Boneyard Booster Club brings heart and help to Tucson Sugar Skulls

The people handing out lightsabers to fans will be decked out in black and gold attire — and some might have their faces painted. "War paint," as Scott Toot calls it. 

Not only is Toot a diehard Sugar Skulls fan, he's willing to do anything for the team, like passing out lightsabers. 

"If they need some assistance, that's what we're here for," Toot said. 

Toot is just one of nearly 100 people in the "Boneyard Booster Club," a collection of passionate Tucson sports fans who want a professional franchise to excel and become an attractive destination for indoor football players.

"You always want to create a family atmosphere," said Sugar Skulls head coach Rayshaun Kizer. "The closer these guys are, the harder they play on the field for each other. When you build a family, you can see it on the field. The boosters are a big part of that. They adopt some players and the players get to hang out with them off the field and build that bond." 

Boneyard Booster Club president and longtime Tucson resident Karin Merritt, along with Toot and his wife, Anita, among several others, became the Sugar Skulls' core fans when the team was launched in 2019. 

Merritt, who grew up rooting for Penn State and the Pittsburgh Steelers in State College, Pennsylvania, fell in love with the IFL after her brother became a season ticket holder for Arizona Rattlers games in Phoenix. When Tucson announced its plans for an IFL team, she jumped at the opportunity.

"The only reason ... I'm not season ticket holder No. 2 is that I was in a business meeting and couldn't get to the phone fast enough," Merritt said. 

Merritt's medical lab was right next to the Sugar Skulls' practice field at Kino Sports Complex. 

"I don't know how many times we threw footballs back over the fence," she said. "Now I'm team mom for all of them. I like being team mom. Both of my kids are grown and gone."

As the years went by, Merritt's fandom for the Sugar Skulls became a motherly resource for the team. In 2023, one of the players mentioned bowling while talking to Merritt. So, she and her husband, Arnulfo Delgado, took around 10 Sugar Skulls players bowling and bought them food at the bowling alley. Bowling nights became home-cooked meals and barbecues.

If the players were low on groceries, some of the Sugar Skulls boosters would take them to Costco. 

Scott and Anita Toot, who are attending 14 of Tucson's 16 games this season, get to know the players throughout the season during the meet-and-greets after games, and started taking players out to dinner on their own volition.

"The only thing we can't do is give these guys cash," said Scott Toot. "We can help them in other ways, like buying groceries, we can pick them up and give them rides, whatever they need. Some of these guys, it's their first time away from home. We give them a family environment and someone to call. It tickles us more than anything when you get a 6-3, 300-pounder calling you his parents. It doesn't matter what nationality, color, creed or whatever you are, we're a family."

Merritt pushed for the Sugar Skulls to collaborate on a booster club and asked the previous ownership of Cathy and Kevin Guy, "'What would we have to do to do this?' We kept getting pushed off and I decided that we're just doing it."

Merritt got a business license for the booster club and made it an official nonprofit organization. Merritt, the Toots and others eventually joined forces to officially launch the Boneyard Booster Club in 2024 to help players with day-to-day necessities, with the team covering housing and paying players on a per-game basis. Per-game stipends are not made public. 

The roughly dozen people in the first season of the Sugar Skulls' booster club — one of few in the IFL — made gift baskets for the players, which included deodorant, laundry detergent, paper towels, body wash, toothpaste and gift cards. 

Last season, the Boneyard Booster Club created the "apartment box" for the players, which had sheets, towels, dustpans, sponges, brooms, cleaning supplies, in addition to the laundry basket stuffed with living necessities. 

After preseason training camp, the Boneyard Booster Club created 40 baskets for the players and 10 apartment boxes. 

"It has only grown and we're doing so much more," Merritt said. 

Once a week, the boosters will take the players out to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, Asian 1 Buffett and Golden Corral, among other restaurants, in addition to home-cooked meals. Merritt will stop by practice, usually every Thursday, to give the players fruit and home-made cookies. 

Before every road trip, the Boneyard Booster Club hosts a send-off, providing snacks for the players to take on the bus. Last year, a player couldn't afford to travel home for an emergency, so the boosters "made four or five phone calls and got him enough money to get a plane ticket and something to eat on the way," Toot said.  

Sugar Skulls co-owner and president Edmund Marquez recently recalled a booster paying for a player to get the oil changed on his car. 

"They just love our athletes and they adopted them," Marquez said. "They consider them like sons." 

Added Kizer: "They've been awesome. We're lucky to have them. They're great for the players on and off the field. They're very supportive, they do a lot of things for the players off the field. They want to make the players feel like they're at home. They know the players don't have a lot of family out here, so they're there for the guys."

In less than three seasons, the Boneyard Booster Club has grown exponentially  and "we have (IFL) teams reaching out to our booster club to ask them how to start one," Marquez said.

"It's been the biggest pleasant surprise of owning the Sugar Skulls," Marquez added. 

For Merritt, "it's not just a product on the field. They're people who have lives and dreams and want to go somewhere," she said. For Toot, "I live vicariously through these players. I'm nowhere close to their size, but it's fun," he said. 

Most importantly, the Boneyard Booster Club, in addition to the Sugar Skulls' unique ownership model as a locally-owned IFL team, could be one of the key cogs to Tucson's rise as an IFL franchise. 

"Tucson is about our community and we have a bunch of people who really enjoy having a pro team here and want to support the players," Toot said. "We want to keep these players. We don't want to be a feeder team. We want to have the players who want to come here and want to do well and stay here for a few years and move on to the NFL or whatever they do.

"That's our thing: what can we do to help the owners and the players and promote this league and this team?"  

Extra points

– The Sugar Skulls are making a change at quarterback after starting Draylen Ellis and Kacey Otto the first five games. Tucson signed quarterback Tasleem Wilson, a 6-4, 230-pound IFL veteran, who played for the Sioux Falls Storm and Massachusetts Pirates. Marquez said Wilson "brings a lot to our offense. ... He's a veteran of the IFL, he's got a cannon of an arm. He's a true leader. You can see the hop in the step from the receivers, the excitement from the offense. ... We're going to score more points, we're going to win more games, so we're excited." 

– Arizona men's basketball head coach Tommy Lloyd, who led the Wildcats to their first Final Four in 25 years, will be the honorary captain for the Sugar Skulls on Saturday. 

– The Sugar Skulls are wearing Star Wars-themed jerseys on Saturday. The black and red jerseys have Star Wars villains Darth Maul, Darth Sidious, Darth Vader and General Grievous emblazoned below the number on the torso. The game-worn jerseys are being auctioned online at TucsonSugarSkulls.com.