Bob Harlan: Wolf walks through the doors

Continued from previous week

Five years early, the Green Bay Packers President Judge Parins wanted someone to come in and help with football operations.

“Someone who would come in with a 50-50 situation with the head coach on all decisions, and one of the individuals he brought in was Ron Wolf. I knew Ron a little bit from league meetings and so forth, but Ron coming in on a Sunday night, about 10:30 p.m. When he got off the plane, the first thing he said, ‘Hey, Bob. I’m really hungry. Can we go someplace and get something to eat?’
“There’s not a lot of opportunities in Green Bay at 10:30 on Sunday night. So, I took him to a Denny’s about two miles south of Lambeau Field, and we sat there for two or three hours that night talking football. He asked me about the executive board and about the equipment, about this stadium situation, about this and that.

“At the same time, I asked him, ‘How would you scout? What do you look for in a scout? What do you look for in a head coach and how do you decide this? Would you scout yourself?’

“But I learned so much about the man that night. I think he learned so much about our organization that I just thought, ‘Boy, if this ever comes up again and we’re looking for someone, we’ve got to give Ron Wolf a chance.’

Now, as president, Harlan would get that chance.

“So, lo and behold, it turns out to be me, five years later, we’re going to make this decision. And the executive committee was a little hesitant at first, but they came around. They said, ‘Okay, we give you permission to do it.’ And I said, ‘There’ll be absolutely no interference from anybody.’

“We called a special meeting for the board of directors, and I said the same thing to them, ‘Now you folks cannot meddle with this man. If you do, you’re off the board. We’ve got to have one person who’s going to be totally in charge.’
“And Ron Wolf was the perfect candidate. He was tough, single-minded, loved football, direct; I just love the man.

“So we hired Ron Wolf.

“Fans used to call me and, they’d say, ‘You know, Bob. You guys don’t care if you win or lose; all you want to do is make money.’ But, we were making $2 million a year — we weren’t making much money at all. They said, ‘All you want to do is make money. You’re happy to be losers. The Lombardi era was the last great era this franchise is ever going to have.’

“Well, those questions never came up again once Ron Wolf walked through the front doors.”

To be continued