For this quick episode of the MVictors History Show I took a look at interesting Michigan Football uniform changes over the years. In particular, I examine the wolverine or ‘wolverbear’ patch U-M wore on its uniform for most of the 1962 season. It started with the game against Army played on October 6, 1962 in Ann Arbor.
Bump Elliott’s Michigan team finished just 2-7 that year but beat #10 Army in the game that debuted the “wolverbear” patch.
Here’s the full story, or at least as much as I know:
So why did we wear this? I don’t really know! I offer weak speculation in the clip above, but if you know please contact me or comment on my YouTube Channel.
UPDATE! Solved! I heard back from Greg Kinney at the U-M Bentley Historical Library…it turns out I was close to narrowing this down. Here’s a short follow-up clip:
Here’s a clip from the October 9, 1962 Michigan Daily that Kinney sent over:
Two other side notes to mention:
- First, something I hadn’t considered but the patch, at least on the home uniforms, was yellow or maize in color. I will update the Timeline. Of course we only have the black and white photos so I never knew. It probably looked more like this:
- Kinney shared a bit of history about this design itself which for while was ubiquitous in college memorabilia. “The logo itself was the creation of Arthur Evans [link to more on these designs], a former employee of the Disney Company who, with the Angelus Pacific Company of Fullerton, California, designed similar logos for hundreds of schools.”
For more, check out the U-M Uniform Timeline.
