Posters 101
June 15, 2008 | Football
In conjunction with last week's postid=1030"> --> blog featuring the photo shoot from this year's senior football poster, uwbadgers.com investigated to see where the ideas come from and who comes up with the ideas for the football posters. (photos attached)
Associate athletic director, John Chadima was the man behind the original Wisconsin senior football poster 'Stepping Out in the 90's'. Chadima was the team's director of football operations from 1990-97 and 2000-03, coming to Wisconsin with former head coach and current athletic director Barry Alvarez. In 1990, Chadima presented the idea to the coaching staff as a new way of promoting the team.
'We threw it out there in one of the first staff meetings we had when Alvarez became the coach,' said Chadima. 'Everyone was pleased after we did the first one and we have been doing them ever since.'
Chaidma got the idea from Iowa where he and Alvarez had both previously worked. Iowa had been doing the senior posters for a few years and Coach Bielema was actually on the senior poster at Iowa in 1992.
'During the mid-1990s the poster revolution really caught on here at Wisconsin and it wasn't just the football team having them made,' said Chadima. 'Today, ten different teams annual print a poster prior to the season. '
UWBadgers.com: Which poster was the most fun to shoot'
Chadima: The Gladiator themed poster in 2001 was probably one of the coolest ones we shot. It was right after we had gotten back from winning our second-straight Rose Bowl and when 'Gladiator' the movie had just opened up. Some of the players were sitting in my office and we all thought it would be a really cool idea.
When we were in California we met and got to know Henry Winkler (Fonzie from 'Happy Days' and a very distinguished actor/director/producer) and it turned out his daughter went to school at Wisconsin. We asked him for some ideas on costumes and he got us in contact with a company in Hollywood that actually ended up shipping us the Gladiator costumes to use for the poster. The players had a good time rubbing oil all over themselves to shine and show off their muscles.
UWBadgers.com: What poster was the toughest to shoot'
Chadima: The toughest one had to be the sailing theme in 1993. We actually drove to Milwaukee and were out in a sailboat on Lake Michigan. The players were all in one sailboat and then there was a smaller boat alongside taking the photos. It was tough because everything was moving with the water and some of the guys either didn't know how to swim or were not big fans of the water.
UWBadgers.com: Any other memorable shoots'
Chadima: The Harley Davidson Motorcycle theme in 1996 was another fun one. I remember it well, it was mid-afternoon and all of a sudden there is a huge noise outside and the building and everything was shaking, nobody knew what was happening. Well 30-40 Harleys were rumbling down Monroe Street, around Camp Randall and onto the field. It was a really cool sight to see them all come rolling down the tunnel an onto the turf.
