"This Ron Wolf Mistake"

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal published an outstanding article yesterday about Ron Wolf's planned 1994 uniform change. We've heard much of this story before, but there are some fascinating new details:

Packers allowed this Ron Wolf mistake on the field just once

Associated Press

By Bob McGinn of the Journal Sentinel
Aug. 16, 2015

Green Bay — Last month, the Green Bay Packers rolled out the navy blue jersey with a faded gold yoke they will wear Oct. 18 against the San Diego Chargers and in other "throwback" games over the next five seasons.

It brought to mind the months of experimentation with uniform color and design commissioned by general manager Ron Wolf in 1993 that would have left the Packers looking much like Notre Dame in its green jerseys.

Nothing came of it, however, and the Packers continue to wear the same basic color combination and design that Vince Lombardi brought to Green Bay 56 years ago.

Hired by the Packers in November 1991, Wolf set about fumigating a franchise that had been a chronic loser for a generation.

"I wanted to change the uniforms just to get the stigma (of defeat) away," Wolf said in a recent interview. "Hey, I proposed a lot of things. It wasn't that big of a deal."

The attachment of the team's fan base then to the forest green jerseys and mustard yellow pants was nothing like it is now. From 1968-'91, the Packers made the playoffs twice.

As the Packers pondered dramatically altered uniforms, they were deluged with calls and letters from followers in the state and across the country.

At the time, Wolf said at least half of the contacts he had indicated considerable distaste for the existing uniform. Then-Packers president Bob Harlan, in better position to gauge public sentiment, said the majority of fans favored staying with what the Packers had.

When the Packers displayed enormous improvement in 1992, Wolf made his move.

"We got Mike Holmgren. Pretty good, huh?" said Wolf. "We get Brett Favre. We win nine games. Now I'm feeling pretty good about myself."

Long a student of football history, Wolf associated the Packers' pants with the maize of the University of Michigan. He didn't like that color.

Wolf wasn't enamored of the stripes on the Packers' helmets, jerseys or pants, either. He wanted a less cluttered look.

He pored over various shades of gold before selecting what Harlan remembered as a metallic gold for the pants.

"Ron was very excited about it," said Harlan. "He just thought the Notre Dame gold or the UCLA gold, whatever you wanted to call it, would be perfect."

The jersey that Wolf really liked had been worn by the Packers in the early 1950s.

"That gold (numbers) and green (body) one," he said. "But they wouldn't work today because you couldn't see the numbers."

At last, the Packers had a manufacturer produce three slightly different styles of uniforms.

Wolf needed someone he could trust to be the model. He summoned Ted Thompson, who was in his second year as an anonymous pro scout.

"I said to Ted, 'Would you mind doing it?'" Wolf said. "He said, 'Sure.' In those days, when you asked somebody to help you out, they did it, you know?"

Thompson, then 40, probably hadn't been in uniform since his 10-year career as an NFL linebacker ended in 1984. Attempts to reach Thompson through the Packers' publicity department for this story were unsuccessful.

It was a beautiful late fall day. Harlan, Wolf and some other club officials convened in Lambeau Field, taking seats fairly high up in the bowl.

"There were some other guys there," Wolf said. "(Lee) Remmel must have been there, or somebody from the public relations department. Maybe some of the executive committee guys were there."

From the tunnel emerged Thompson, who would become GM of the Packers in 2005.

He was attired in the dark green jersey, metallic gold pants, solid metallic gold helmet with the 'G' logo that had existed since 1961 and solid green socks. There were no stripes on the helmet, jersey or pants.

"He (Thompson) was on the field down there all by himself," recalled Wolf. "The guy ran up and down the field. I was thinking to myself, 'Holy (expletive), I must have been smoking dope.'"

Then Wolf looked at Harlan, and Harlan looked at Wolf.

"All it took was that one trip up and down the field for me to say, '(Expletive), that's terrible. No, no, no. There's no way we can do this,'" Wolf remembered. "We would have changed it, but after that I said, 'This is foolish.'"

Grateful for what Wolf had done in just two years on the job, Harlan wasn't going to deny his new GM if he wanted a new look for the Packers.

"We kind of made the decision on the spot," said Harlan, laughingly adding, "and it had nothing to do with the model.

