(Photo: AP Photo/ packers.com photo)
When Bob Harlan passed away on March 5, 2026, it was a very sad day for people across the state of Wisconsin and especially hit hard in the Marquette and Green Bay Packer communities. Bob and his wife Madeline and their family touched many people in the State of WI. First in Milwaukee, when Bob was the sports information director at Marquette (1960-1967) and later in Green Bay after Missouri head coach Dan Devine hired him away from the St Louis Cardinals to become the corporate general manager of the Green Bay Packers in 1971.
+Bob attended Marquette from 1954 – 1958 and then after a year in the service, was hired as the Marquette sports information director in 1960 succeeding Jim King. Bob covered football and basketball when he was a student at the Marquette Tribune and welcomed the opportunity to be SID.
+When they lived in Milwaukee[1960-65], the Harlan family were our neighbors on Lefeber Ave. in Wauwatosa. After taking the Marquette job, the Harlans moved to 2637 Lefeber Ave in 1960... . about six months after my parents had moved into the house across the street at 2636 Lefeber Ave in 1959. My dad was from Des Moines, Iowa and was excited to hear that the new couple Bob and Madeline were also from Iowa. My mom, Ann Dodds, baked cookies for them as a welcome to the neighborhood but could not go over to drop them off because she was pregnant with me and could barely move. So, my dad brought the cookies over to introduce himself.
Dad rings the doorbell and Bob answers the door dad says, "Welcome to the neighborhood, my name is..." and Bob interrupts him and says, "Your name is Mal Dodds, you were the power forward on the 1947 Dowling High School basketball team that got to the Iowa State High School Semi Finals in March 1947. I was in 6th grade attending the game where you lost to Clear Lake HS. You graduated from Dowling in 1947 ...and I did in 1954." Bob invited him in, took him to his den, and showed dad a picture of that 1947 team and an article that was framed on his wall from the Des Moines Register.
About an hour later, dad returns home and mom says, "What happened over there? It took you over an hour to drop off the cookies?"
Dad replied, "Yeah, the new neighbors are the Harlans and Bob Harlan had a picture of me in his den. "
Mom said, "He had a picture of you in his house? Did he take it from across the street? Is he a stalker?"
+ My mom, who passed away at age 93, last November 25th, became best friends with Bob's wife Madeline Harlan. Mom and Bob shared the same birthdate, September 9th, and they would celebrate along with other couples from the neighborhood at the local restaurant, 'The Fireside.' Bob Harlan was one of the funniest and most personable ...let's say jovial people.... you could ever meet. He would entertain the neighborhood with his impressions and quick humor. Mom used to say during our neighborhood parties ...that patrons would enter The Fireside, hear all the noise coming from the Lefeber Avenue residents and asked, "How long have they been here?" And the bartender would say, "They just got here."
Bob Harlan would get up on a chair and give a presentation "An Ode to Madeline's potato salad." Or he would do an impression of his next door neighbor Bob Schmidt's morning routine, getting up...walking out of the house.... going into the garage... backing the car up to his front door... getting out.... grabbing his morning paper from the front stoop and he would go back into his car and drive it back into the garage...and close the garage door...reenter the house....then eat breakfast.
+As PR director for Marquette, Bob would publish the annual Marquette Basketball Media Guide and would hand out copies to everyone on Lefeber Ave in the neighborhood. I learned to read and learned about numbers from the press guides. By the age of four, I knew what an SID did for a university....it was what Mr. Harlan did.
+The SID position was a great job for Bob...best suited to his expertise and talents in public relations and journalism. However, two months after he took the job, Marquette dropped football. That was devastating for him professionally. I mentioned to him in our interview that in a weird quirk of fate... Marquette's dropping football ultimately resulted in the Packers winning two Super Bowls in 1996 and 2010...since it pushed Bob Harlan's career path away from Marquette and Milwaukee ....to St Louis Missouri....and then back to Wisconsin.... to the Green Bay Packers and the result was Green Bay winning two Super Bowls when he became President.
+It was fate....because....a decade earlier....dad and Bob were watching the Packers playing the New York Giants in the 1962 Championship game at Yankee Stadium. During the game which Green Bay won 16 to 7, for the team's 2nd straight NFL title, Bob told dad, "My dream job would be working as the PR director of the Green Bay Packers."
+I loved to play basketball in grade school and HS...I made the teams... but was not very good at it. In fact, I was working at one of Rick Majerus's inner city Summer Basketball camps...and he told me that 'John, you might be the least athletic 6-6" post player I have ever worked with but you worked at my camps all summer and never asked for any compensation. What can I do for you?'
I responded..." Rick, I will be a Business School major at Marquette next yr and I would like to work in Sports Info as a student assistant for the SID. They only take J School and PR majors. Could you help me?'
Rick made a call and I was able to work in Sports Information for 4 years on the Marquette press guide, game program and PR work. Through that job, I was able to find a position assisting the media at Packer home games in Milw and Green Bay. I received 2 credentials to fax reporter's game stories [yes in 1979 they were on paper]...and later I would interview opponent players in the locker room. I would get there 2 hrs before a game and stay 4 to 6 hrs after a game or until the reporter finished his story on deadline. From 1979 to 2019, I missed 6 Packer home games...and had a streak of 293 in a row broken when an ice storm shut down I 43 to GB. For the first few yrs, I took my dad...and I remember the first time Bob Harlan saw us in the press box....'John and Mal, what in the world are you guys doing here? '
+ I interviewed Al McGuire in 1999...and asked him about Bob Harlan. Al said....'They key to the success of that entire operation is Bob Harlan. He checks his ego at the front door of the parking lot and let's the experts like Ron Wolf...do his thing.' In part 2 of my interview, Bob talks about Marquette's hiring of Al McGuire in 1964. He has some funny anecdotes being Al's SID and later when Al would unexpectedly stop by the Packer offices when he was Packer President.
