BILLINGS — Accepting induction Saturday as one of the newest members of the Montana Football Hall of Fame, Dane Storrusten marveled at the sheer irony of his inclusion into the ever-growing club of Treasure State greats.
Storrusten, wearing a crisp hall of fame blazer that is bestowed upon each inductee, noted that he didn’t play football beyond junior varsity during his time at C.M. Russell High School in Great Falls and wasn’t ever really on the radar of legendary Rustlers coach Jack Johnson.
Storrusten also spoke about being in the shadows among the talent those CMR teams had, with many players going on to shine at the collegiate level.
And yet here was Storrusten, now the Emmy-winning Vice President of Creative with the National Football League, on stage at the Billings Hotel and Convention Center receiving what he described as one of the highest honors of his career without ever having played a varsity snap.
“You know, I talk to those guys and I go, ‘How did this happen?’” said Storrusten, who is based in Los Angeles. “I talked to all my alumni friends and I'm like, wow, this is crazy. But they've all been super supportive. They said, ‘Man, we knew you were an artist the whole time. We knew what you were going to do from Day 1 and you went out and did it and came back full circle.’
“So again, I’m truly full of gratitude and respect for everyone I grew up with and all the talent I grew up around. My coaches, my teachers, my design colleagues throughout my career, everybody.”
Primarily for his work with the NFL, Storrusten was added into the hall’s support category and was one of eight new inductees on Saturday, joining former players Dane Fletcher (Bozeman/Montana State Bobcats), Blaine McElmurry (Troy/Montana Grizzlies) and Shann Schillinger (Baker/UM), legend category member and late college coach Jim Sweeney (Butte/MSU/Washington State/Fresno State), and other support members such as NFL employee Robert Doore (Browning/Washington Commanders), strength coach Rock Gullickson (MSU) and longtime scout Marv Sunderland (Chester).
Growing up in Great Falls, football was admittedly not Storrusten’s best sport. That, he said, was baseball. When he walked off the gridiron for the final time Storrusten went on to forge a solid career with the Great Falls American Legion baseball program, and could have potentially played further in college.
He instead chose to focus on honing his talents as a graphic artist, skills that came about as part of a family tradition. His father Don was also an artist and his uncle Dennis is the owner of an art gallery in Great Falls.
After graduating from CMR in 1997, Storrusten spurned his athletic career for good and enrolled at the Art Institute of Seattle.
“I’m really glad I did that,” Sturrusten said. “I made that switch and got started early.”
Five years ago, after a working as a product designer away from sports, Storrusten was hired by the NFL, where he now specializes in visual communication and graphic presentation. His logo design for the league’s 100th anniversary season in 2019, which was emblazoned on every team’s uniform and every referee’s hat and was painted on every field, garnered a Sports Emmy Award.
It was a yearlong marketing campaign that enhanced the NFL’s brand and brought awareness to a century’s worth of football at the highest professional level, and it was obviously well-received by critics.
“It pretty much replaced the NFL logo for all intents and purposes for the whole year. So it was big deal,” Storrusten said. “It was really, really special to be a part of that. The 100-year anniversary was really cool.”
Storrusten described working with the NFL as his “dream job,” but he has goals he still wants to accomplish. Storrusten said his heart has always been with youth football, and he hopes to continue to help lift programs that are understaffed, underfunded and underprivileged.
“We recently did something with Inglewood High School (in California) where we helped them broadcast one of their games as though it was a professional football game and we taught them how to do it,” Storrusten said. “We had all the equipment there. We had students sitting in the booth pushing live graphics. Those little things I think are what make it really rewarding, and the NFL does help us have a voice there and gives us a platform for sure.
“Youth football is my thing. I want to get around to as many high schools as I can and make sure the students feel like superstars.”
A superstar himself, Storrusten now walks among the giants of football in Montana — without ever having taken a varsity snap.
Ironic, yes. But he is no less deserving.
“I must have done something right,” Storrusten said. “I'm glad that they've opened up a (support) category here, that's a little different and kind of maybe opens the pathway for other types of inductees that are changing the way we experience the game we love. It’s always changing and evolving. So I think there's going to be some interesting inductees going forward too, so hopefully this is the start of that.
“I’m just truly honored, honestly, being grouped in with all the great inductees from past and present and getting to kind of experience the NFL every day in a different way through a different lens. I see what these players go through, I see what these coaches go through and I just have a tremendous amount of respect for it. So I mean, to say I'm honored is an understatement.”