THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701260309
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: 83 lines
He was introduced to the Green Bay Packers as an impressionable boy of 10.
Growing up in Norfolk, he didn't know the Cheese State from a cheese pizza. But then a friend of the family got him hooked. Into his teenage years he basked in the glow of the Lombardi Era and Packers titles, never imagining anything but success for his team.
When, 29 years ago, football's nuclear winter hit Wisconsin, he withstood the tests, shared the indignities of Lynn Dickey and Scott Hunter, hung tough as Bart Starr coached Green Bay into near oblivion, held fast during the debacles of the Lindy Infante administration.
Into middle age, his devotion never wavered.
``That's what it's all about,'' Thom Vourlas was saying the other day. ``It's about suffering.''
But that was then, the '70s and '80s. Green Bay, once known as ``Titletown, USA,'' had turned into an NFL Siberia.
Now, says Vourlas, ``It's redemption time.''
He sat in his large office atop the Naro Expanded Theater in Ghent, the movie house he operates with Tench Phillips. Vourlas, 46, wore a Packers NFC championship game T-shirt. On a cluttered desk sat a Packers media guide.
Getting up to greet a visitor, he said, ``Anybody who's not a Packer fan is probably sick of hearing about Green Bay and this stuff about it being a football shrine.''
Vourlas has resisted turning the Naro into a Packer shrine. But a few weeks ago, he began standing in the door of the theater, tearing tickets while dressed in Packer garb. He's worn the stuff for years, through thin and thin, attracting mostly puzzled looks.
``Some people would laugh at me,'' he said.
But now, ``People are nice. They go, `Hey, the Packers. Great team.' ''
The people are nice, but they can't possibly understand what the Packers mean to him.
``It's more than just football,'' he said. ``It's my childhood. It's my friends.''
It's Tim Mathas, a Milwaukee transplant. Thirty-six years ago, Mathas opened the door to Vourlas' Packer obsession. Since Mathas passed away six years ago, Vourlas ``can't think of the team without remembering Tim.''
Now, every season, Vourlas and his Packer friends make a pilgrimage to Green Bay. Three years ago, Vourlas got his name on the waiting list for season tickets to Lambeau Field. He's number 20,883.
``I moved up five places last year,'' he said. ``I think I'm due to get mine in the year 3150.''
Waiting list or not, Vourlas was in attendance at Lambeau two weeks ago when the Packers defeated Carolina.
``It was very emotional for me,'' he said. ``There was a time near the end of the game when I was overcome and my eyes glistened. It might happen again Sunday night.''
For today's Super Bowl, he'll be joined in front of his TV by fellow Packer posse members Butch Germano and Mike O'Hearn.
``It's not even fun watching the games,'' Vourlas said. ``We sit there and whine, squirm and complain. It's not easy caring this much.''
How can anyone explain the profound infatuation some people have for a team?
``Being a Packer fan has influenced my life, it's defined who my friends are,'' Germano, 45, says.
A couple years ago, Germano heard about a Lynnhaven pub that was serving up Packer games on its satellite dish. That's how he met Bill Minder, owner of O'Sullivan's Irish Tavern, and a Pack devotee from New Jersey.
Now the two are partners in a restaurant, ``Zia Marie,'' in Chick's Beach. For them, the Packers are the tie that binds.
``I'm stressing really bad right now,'' said Germano. ``I can't listen to anybody say New England might win. My stomach can't take it.''
Minder, 34, understands.
``The Super Bowl? I get choked up every time I think about it,'' he said.
He caught the fever as ``a little 4-year-old growing up thinking the Packers were the best team on earth.''
When the team started going south, it was too late.
``There were times when I wished I could have changed,'' Minder said. ``You know, stop being a Packer fan. Stop caring. I just couldn't.''
Vourlas realizes that most people won't get it. That it's difficult to describe the depth of feeling he has for the Packers, ``without sounding corny.''
Anticipating today's game, he says, ``I know it's nerve-racking, but we've just got to enjoy it. Because the Packers are where we want them to be.''
The Pack is back. But while they were gone, the people who couldn't stop caring never went away.