Bob Harlan: A lasting impact

Continued from previous week

“We’ll have to wait and see; everybody’s going to face different problems. Big problem I faced was the stadium issue,” former Packers President Bob Harlan said.

“After that, the big problem that Mike Murphy faced was the surrounding area. We started buying up land when I was leaving. Before I left as president, we started buying up land, and we had to do what the New England Patriots had done. Not everybody’s doing that, you know, building around the stadium, taking advantage of people coming to your stadium and building around that area.

“Now, what Ed Policy is going to face? God only knows, but we had to deal with the stadium; we had to build the Don Hutson Center.

“Ron Wolf came up to me two days after he was working here and said, ‘Bob, if we’re going to keep our players here and attract free agents, we’ve got to have a better indoor stadium because the weather’s so horrible here in the winter — kind of a place where these guys can practice.’

“So we went out, brought in the architects. They were going to build this beautiful Don Hutson Center for us.

“So I said to the architect, ‘Okay, now before you start doing anything, I want you to go to the coach, general manager, medical department, equipment boys, talk to everybody involved in football and see if they’ve got their needs covered in this new building.’”

The new $4.67 million indoor practice facility was dedicated on July 18, 1994.
The facility was named after former Packers player, assistant coach and board member, Don Hutson.

Hutson is considered by many to be the “first modern wide receiver” and was in attendance at the dedication ceremony.

He played as an end (wide receiver) for the Packers, 1935-45, and then worked as an assistant on Curly Lambeau’s staff, 1946-48.

He was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a charter member in 1963.

Hutson also served on the Packers Board of Directors, 1952-80, and was later named director emeritus.

Three years after seeing the center dedicated, Hutson died in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

“I don’t know if there is such a thing as royalty in professional football, but this is the closest I’ve ever come to it,” Wolf is quoted as saying during the dedication ceremony for the center in 1994.

To be continued