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| Here is the complete story - a GCU graduate got this business going. |
The most oversized few days of Gabe Cooper’s life began Nov. 27 when Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr. showed off his new Noggin Boss hat after the team’s victory. He said he got it from a "family friend."
The next night, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt displayed his Noggin, complete with Van Pelt’s signature head-and-headset logo, on his desk and then donned it during SportsCenter. Cooper had sent it to him a couple of years ago and never knew if he received it … until then.
By last weekend, two University of Georgia football fans were spotted in Noggins at the Southeastern Conference championship game.
Just like that, Cooper's company was the boss of the sports world, and his cellphone sounded like a church bell at high noon.
“My phone has been ringing, and I have no idea how they get my information,” the Grand Canyon University graduate said. “The email inbox has been pure insanity, and our teams have not slept. So it’s been great.”
Even someone from the NFL Network reached out and said they’ve never seen anything like it.
It’s quite the coup for the fledgling startup that now occupies a vast area in GCU’s Canyon Ventures Center. It has been so crazy, Cooper put out an urgent request for more student workers and doubled his staff to 10 – and is looking for more.
"I hope the kids that work for us get to learn a trick or two they can use when they start their own ventures," he said.
Noggin Boss was born in 2019 but didn’t officially get going until early 2020, just before the start of the pandemic. An appearance earlier this year on ABC’s “Shark Tank,” detailed in this GCU News story, jumpstarted the business.
