Brett Grill: The Artist the Bo Schembechler Statue

A few quick hitters on the Bo Schembechler statue.  I spoke to the artist, Brett Grill, a few hours before the unveiling tonight – a few nuggets:

• Grill was identified by a art consultant that the athletic dept hired, and selected after a review of 3-4 other candidates.
• The only guidelines for the design were that Bo would be wearing an ‘M’ hat and no headset (on his head that is).
• He created 20-30 models, with different ideas on the pose, etc.  He eventually created a scale model of the design selected.
• He interviewed family, friends and former players (including Jim Brandstatter & Fritz Seyferth) to understand as much about Bo as he could.
• His parents are Michigan alums – before the project his knowledge of Bo centered around watching him on TV as a child.  Before the project Bo was more of a caricature (the guy Grill recalled yelling on the sidelines).
• Statue is 7 1/2 feet tall, made of bronze.
• He used actual Bo era artifacts for the project – including the headset and the Rose Bowl watch.
• One challenge was getting the contours of the jacket correct—he actually used a vintage jacket found on eBay to help get it right.
• Grill is an associate professor at the University of Missouri.

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