Jared Cohen
If you have watched any college basketball or any college sport over the last few years, you have seen the giant heads of players, coaches or any random character under the sun like Darth Vader or Homer Simpson that are held by fans in the crowd.
One Phoenix-based company is a creator of these heads which will be on display at the Final Four in Atlanta this weekend.
The Louisville Cardinals have launched the Win for Ware campaign after the horrific leg injury Kevin Ware of the Cardinals sustained in the first half of the elite eight game against Duke. It was one of the most horrific injuries seen on a stage like that in quite some time.
As Louisville builds that spirt and support for Ware, they reached out to Arizona’s own Build-A-Head and their founder Bryan Price to have Ware’s face present all over the Georgia Dome.
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“A lot of colleges have our sample,” explained Price. “Louisville reached out to us based on that looking to see if it was possible to have it done for Saturday in Atlanta. We’ve never turned something that quick.”
But Price and Build-A-Head got right to work. Louisville submitted Ware’s face on buildahead.com and they then took the image, blew up the size of the image and will have the head on a stick and ready to be shipped to Atlanta by Thursday.
After witnessing the Ware injury, many professional athletes, like Lebron James and Kobe Bryant, reached out to him on Twitter showing their support for a fast recovery. Price reached out to one pro athlete that they have worked with in the past who immediately got on-board with the Ware heads for Saturday.
“We have worked with Amar’e Stoudemire’s foundation in the past,” said Price. “We told them what we were doing and wanted to see if they wanted to get involved. Amar’e was all about it.”
As a result, Stoudemire’s Foundation funded all 1,000 of the Ware heads to be made and shipped for this weekend.
“Louisville was ecstatic,” Price mentioned.
The final product (as pictured with this article), has Kevin Ware’s face on the front and then on the back has Twitter hashtag #WinForWare along with Stoudemire’s foundation logo.
Build-a-Head has prided themselves on fan give aways which is the category that Kevin Ware’s head falls under. The heads by Build-A-Head have been seen at Suns games, like when Amar’e was on the team in the Western Conference Finals in 2009, as well as for pro teams around the country like the New York Rangers and Knicks, Denver Nuggets and have some coming up with the Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals.
This local three-year old company is quickly becoming a hidden gem which will be seen around the nation at the Final Four this weekend.
“We have the ability to fill an entire stadium with sponsor’s reaping the benefits on the back side,” Price explained.
Build-A-Head also works with youth sports, high schools and birthdays and have built major orders for Arizona State, the University of Arizona, Florida State and Georgia as well.
So when you see the Kevin Ware heads being held by 1,000 fans at the Georgia Dome this weekend, know that were created here in Arizona by Build-A-Head.
