Green Bay’s Golden Girl: Turned the baton over

Continued from previous week

In July 1966, Van Duyse announced her retirement as the Packers drum majorette.

“I guess I’m the only girl in history who has been with a pro football team this long,” she told the Press Gazette’s Lee Remmel. “I actually performed at one game in 1949 at the old city stadium. That’s when Curly Lambeau was coach and I was still in grade school.”

Van Duyse “turned her baton over” to LeAnn Christiansen of Waukesha in September, literally tossing the baton to Christiansen in front of the Packers bench, which was reportedly fumbled.
Van Duyse continued to work with the Packers organization, however, as director of the Golden Girls.

“From 1951 through the 1972 season — 22 years — Mary Jane never missed a game, nor did she ever miss a practice session,” Jack Pearson wrote in 50PLUS in 2013.

“The girls were never paid anything,” Mary Jane recalled to Pearson, “except for the games in Milwaukee and Chicago where they gave us an envelope with $3 in it to cover food or drink.”

The Golden Girls also paid for their pom poms and uniforms as well.
During her time with the Packers, Van Duyse had become acquainted with former head coach, Curly Lambeau, although according to Pearson they had not officially met until Mary Jane’s brother, Fritz, introduced them.

“I knew there was a big age difference between us,” Mary Jane told Pearson, “I was about 24, and he was nearly 60, but right from the beginning there was a spark, something there. He was so handsome, so intelligent and so full of fun. I don’t know how it happened, but we fell in love.”

Van Duyse told Pearson that the two talked about marriage, but because she was Catholic and Curly had been married and divorced three times, her faith came between their vows.

Their relationship would come to a tragic end when Lambeau had a fatal heart attack while pushing a lawn mower on the front lawn at Van Duyse’s parents’ home in Sturgeon Bay.

However, six months later Van Duyse met William Sorgel, a management consultant and former president of Sorgel Electric Co.

In June 1972, Mary Jane married Sorgel and the couple began to split time between Key Biscayne, Fla., and Ephraim.

Sorgel left the Packers cheerleading group in the hands of Bernie Matzke, and they became they became known as the “Packerettes.”

To be continued