The Indispensable Man

The Green Bay Packers were riding high. They had won four straight games, shattered the Baltimore Colts (45-7) and Cleveland Browns (49-17), needed only to beat the San Francisco Forty-Niners' flashy "shotgun" offense to gain sole possession of first place in the National Football League's Western Division. Then the blow fell: Private Paul Vernon Hornung was ordered to active duty in the U.S. Army Reserve, effective 30 October.

Packer Coach Vince Lombardi tried to take the news stoically: "Well, no one person is bigger than the team." But Lombardi knew that the loss of Halfback Hornung might well turn the Packers into the patsies of the N.F.L. On every team in pro football, there is one indispensable player--one man on whose individual performance the team's success depends. The Baltimore Colts have Johnny Unitas. The Cleveland Browns have Jimmy Brown. On the Green Bay Packers, the indispensable man is Paul Vernon Hornung.

Instant Flop. In an era of football specialization, versatile Paul Hornung, 25, seems as obsolete as the drop kick. He cannot rifle a pass with the artistic precision of a Unitas. He cannot crunch through the encircling arms of defensive linemen with the raw power of a Brown. He does nothing perfectly--but he does everything well. He runs, he passes, he kicks field goals and extra points. And he does one thing better than anyone else in pro football: scores points. Last year Hornung scored 176 to break an 18-year-old N.F.L. record; in five games this season, he already has run up 77 points--33 in a single game. Says Coach Lombardi: "Paul is tremendous down near the goal line. He's the finest man I've ever seen when he gets down there."

Blond, brawny (6 ft. 2 in., 215 Ibs.) Paul Hornung played his first regular football game as a sixth-grader at Louisville's St. Patrick's School. Awarded an athletic scholarship to Notre Dame, Hornung quickly caught the eye of canny Coach Frank Leahy. "He runs like a mower going through grass," marveled Leahy. "And his kicking--why, when he reported to me as a freshman, he could punt 80 yds. and place-kick over the crossbar from 70 yds. out."

A Heisman Trophy winner and two-time All-America, Hornung was drafted by the last-place Packers in 1957 as a quarterback--the same position he had played so successfully at Notre Dame. But in the pros he was an instant, dismal flop. "I couldn't even make the fourth string," he says. Because his handoffs were too slow, his passing mediocre, Hornung was used only sparingly in Packer games, was permitted to call only five specific plays. "In one game," he recalls, "a player saw me coming in and yelled, 'Look who's here--rollout right or left, option right or left, or quarterback sneak.' "

More Than Money. Hornung's fortunes--and Green Bay's--took a rapid turn for the better with the arrival of Coach Lombardi in 1959. A former football player, law student, physics teacher and college coach, Lombardi is a hard-nosed disciplinarian and an advocate of forthright, bone-rattling football. At Green Bay, Lombardi's first job was to find a man around whom he could build an offense--a hard-running halfback who could throw a pass on the run. "Hornung was the type of halfback I had to have," Lombardi says. "I made up my mind he was going to be it, and I said, 'Look, boy, this is your job. You take it.' " He took it--and neither Lombardi nor Hornung has regretted the decision. In 1959, the fired-up Packers moved out of the N.F.L. cellar, won seven games; last year, they won the Western Division title.

For Hornung, as for Lombardi, pro football has two attractions: the game and the money. "I like playing football," he says. "I like to live good and travel good. Football enables me to go first class, and I enjoy it." Hornung enjoys earning about $50,000 a year--$20,000 for playing football, the rest from endorsements (Wilson footballs, Jantzen sportswear), commercials and personal appearances--and invests every penny he can spare.

Last week Coach Lombardi was glumly writing Congressmen in hopes of getting his star halfback's Army reporting date postponed for 90 days. Hornung himself was frankly unhappy at the prospect of a year in second-class accommodations. But, wisely, he said little. "It didn't come as a complete surprise," he said, resignedly. "If I have to serve, I'll serve."

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