End of an Ara

Come Christmas, while the elect among football coaches are happily preparing for professional playoffs and college bowl games, many of their losing colleagues have already received preholiday presents in the form of dismissal notices from disgruntled owners or disappointed college administrators. The resulting scramble for jobs resembles a madcap game of musical chairs.

The annual ritual took a bizarre turn last week when Notre Dame's Ara Parseghian announced that he was stepping down. Before the shock wave subsided in South Bend, Notre Dame officials triggered another with the word that as Ara's replacement they had chosen Dan Devine, who was about to get his walking papers from the National Football League's Green Bay Packers.

Glittering Records. There was not the slightest suggestion that Notre Dame was unhappy with Ara. His team won the national championship last season and takes a 9-2 record into the Orange Bowl against undefeated Alabama. Trouble was the coach could not live with success. The demands, he says, have simply gotten too great. "There is no time to relax. College football now is more than just a twelve-month job; it's more like a 14-month job. After 25 years of coaching, I needed to back away from it, if I could, and take another look."

That look may eventually lead to the pros, for Parseghian's record is impressive. His 94-victory total after eleven years at Notre Dame is second only to the 105 amassed by the legendary Knute Rockne. His career winning percentage at Miami of Ohio, Northwestern and Notre Dame is a glittering .745. But Ara says it will be a while before he's ready to try again. He plans to spend more time with his wife Katie, and devote greater attention to his insurance business and volunteer work with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. (His daughter Karan suffers from the disease.) "If I get itchy feet a year from now," he says, "and I see that I'm missing the game, then I'll come back."

In any case, it will not be back to Notre Dame, which gave Devine a five-year contract despite his spotty record with the Packers. Devine took his team to the playoffs in 1972, but since then they have slumped badly, finishing this season with three straight defeats and a sagging 6-8 record. Disillusioned Green Bay fans who wanted nothing less than a consistent winner like their late coach, Vince Lombardi, subjected Devine and his family to unremitting torment (TIME, Oct. 7). "I wouldn't be human," he says, "if I weren't a little bitter. In all honesty, I can't say I could have stayed on in those conditions."

Trying to live with the legend of Lombardi was tough enough; now Devine is taking on the memory of Parseghian, Rockne and Frank Leahy. And he knows all too well that Notre Dame has never brooked even middling showings by its football coaches. (Terry Brennan was asked to leave after a 32-18 record in five seasons.) But Devine is undaunted. "I feel like I'm going to have the full cooperation of everyone," he says. "As long as I've got the support, I can produce a winner."

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