History of the Missouri Wolverines Logo

In August of 1999, Jim Tuso became part of the Wolverines Organization as an assistant coach on the 7th & 8th Grade level. By September, Tuso started to use some of his ideas and past football and computer experience to market the organization and promote the Wolverines Football Club.

During the spring of 2000, Tuso who is the owner of Toose Technologies, LLC sponsored the development of a Wolverines Website, which at the time was called www.wolverinesfootball.com. The website quickly became a hit with the parents and players, however the structure and overall design was very elementary and was in need of a more professional look that appealled to current players and parents and could be used as a recruiting tool to new players and parents.

So in the fall of 2000, www.wolverinesfootball.com received a complete makeover. A new design and layout was started with the central layout being based on a logo that would capitalize on the Wolverines name and their most distinctive feature, the wolverines helmet. The task of creating the Wolverines Logo was given to creative designer Nick Crofoot, who had done work with Jim Tuso and Toose Technologies in the past.

Crofoot and Tuso worked together during the early stages of development, exchanging ideas and mockups of the logo which saw several early designs. Besides the helmet and the word Wolverines, Tuso also wanted a Wolverine creature in the logo somewhere. Contrary to most people's idea of a wolverine, a wolverine is not a wolf nor is it the mythical comic book character. The wolverine is the largest land-dwelling member of the weasel family. It is about the size of a small brown bear, 25 to 34 inches long, with a tail measuring 7 to 10 inches. This created a problem because Tuso wanted an aggressive looking creature which would have depicted the stereotypical picture of a wolf.

The Wolverine Contrary to most people's idea of a wolverine, a wolverine is not a wolf nor is it the mythical comic book character. The wolverine is the largest land-dwelling member of the weasel family. It is about the size of a small brown bear, 25 to 34 inches long, with a tail measuring 7 to 10 inches.

So the idea of actually using a wolverine within the logo was scrapped. Next, Tuso asked Crofoot to put the face of a wolverine inside the Wolverines Helmet. Again, the wolverine face is more of a weasel then a wolf, so that again did not work. However, Crofoot played with the design and shadowed out the face of the wolverine and just used his eyes and teeth. A claw was then added to add fierceness to the logo.

After some minor tweaking and the addition of the Wolverine name around the border, Crofoot sent Tuso the finished design of the Wolverines Logo which features a shadowed out Wolverine with just his eyes and teeth showing and a claw wearing the Wolverines Helmet outlined by the Wolverines name.

Later that summer, Crofoot and his wife Angela Hong developed the new Wolverines site which is still in use today. The logo was displayed in the top left hand corner of every page and the navy and yellow colors were used throughout the site.

In 2002, the Wolverines obtained their 501(c)(3) status so the official name of the Wolverines Website was changed to www.missouriwolverines.com, however www.wolverinesfootball.com still works.

The Missouri Wolverines would like to thank Nick Crofoot and Angela Hong for all their work on establishing the Wolverines Logo and Website which are more along the lines of a professional corporation's website than a youth football team's.