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Local artist paints spectacular mural Wisconsin Badgers use for recruiting on official visits: 'I felt so honored'

Artist Tony Catteruccia painted a gigantic, near-panoramic mural that is used by the Wisconsin Badgers when hosting recruits on official visits. Players post pictures with it on social media.
Jake Kocorowski|
The Wisconsin football program commissioned local artist Tony Catteruccia to create a mural that will be used for official visits.
The Wisconsin football program commissioned local artist Tony Catteruccia to create a mural that will be used for official visits. | Courtesy of Wisconsin Athletics

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Tony Catteruccia admittedly isn't a diehard football fan, despite playing the sport in high school. But creating a mural for the Wisconsin Badgers is likely his "staple moment" for projects he's been commissioned to work on.

Catteruccia's nearly weeklong assignment resulted in a gigantic, near-panoramic painting that is used by the Badgers when hosting recruits on official visits. Photo shoots are common during these visits when teams attempt to persuade players and their families to join their programs.

Wisconsin already welcomed a few recruits on official visits in late April and expected to host about 16 players this weekend.

Players can wear jerseys, helmets and other team-affiliated gear for the pictures. It's one of the times of the year where creative teams can really flex their muscles, including determining which backgrounds to use.

The mural itself is a unique backdrop that's an intriguing complement to others that previously have been used by the Badgers, such as a white background or setting up around particular areas of Camp Randall Stadium.

"It's like the biggest deal so far that I have done. I felt so honored," Catteruccia said. "And obviously, being in the city of Madison, and the Badgers are the heart and soul of a lot. That W, it's very prominent here. You see it everywhere. Everybody knows that this is Badgerland." 

“And to be asked to do this, and to even be told that this is the first time anything like this has been done, for me, it's the biggest deal. For me, it was like, ‘Wow.’ And I'm very close with my younger brother, and he was a ball player. Football was his thing. ... I was enthusiastic, because it was like, ‘Man, I get to do this, and my brother gets to see it.’ And I thought about him while I painted it, and it was just kind of like crazy the odds and how they worked out."

How Catteruccia and Wisconsin connected on the project

Madison natives might have seen some of Catteruccia's artwork around.

Catteruccia currently works as a tattoo artist at Bad Apple Tattoo in Madison, but he's had a passion for aerosol art growing up.

He has created free murals around the area starting in 2019, then teamed up with Lincoln Rust for a mural that combined portraits of Malcolm X and George Floyd downtown in 2020. Others he's created include those off of State Street by Peace Park and near Reptile Rapture in nearby Monona.

About a week-and-a-half after finishing a painting on East Washington Avenue earlier this year, the owner of Eli's Art Supplies told Catteruccia there was someone from the Wisconsin football program wanting artists' names.

Fast forward a few months, and Catteruccia then spoke with Wisconsin coordinator of recruiting operations Marisa Pavone about potential interest in creating a mural for the program.

"So it was obviously very spontaneous," Catteruccia said. "I did not expect it, nor did I ever perceive that the Badgers, like the football team here, would actually even want someone to do something like that. So obviously I jumped on it. I was very ecstatic when I got the message."

Creating the mural

The wood canvas is four pieces assembled together, which Catteruccia estimated is about 12 feet tall by 28 feet wide.

He worked for five days at Camp Randall Stadium and believes it took around 22 hours to complete. Besides the towering pieces of wood, Wisconsin provided him with the necessary spray paint and paint markers.

Inspiration for the mural

Wisconsin provided him a checklist of notable items it wanted on the mural, which included the state capitol, Camp Randall Stadium, the Camp Randall arch and the words "On, Wisconsin." Catteruccia also provided a mock-up sketch design, and he collaborated well with Pavone and the staff with feedback.

Near the center of the mural is a player with Wisconsin's red jersey and pants, and on the left side is a player with a large hand on the ball ready to snap. That was part of his vision for the piece, where everything begins with the snap.

"My personal favorite is when you see close ups from, whether it was ESPN or whatever, when you see them put their hand on that ball," Catteruccia said. "And it's just like, 'It's game time. It's ready to go.'"

Catteruccia laughed when answering what the most challenging part of creating the mural was. He had never painted images of a state capitol or football player, but he loved the task of drawing difficult imagery.

"The entire mural itself was quite a challenge, but Camp Randall and the capitol specifically were the ones where I was like, ‘Oh, man,'" Catteruccia said. "Because the capitol itself took me a whole day just to get it to look the way I got it."

"The football player was easy, the football in the hand. But when it came to the structures, Camp Randall and the capitol, those were easily the most, I'd say, intense challenges out of that mural.”

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Jake Kocorowski
JAKE KOCOROWSKI

Jake Kocorowski has covered the Wisconsin football program since the 2013 season for a few outlets, most recently at the Wisconsin State Journal/BadgerExtra. He wrote, directed and edited BadgerExtra’s “Rags to Roses” series about the 1993 Wisconsin football team that won second place in the 2023 APSE Division C Project category.

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