On Dec. 31, 1967, the Green Bay Packers played the Dallas Cowboys. It was a game so cold it was dubbed the Ice Bowl as temperatures dropped to 13 degrees below zero as the two teams fought for the NFL championship and the right to play in Super Bowl II.

Standing on the sidelines, wearing tennis shoes, jackets, skirts and tights were the Golden Girls — the Green Bay Packers cheerleaders.

“Frostbitten faces, frostbitten toes! They have heaters on the sidelines for the players, and we were able to use those heaters to warm up a bit,” Dana Berns, a Golden Girl in the 1960s, said. “We never considered not being on the field.”

Mary Jane Sorgel, the team’s founder, wanted to pull her girls off the sidelines and send them home. They wouldn’t hear of it.

“I tried to get the girls off the field sooner, because it was getting really bad. The band director said if anybody wants to go, they could, but they were just so into the game,” Sorgel said.

Frostbitten faces, frostbitten toes! They have heaters on the sidelines for the players, and we were able to use those heaters to warm up a bit. Dana Berns

The Packers won 21-17, and went to win the Super Bowl in Miami. The Golden Girls’ season was over after the Ice Bowl though. As a group of mostly high school-aged girls, they didn’t travel with the team.

Sorgel first started with the Packers as a baton twirler with the band. She co-hosted The Curly Lambeau Show. When Lambeau, the Packers’ founder, gave her an engagement ring, she couldn’t say yes. He was thrice-divorced, and she said her religion wouldn’t allow the marriage.

“He said, ‘Look. We’ll wait until we can straighten this out. Keep the ring I gave you.’ That’s what I did,” Sorgel said.

He was mowing the lawn at her parents’ home in Sturgeon Bay, Wis., when he had a heart attack and died in her father’s arms in 1965.

“He just fell over into my dad’s arms. It was the saddest day of my life,” Sorgel said. “I ran out and tried to give him as much help as I could. My mom called the ambulance and she called the doctor. The doctor was a friend of mine and he said, ‘There’s no hope.’”

It was Vince Lombardi, the man who led the Packers back to winning, who first envisioned a group of cheerleaders for the sidelines at Lambeau Field. He asked Sorgel to get a group of girls together. In 1961, the Golden Girls were born.

From the beginning, Lombardi and his wife Marie had strong opinions on what the Golden Girls. He wanted the Golden Girls to be wholesome and represent the team as ladies. He weighed in on the women’s costumes and sometimes gave them notes on performances.

“He was very strict, and he didn’t like the girls with the little outfits that are just too racy. He liked good, wholesome girls. I had rules for my girls to make sure they would meet whatever he wanted. It worked,” Sorgel said.

The Golden Girls were not allowed to smoke in uniform and they were not to talk to the players.

Many of the traditions they started continue at Lambeau Field until today. Lombardi worried when fans weren’t cheering enough. He gave Sorgel a microphone and asked her and the cheerleaders to come up with a chant the crowd could quickly learn and repeat. If you’ve watched a Packers game on television — or been around a group of Packers fans anywhere in the world — you’ve heard it.

GO! PACK! GO!

“Every time I hear it, I remember that! I’m so proud.” Sorgel said.

The women who cheer NFL teams today are quite different from the Golden Girls. They’re older, and usually have more of a dance background than cheerleading. The Packers no longer have the Golden Girls. Instead, they are cheered on by collegiate squads from nearby St. Norbert and UW-Green Bay.

“If people realized how much time and effort goes into preparing for the routines that we did, and they’re currently doing now, they would be quite surprised. The effort and the energy that is involved and the dedication,” Berns said. “Every time I see these people on the sidelines, and they get a little blurb or a flash on the camera on the sidelines, I think, ‘Great!’ That’s basically what you receive as appreciation for what you’re doing.

Berns and teammate Michele Ozkan both said being a Golden Girl gave them a wide array of opportunities. Ozkan took over Sorgel’s studio when she retired from teaching baton twirling, where she first learned of her love of working with children. Now, she teaches kindergarten.

For Berns, dancing and cheerleading helped her stay active in a time before Title IX and school-sponsored sports teams for girls. She is now a physical education teacher at a parochial school in Wisconsin.

“We have a lot of history, more so than just on the field. It’s opened so many doors for us. It’s fun to have in your back pocket, especially as I’m getting older. It’s fun to go back and think about that time on the field with the Packers,” Berns said.

In 2007, the Packers added a permanent installation commemorating the Golden Girls to the Packers Hall of Fame. 67 of the Golden Girls returned to Green Bay for the night the installation was unveiled. Both Berns and Ozkan brought their adult sons.

“My sons didn’t believe I was a cheerleader!” Ozkan said. “Finally, when we went to the Hall of Fame, and he saw the pictures, he believed me.”

My sons didn’t believe I was a cheerleader! Finally, when we went to the Hall of Fame, and he saw the pictures, he believed me. Michele Ozkan

They all are still devoted to the Packers. Sorgel does shows at senior centers near Green Bay, teaching cheers and showing her memorabilia. When the Packers make it deep into the playoffs — this season didn’t make the cut — Berns does a pep rally with her students.

What still sticks out in Ozkan’s mind is how the Packers united people at a time when the country was severely divided. She cheered with Green Bay from 1967-71.

“There was the Vietnam War, and people were protesting against it, and people for it. We were so divided, but on Sunday afternoons, we were all together,” she said. “We were all Packers fans.”