"We were sitting out there in short-sleeve shirts in the sun waiting for Ted to come out of the tunnel. He kind of walked up and down the sidelines to let us see what it looked like.

"Dull is the only way I can describe it. It just looked blah out there. You see Notre Dame on TV and it looked like such a great uniform, but it just didn't look that way for us."

One of those two metallic gold 'G' helmets can be found displayed in the home of Pepper Burruss, the Packers' director of sports medicine.

Feigning ignorance of the entire initiative, Holmgren said at the time, "I was the last one to know. I like the way the uniforms are now."

Wolf never revisited uniforms.

"It was one of those things you say, 'Oh, just let that disappear,'" Wolf said with a shrug.

And it basically has.

Outstanding work as usual from Mr. McGinn.

Interestingly enough, Uni Watch columnist Paul Lukas was one of those who called Bob Harlan to express his concerns about the changes. The letter Harlan sent to him in response describes the proposed uniforms:

This is the mockup I made of that uniform several years ago, based on the reports we had at the time:

It still comports with the description in McGinn's piece. There's a lot I like about this uniform, especially the lack of sleeve stripes. Given that most football players don't wear sleeves anymore, the vestigial stripes are a problem in desperate need of a solution. I do have to say that it would have been criminal to lose the Braisher stripes from helmet and pants.

McGinn gives us valuable new insight into the process itself. I'm somewhat surprised that Wolf was able to look over old Packers uniforms, since they haven't always been the most accurate historians of their aesthetic past. Not that they haven't tried. This 2004 Media Guide cover attempts to create a link between the team's present and its glorious history:

Unfortunately, every single one of their reproductions is historically inaccurate. From the navy blue color on the Hutson jersey to serifs on the "Acme Packers" font, they got all the details wrong. That media guide was a major influence in my decision to move my Packers-uniform zine online. Perhaps Wolf was able to peruse the Hall of Fame's archives.

When Wolf mentions a an old Packers jersey he really liked, with gold numbers on green that "wouldn't work today because you couldn't see the numbers", I presume he means this bright number from 1953:

If you can look past the Kermit the Frog suits, the jerseys are quite nice.

It's also possible that he meant this darker version, as worn by Jim Ringo in 1957 or 1958:

I'm surprised to hear that Wolf felt gold-on-green wasn't legible. The Rams wear metallic gold numbers on their regular drab navy jerseys and athletic gold on their beautiful throwbacks:

They've worn those since the 1960s, and I'm not aware that legibility has ever been an issue.

Now "blah" I can see. The modern-day Rams are proof enough of that. Metallic gold can be drab and flat under anything but bright light, and I prefer the Packers' vivid athletic gold.

I'm also intrigued to learn that there were two prototype helmets made. I knew that there was one in a private collection, but this is the first I've heard that Pepper Burruss, the Packers' director of sports medicine, has one. I wonder if Mr. Burruss would be kind enough to give us a look.

It's interesting to think what might have happened had Wolf actually pulled the trigger way back then. The last twenty years of of Packers history, the new "Glory Days", would have looked very different. Wolf's uniforms would be synonymous with Holmgren and McCarthy and Favre and Rodgers, eleven divisional titles and two World Championships. We would have fans today for whom Lombardi's classic uniform is as much an historical curiosity as Lambeau's blue and gold. And we can all guess what the the Packers would have chosen for their throwback alternate uniforms.

Ramming the Point Home

Still trying to identify the point when the Packers abandoned leather helmets. We do know that the entire team was wearing plastic shells (at least in some games) by 1952, based on this photo from the Packers' heartbreaking loss to the Los Angeles Rams at Marquette Stadium in Milwaukee on October 12, 1952.

As we've discussed, Gene Ronzani was putting his own stamp on the club, slowly eliminating Curly Lambeau's blue and athletic gold scheme. Here we see Ronzani's green jerseys paired with a metallic gold shell. The result was reportedly something like this:

Not dissimilar to the color scheme Ron Wolf almost adopted in 1994.

The Uniform Change That Wasn't

Today, the talk on Paul Lukas' indispensable Uni Watch blog turned to mention of Ron Wolf's proposed 1994 uniform change, thanks to his ESPN.com Page 2 column.

