Here's a fun fact: there hasn't been a wild wolverine confirmed in Michigan since the 1800s. So how did the University of Michigan, the team you'll see on game day at the Big House, end up with one as their mascot?
The 1861 origin story
The earliest documented use of "Wolverine" as a nickname for Michigan students dates back to 1861, when the school's first football team referred to themselves that way. There are a few theories about how the name stuck — the most likely is that "Michigander" wasn't catching on, and "Wolverine" sounded a hell of a lot tougher than "the guys from Michigan."
The Fielding Yost era
Coach Fielding Yost, who arrived in 1901 and built the football program into a national power, leaned heavily into the Wolverine identity. He even tried to import live wolverines for sideline appearances. (It went about as well as you'd expect.)
The mascot today
Today, the Michigan Wolverine lives on as one of college football's most iconic identities — even without a single sighting in the wild for over a century. There's something distinctly Michigan about that: stubborn pride in something you can't actually find anywhere else.
Our Ann Arbor Pocket T Shirt features an original retro Wolverine illustration — the kind of design that would've felt at home on a 1970s pennant.