Marge Switzer retires after 27 years

She also loves to problem-solve, such as when a pad needs to be sewn into a shirt to protect an injury. The biggest challenges come when players trade jerseys on game day with an old college teammate, or when a new player is signed Tuesday and needs to be on the practice field Wednesday.

In the first instance, if the same color jersey is needed for the next game, it likely will arrive from the manufacturer with very little time for the alterations.

In the second case, there’s no time to order anything. So either a stock practice jersey with the proper number is pulled and a new nameplate put on, or one is built from scratch overnight.

“If they get signed on Tuesday night and they’re out there Wednesday for practice, we have them ready,” Switzer said. “We’ve done them start to finish. That’s a crunch. If you only sign one, that’s not so bad, but if you sign two or three …

“We didn’t used to work Tuesdays, but we work Tuesdays now.”

After 27 years, Switzer has plenty of stories, all of which she tells with a mix of playfulness, seriousness, and reverence, if appropriate.

There’s the one misspelling she’s ever had on a nameplate, just a few years into her time with the team, when former first-round draft pick and Heisman Trophy finalist David Klingler was signed as a backup quarterback for training camp.

Switzer heard “Klinger” over the phone when the call came about the jersey request, and ever since all names are written down and checked on paper before the jersey leaves her sewing room.

There’s the picture she has of Aaron Rodgers, before his first press conference in Green Bay upon getting drafted in 2005, watching her put the finishing touches on his jersey before he walked out for pictures.

“He’s in the sewing room looking over my shoulder as I’m putting the name plate on,” she said. “He wanted to see it. No kidding. He just stood there and watched me, and if he thanked me once, he thanked me three times.”

One time Bart Starr came back for a special game-day appearance, but his jersey was too long.

“Red brought him in, and Bart took off the jersey and said, ‘Can you shorten it two inches for me?'” she recalled. “He stood there and waited for me to finish it. I was just stunned. He’s like a rock star and I get to hem this jersey for him.”

Another time referee Ed Hochuli forgot his official jersey for a noon game at Lambeau, and Switzer came to the rescue.

Fortunately, another member of Hochuli’s crew had a spare, but it was up to Switzer to get the “R” and Hochuli’s No. 85 on the back by 11 a.m. She used newswire photos to find the exact font in her computer and then went to work.

“Now, we are a green and gold team, so I don’t have a lot of black in that sewing room,” she said. “But I needed black lettering, and I had some black felt or fleece, I don’t remember. It was not something we would normally use. I put a backing on that, and we kept printing the number until we got it big enough, the right size and everything, and we had to cut it out.

“I had a small amount of fabric, there was not much room for a mistake, and when he walked out on the field it was perfect.”

The story was referenced in a Sports Illustrated piece on Hochuli 10 years ago but only mentioned “the Packers’ seamstress,” not Switzer by name.

Last but not least there was the young fan during a long ago training camp, waiting outside the old office entrance with his bike for a player to ride.

“He came up to me and said, ‘You have to be somebody famous because I see you here every day. Can you sign my helmet?'” Switzer said, giggling at the memory.

“So some little kid somewhere, if his mom kept the helmet, has a Marge Switzer autograph. He kept seeing me, so I had to be somebody important.”

More important than the humble seamstress would ever consider herself, though she’ll always remember the time Aaron Kampman stopped a stampede of players exiting a team meeting so she and her colleagues could cross the hallway safely. Her work is widely appreciated if never fully understood by those inside or outside the team.

Retirement will allow for more time to be spent with her four grandchildren, and to get back to traveling as the world moves on from the pandemic.

The last trip she had scheduled was to Peru in March 2020, but she never got into the country, just as Rodgers escaped it before the pandemic shut everything down.

“I’m going to quilt in the winter, garden in the summer, and travel whenever I can,” Switzer said. “That’s what’s in store for Marge Switzer.”

If she’s ever spotted in a Packers jersey, there’s no telling what number it’ll have. But one thing’s for certain – it’ll fit. Perfectly.