I'll let Paul talk about it in his own words:

"(I) once sent a letter to the Green Bay Packers, urging them to reconsider their plans to change their uniforms and color scheme (this was in 1993, six years before the advent of Uni Watch), and was surprised to get a phone call and a note from Packers CEO Bob Harlan (who, fortunately, later changed his mind about all the uniform changes described in that letter)."

He included a scan of the letter (click to enlarge):

The uniform Harlan describes jives with a contemporaneous account published in the Packer Report, September 18, 1993:

Possible Color Change Outlined

There was a rumor Sunday the Packers would have a press conference concerning their uniforms colors during the week following the Eagle game. This, however, seemed certain: The Packers plan to change their uniforms next season, retaining the current dark green, but switching pants and helmets from the present yellow to metallic gold.

The Packers hope the changes will be approved by the NFL Properties by the beginning of next month so they can wear the new uniforms next season. Among other changes are the removal of stripes now on the helmet, jersey, and pants.

Packer President Bob Harlan told the Milwaukee Journal the gold was not the same as that worn by any other team and that it was selected by General Manager Ron Wolf and Coach Mike Holmgren. Harlan said the helmet would be switched from yellow to gold and have a large green "G" on each side and the jersey would have a smaller green "G" on each sleeve. The white numbers on the green home jerseys and the green numbers on the white road jerseys will also have a gold outline. The pants will be plain gold.

"Years and years ago, we wore a gold helmet and gold pants," Harlan said. "And I think that's what Ron wanted, a simpler uniform. They didn't want to look like New Orleans or the 49ers. They looked at different golds and picked out what they liked."

Of course, the 49ers have since changed their gold, and New Orleans wears about a dozen different shades of gold, so it's not a huge help in determining the shade Wolf and Holmgren picked out.

Here's my interpretation of what this might have looked like, based on those descriptions:

Personally, as a longtime Packer fan... I'd have been okay with this. Heck, I'd be okay with this today. Don't like the plain shell, but add a single gold stripe down the side of the pants and across the seam of the helmet, and it's beautiful. Honors Lombardi's legacy with echoes of Lambeau's. I know, I'm probably the only Packer fan who thinks so, but there you have it.

I also have a recollection of them publicly considering a switch back to Curly Lambeau's navy and gold, but that's probably my faulty memory conflating the 1994 uniform change, announced in late 1993, with the 1994 NFL 75th Anniversary throwbacks.

Again, I'd still have been okay with that. I love the gold yoke, and it would help focus attention on the Packers' glorious pre-Lombardi history, which tends to get ignored in the NFL's general amnesia surrounding the pre-Super Bowl era.

But Wolf eventually decided that he couldn't go through with it. According to an interview he gave the St Petersburg Times:

"I never liked the yellow color in the Packers scheme," Wolf said. "NFL books say it's 'green and gold' but anybody can see it's a Michigan kind of yellow, of maize, which didn't sit well with me.

"I put together a proposal to change Green Bay uniforms, replacing the yellow with a gold much like we see on Rams uniforms and helmets. There were some other changes but I wasn't messing with the "G' on Packers helmets."

Everything was approved by the seven-member executive committee that operates the Packers. All I had to do was give the go-ahead."

I repeatedly looked over drawings of the new Packers uniform, thinking I would soon be pulling the trigger on changes. But, after a little more thought, decided it just didn't fly. We needed to fix what was truly broken. What we really had to have was better people on the field."

If the Packers were ever to move away from Lombardi's uniform, this would have been the time. The Favre era was right around the corner, and Wolf's uniform would be viewed now as the one in which they won a Super Bowl, the one in which they brought glory back to Green Bay.

I'd love to see those drawings Wolf mentioned.

UPDATE: Jeff Ash, assistant online editor of the Green Bay Press-Gazette, mentioned this story on his excellent blog "Out of Bounds" (and was kind enough to give a hat tip). He had something new to add:

"Here's one more little detail I remember from that time:

Wolf wanted to see what the new uniform looked like on the players, but he wanted to keep it quiet. So he enlisted one of his assistants to put on the gear. You might know the guy. He used to be an NFL player. At the time, he was the Packers' director of pro personnel. It was Ted Thompson."

Outstanding. Wonder what Ted remembers of that fashion show?