Elyse Tourangeau will don the green and gold of the Green Bay Packers and go to work Sunday morning in Wisconsin. Hours before the much anticipated football game with the New England Patriots, Tourangeau will mingle with fellow Packers fans at tailgate parties outside Lambeau Field.

Her job is to interview people she’s never met, polling them on topics ranging from lip balm to social causes for her employer, a Toronto-based marketing and advertising firm.

Invariably someone turns the tables and asks Tourangeau where she is from. Maine, she answers, and then describes the home she shares with her parents in Old Orchard Beach, which is painted in green and gold and known around town as the “Packers House.”

She’ll agree with her new friends that the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers is a better quarterback than Tom Brady and that the Packers usually find a way to win at Lambeau.

Once Tourangeau has asked enough people enough questions, she’ll watch the game from inside the stadium.

“I’m living a dream,” she said before leaving on her flight Saturday for Wisconsin. “I can’t believe I got this job. I can’t believe this is happening.”

Neither can she forget that Valentine’s Day about 17 years ago when she gave cards to her fourth-grade classmates. “The boys ripped them up in front of me. They were Patriots fans.”

She is 26 now and can laugh at the memory. Then, she felt bullied for the crime of being a Packers fan. Green Bay had beaten the Patriots in the Super Bowl just a few weeks earlier. She wrote a letter to Gilbert Brown, the 350-pound lineman on a Packers defense that allowed only 19 touchdowns in 1996.

“Could you come to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, to help me?” He couldn’t, but years later as it turns out, he launched the Gilbert Brown Foundation to fight bullying.

Elyse is the oldest of Judy and Bo Tourangeau’s three daughters. Her father grew up in Maine at a time when the Patriots weren’t very good. Looking for a winning team in the NFL, some Mainers adopted the New York Giants or even the Dallas Cowboys.

Bo Tourangeau chose the Vince Lombardi-coached Packers as his favorite team. As a young man he followed the Packers on television with a friend or two. When Elyse became old enough to understand football, she watched the games with him. She caught Packers fever. She may have been the only one in her school so afflicted.

She dressed as a Green Bay Packers cheerleader when she was much younger. She collected Packers stuff.

She played field hockey at McAuley High School and at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire. She coached field hockey for two challenging seasons at McAuley.

She never silenced her cheering for the Packers. Even in college she was known as the Packers girl. That identity led to her current gig in Green Bay.

Brandon Shorey, another Mainer at Franklin Pierce, became acquainted with Tourangeau. Years later and working for Grazie Media, Shorey was asked if he knew of a potential part-timer who could be added to a marketing team working at Packers games. Shorey thought of Tourangeau and made his pitch.

“I was nervous,” said Judy Tourangeau. “I’m her mother so I can say this: Elyse is a pretty girl and I was skeptical. I kept asking Elyse, ‘How well do you know this kid?’

“Then (Green Bay Packers gear) started coming in the mail and the start of the season was coming and we realized there was something to this. But really, it’s almost unbelievable.”

Her husband seems amused at how a young girl who grew up loving the Packers from afar and paying for that support by battling Patriots fans in her hometown is having the time of her life.

“It’s too strange,” said Bo Tourangeau. “You can’t make this up. It just fell into her lap.”

Judy and Bo Tourangeau left Old Orchard Beach early Thanksgiving Day to drive to Green Bay. They have tickets to Sunday’s game. The trip will be Bo’s second to Lambeau Field, but Judy has never been to an NFL game. She was more than a little excited.

Elyse works at every Packers home game. She flies to Green Bay the day before and leaves the day after. She majored in psychology at Franklin Pierce and is studying for her master’s degree at the University of Southern Maine, although she had to limit her course load after she got the job with Grazie Media. The company also markets its clients at NASCAR Sprint Cup races.

Where all this ends, Tourangeau isn’t sure. She will continue her education. Her future, she believes, is in counseling pro athletes. The girl who once asked Gilbert Brown for help could become the woman who assists men with their problems or challenges.

But first things first. She wants to see the Packers beat the Patriots.

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