GREEN BAY, Wis. – Ron Wolf has pulled off his biggest trade.

In exchange for the long, lonely hours scouting college football players, Wolf plans to spend his retirement indulging his passion for military heroes.

	Ron Wolf, left, talks about his retirement as coach Mike Sherman and Packers president Bob Harlan look on.

But unlike Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Wolf's favorite World War II figure, the Green Bay Packers' outgoing general manager promises no return engagement.

Rumors pop up in just about every NFL city. He's going to revive the Bears. He and Bill Parcells are going to Atlanta. Wolf snickers. He said he's leaving the best job in America, so why would he go anywhere else?

"Right today, I would be disappointed in myself if I returned," Wolf said. "That doesn't mean I won't get that fire back."

But the 62-year-old Wolf said football is a part of his past, except for the Navy games he'll attend with his wife, Edie, a few blocks from their new home in Annapolis, Md.

Although his official retirement date is June 1, the only item left on Wolf's agenda is attending the Lambeau Field renovation groundbreaking May 19.

On his final day at work last week, Wolf reflected on his career, saying that despite returning the Packers to prominence in his decade in Green Bay, he had many regrets, including failing to win more than one Super Bowl.

"We underachieved. We were a better team," he said. "We should have won more than one and should have been there more than twice with the players we had."

Wolf wishes he could have surrounded Brett Favre with more talent, laments making Antonio Freeman the NFL's highest-paid receiver and regrets the way he handled cutting Mark Chmura, who was acquitted earlier this year of sexually assaulting a teen-ager.

Chmura was the one topic Wolf wouldn't elaborate on. "But regardless of what happened, he was still where he shouldn't have been," Wolf said.

As for Freeman, Favre's favorite receiver, Wolf said the team "probably paid him too much money."

"One of the real fears you have today in the game is when you have to pay the big bucks, what's going to happen to the guy you're paying the money to," he said.

Freeman's career has been in sharp decline since he signed a $42 million contract in 1998.

Of course, Wolf said he didn't help matters by failing to sign other talented receivers to join Freeman, who has an unlisted number in Baltimore and whose agent, Joel Segal, didn't return messages.

Firing coaches Lindy Infante and Ray Rhodes weren't the toughest moves he made. Dismissing the team's longtime equipment manager in 1994 was worse, Wolf said.

Wolf has mixed feelings about free agency. It helped him resurrect a moribund franchise when he lured Reggie White in 1993. But it also contributed to Wolf's decision to retire with three years left on his contract.

To Wolf, football always was a game of blocking and tackling, but he said it has been complicated by underachieving and overpaid players, outrageous agents and the salary cap.

He'd like to see an entry level pay scale for rookies, longer first-time contracts, and more rounds in the draft.

	“	The problem we have is that people in the league office, no one there has ever worked at the club level. They don't understand what it's like at a club level today. It's difficult here. ”
		— Ron Wolf, outgoing Packers GM

"I think after 39 years that I do know" what's going on, Wolf said. "And the problem we have is that people in the league office, no one there has ever worked at the club level. They don't understand what it's like at a club level today. It's difficult here."

He hates that teams go from worst to first and back again overnight.

"What we've seen these last three years, it's your schedule," Wolf said. "If you have a very easy schedule, your season's going to be very successful. We've seen that in Atlanta, St. Louis, Baltimore, Giants."

Wolf, who served in Army intelligence in Berlin, learned how to scout under the guidance of Raiders owner Al Davis, with whom he spent 24 years in addition to stints with the Jets and Buccaneers.

Although he adapted to every change the NFL threw at him, one of the league's best and brightest minds never used a cell phone or sent an e-mail. But the game never passed him by; he just got tired of keeping up with its ever changing ways.

"At all times you have to have your salary-cap guy on call, which inhibits you a little bit from making a deal," said Wolf, who orchestrated 89 trades during his tenure, 67 more than any other team.

Before he left, Wolf made sure the Packers were in good hands in coach and GM Mike Sherman.

In his last year as general manager, Wolf traded for Ahman Green, kept free agents Darren Sharper and Ryan Longwell, persuaded LeRoy Butler and Dorsey Levens to take pay cuts and engineered trades to draft Jamal Reynolds and Robert Ferguson.

After Wolf watched his final minicamp practice, the team gathered around him and applauded.

"He likes to say he owes me a lot, but I think it works both ways," said Favre, who came from Atlanta in 1992 in Wolf's biggest trade.

As they walked off, Favre thanked Wolf for seeing something in him that nobody else did and for leaving the Packers strong enough to make a possible playoff run next season.

"I hate to see him go," Favre said. "He'll be talked about like Vince Lombardi was for a long time."