Alumni Spotlight – Ron Wolf ‘56

For Green Bay Packer fans from the Sixties – those who followed the Sunday heroics of Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, Max McGee, Forrest Gregg, and Jim Taylor in the Lombardi era – there was no better or classier team. But for loyal “cheese heads”, (a reference to true fans of the Green and Gold) the decades that followed were a wilderness. After 25 years of declining mediocrity, the Packers arrived in the 1990s as the worst team in the NFL. Then came an epic transformation. Green Bay started winning again and bumper stickers appeared around the country, proudly announcing, “The Pack is Back!”

And the acknowledged architect of Green Bay’s startling turnaround: our own Ron Wolf, Class of 1956.

Ron played football and baseball while at Susquehannock, but he said, “I didn’t have time for much else. Like many teens, I worked in the Summers canning factory in whatever spare time I had.” Although Ron describes the 1956 Warriors politely as “not very good,” he made a strong connection with its coach, Bob McCoy, a mentor which Ron speaks with respect and affection to this day.

Ron said, “A quote that comes to mind when I think of Coach McCoy is ‘To thine own self be true.’ He taught us the importance of honesty, personal responsibility, and the basic principles of hard work.” These traits were to serve Ron well as he set off from New Freedom on a fascinating life journey.

After graduating from Susquehannock in 1956, Ron joined the U.S. Army and was assigned to train at Fort Bragg, home of the storied 82nd Airborne Division. From there he went to Berlin and served in Army Intelligence during one of the most dangerous periods of the Cold War. The Russian’s had chosen Berlin, then jointly occupied by WWII allies, as the Cold War’s first battleground.

After receiving an honorable discharge in 1959, Ron pursued a college degree at the University of Oklahoma, graduating in 1963 with a major in History, and an intention to work for the Central Intelligence Agency. But an acquaintance recommended him to Al Davis – owner of the Oakland Raiders – as someone good at remembering names and numbers and analyzing data. Davis quizzed Ron, was impressed with his football knowledge and ability to recall, and offered him a position as a talent scout. In this role, Ron helped assemble a team that included the likes of Art Shell, Gene Upshaw, Ken Stabler, and Jack Tatum, the nucleus of a Raider dynasty that won Super Bowl XI, abiding by the slogan, “Commitment to Excellence.”

When the NFL established an expansion franchise in Tampa Bay in 1975, Ron joined the Buccaneers as vice president of operations. There, he helped draft a roster that, in only four years from inception, would play in an NFC championship game.

In 1978, following the expiration of his Tampa Bay contract, he returned to Oakland where he remained for the next twelve years as director of player operations, assembling a decade of playoff contenders and adding two more Super Bowl wins to an already impressive resume.

Ron left the Raiders in 1990 for a year with the New York Jets. But the Green Bay Packers were looking to replace their general manager in 1991 and Ron took the job. He began immediately to execute one of the most dramatic turnarounds in NFL history, leading the Pack’s return to consistent contender status, a return culminating in a Super Bowl victory in back-to-back appearances. Of his mission, he said simply, “I came here to win.”

While his personnel decisions garnered the most publicity – hiring Mike Holmgren, drafting Reggie White, and trading for a little known back-up quarterback named Brett Favre – his effect on the organization was more sweeping. He quickly recognized that Green Bay’s problems ran deeper than players-in-uniform. His task was to change an entire organizational culture.

The club asserts that Ron Wolf “made a more profound impact upon the Packers organization than anyone since the revered Vince Lombardi.”

He converted Green Bay from perennial also-rans into consistent winners, exemplified by the fact that they have mounted the NFL’s best regular-season won-lost record since the 1993 institution of free agency.

Ron is recognized as among the sport’s premier executives and has been named accordingly by The Sporting News. He has also been accorded similar honors by the Professional Football Writers Association and Football Weekly. He has been given a lifetime achievement award by the National Quarterback Club and is a member of the Packer Hall-of-Fame. But in an endeavor where success is founded in the scoreboard, his self-assessment is rooted in tangible results. Now retired, he calls taking Green Bay from “worst to first” and restoring the NFL’s most storied franchise to its rightful place as his greatest career accomplishment.

His book, The Packer Way: Nine Stepping Stones to Building a Successful Organization, tells of his Green Bay experience, but the text is far more than a memoir. It is a guide to changing any organization into a winning organization and sustaining that position. The Packer Way is used in the corporate world as a guide to transformational leadership.

Ron retired from the Packers organization in 2001 and now lives in Jupiter, Florida with his wife Edie. They have five children: sons Jonathan and Eliot and daughters Saralyn, Celli, and Joan.

Thanks to Ron Wolf ‘56 for making us “Warrior Proud.”