+ The interesting thing about Bob Harlan ...is that he never lost his ties or his inside sources to Marquette. MU was playing a late game on Saturday Night and about 2 hrs after the game there was an incident at 11pm involving a player and a coach that seemed major at the time....but it turned out to be minor. I saw it...and did not tell anyone...there were only 3 people who saw it....so the next day...I leave Milwaukee for GB for the noon game...I get there at 9:45am ....load my equipment then take it to the press box...I go up to the 2nd floor where Bob's President's box was.....knocked on the door....entered....to tell him of the incident that I had witnessed about 9 hrs earlier....and before I said a thing....Bob said...'So I heard it got pretty heated last night after the game....between...this player...and that coach...but it was all resolved....'
I just smiled and said....'Wow...that was impressive...how you got wind of this....and now know more about it that I do...and I witnessed it. Mr. H ...your sources at Marquette are second to none!'
Bob just laughed and said...'Well, over the years you tend to build up your network for early warning reports.'
+Harlan left Marquette in Milwaukee in 1965 to take a Public Relations job with the St. Louis baseball Cardinals and they played in two 7 game series in the World Series ...beating Boston in 1967 and losing to Detroit in 1968. Bob enjoyed the job but being on the road for so long during summers was taking too much time away from his wife and his young family: sons Kevin and Bryan, born in Milwaukee.... and youngest son Michael, who was born in St. Louis. So, Bob started putting feelers out and he wanted to stay in sports but not necessarily baseball. In a crazy historical twist of fate, at the end of the 1970 season, Green Bay fired head coach Phil Bengston and hired Missouri head coach Dan Devine. There was a mutual friend in the Cardinal front office, Bing Devine, who called Dan (no relation) and suggested he hire Bob Harlan because he was a very capable guy, had PR and journalistic background, and he was from Wisconsin... it might be the perfect fit.
So, sight unseen, without an interview, Dan Devine hired Bob Harlan for a job 'to be determined' and since the Packers had Chuck Lang as its PR director .... Devine made Harlan the Packers corporate business general manager.
+ Prior to accepting the job, Bob called my parents to tell them about the possibility of the move and wanted to do some homework and research about living in Green Bay. So, mom called all of her friends that she knew were from Green Bay, and they called Bob to tell him what it was like growing up there, raising a family, etc.
Mom always thought, "Bob loves football and he's told us that Green Bay is his dream job, so I think he's going to go to Green Bay no matter what my friends say, but I'll call them anyway."
+ Mom even called Packer play-by-play man Jim Irwin, the WTMJ TV and radio personality who had lived in Green Bay earlier in his career and had ties to Appleton in his TV and radio broadcasting career. Mom left the message with Jim's wife that "A good friend of ours is considering a move from St. Louis to Green Bay and would like to learn more about the city. Could you call me back? My friend's name is Bob Harlan, and I would like to tell you more."
Mom had a wry smile on her face telling us "I wonder how long it's going to take for Jim to return the call?"
I would come home from grade school and ask, "Has Jim Irwin called back yet?" Mom would say, "No, but he will."
About a week later, Devine was hired as head coach and Harlan was introduced at the press conference. About 24 hours later, Irwin put 2 and 2 together and called mom back. "Ann, this is Jim Irwin. I apologize for not getting back to you earlier … I understand that you have a friend from St. Louis who is considering a move to Green Bay. How can I help?" So, mom sets up an exclusive interview between Irwin and Bob Harlan.
+I couldn't have been more excited about the hire of Bob Harlan going to Green Bay. He's the most personable, capable person with a background of journalism and PR.
It was difficult for him at first because he had to learn about negotiation and some of the players' contracts. So, he went into the files and started looking at the contracts and learning what to do. So, he used common sense to teach himself the business realities of the NFL.
+ In 1979, when I started covering Packer games....the newspapers were rich and the Packers were operated on a shoe string. Forty years later, the Packer were printing money with the NFL and the newspaper industry was fighting to survive. Bob Harlan's impact on the Packers was incredible. First, after becoming President in 1989....he upgraded the Pro Shop. Next, he looked at additions of luxury boxes....and it ended up to be 3 tiers of boxes at games. In the late '90s....he worried that the footprint of Lambeau Field was too small to generate enough revenue to compete. So I think he gave up 10 yrs of his life expectancy trying to deal with State politicians in Madison WI. I think he tried not to age like Bud Selig had with the Brewers 5 yrs before.
It all came down to a referendum. Some of my friends had parents who live up in GB...and they did not want to spend tax money on the millionaires ....so this vote outcome was in doubt....so Bob went door to door and shook hands at the restaurants ...it passed barely....53 to 47....and many said that they were against using tax money to improve Lambeau Field....but since they respected Bob Harlan so much....and he thought it was a good idea.... then they would support it, too. That is Bob Harlan's legacy! A town team in GB Wisconsin can now be on rock solid financial ground.....and rather than having a complex that had 10 to 15 events per yr on the field....they can raise money 365 days per yr.
That is Bob Harlan's legacy in Green Bay. Right up there ...with Curly Lambeau and Vince Lombardi ....Bob Harlan!
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Here is our 55 minute interview with Bob Harlan
Part 1: Growing up in Des Moines....why he selected Marquette? Graduation in 1958 and returning to Marquette as the Sports Information Director
Part 2: Bob talks about Marquette's hiring of Al McGuire in 1964. He has some funny anecdotes being Al's SID and later when Al would unexpectedly stop by the Packer offices when he was Packer President.
Part 3: Fond memories of living back on Milw and the difficult decision Bob made to end the Packers playing home games in Milwaukee in 1994.
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