover of the Green Bay Packers Yearbook (lower to Green Bay as the Cincinnati Bengals' head left), is the man the Packer Board of Directors has coach, he led the team into the Super Bowl in Janu-picked to lead the team to the NFL's "Promised ary 1982. Gregg is known as a strict disciplinarian. Fiayers thope SchnelEcer stays Bengals for four years, was announced never been so happy a football season was over with in my life." Cincinnati hired Gregg Dec.

28, 1979, to replace Homer Rice as head coach. A former head coach' of the Cleveland Browns, Gregg came to the Bengals from the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League. When Gregg was appointed, the. Bengals had two straight 4-12 records. He took the Bengals from last place in the AFC Central Division to first place in just two seasons.

The team improved its 1960 record to 8-10. The was among the first to bid for the head coaching position. Offensive tackle Greg Koch, who has been critical of the club's management by the board of directors, said he had hoped Schnelker would be named coach. "Nearly everyone on offense felt the same way," Koch said. "But then again, that is the guy you know and the guy you are close "He was running the No.

1 offense in the NFC and the No. 2 offense in the NFL, and I thought he deserved it." Koch said it might be "a little unsettling" with a new coaching staff, but he added that "I don't see any trouble with the translation. Gregg, who coached the Cincinnati GREEN BAY (AP) The Green Bay Packers' choice of Forrest Gregg as the team's new coach was greeted Saturday with hopes by players that Gregg will retain their offensive coordinator. Bob Schnelker. "He had perhaps the best Offense in football," place-kicker Jan Stenerud said.

"It would be a crying shame to mess with that combination." Schnelker was dismissed last week when Packers President Robert J. Parins fired Coach Bart Starr and his staff at the end of an 8-8 season. While the club had statistically one of the worst defensive records in the NFL, it had one of the best offenses. Schnelker has been given much of tbe credit. He as the Packers' new head coach at a press conference Saturday.

An offensive' tackle when Starr was a quarterback during the Packers' championship days in the 1960s, Gregg was given a five-year contract. "He has demonstrated he can win," said George Burns, a member of the Packers' Board of Directors. "I think this will soften the blow for those who were upset by Starr's dismissal." Another among the board's 45 members, Bernard Ziegler of West Bend, said the club had to pick someone who would be at home in Green Bay, the smallest franchise community in the league. (Turn to REACTION. Pg 2B) team had 12-4 regular season record in 1981 in winning the AFC championship.

The Bengals fin-, ished the 1982 season 7-2. Gregg's Cincinnati record was 34-27. Starr's record as coach was 52-78-3. i.