More on Fandom: Big Heads in College Basketball

George Dohrmann of Sports Illustrated talks about the history of big heads in his article How big heads became a part of college basketball culture. We wrote about fandom in this blog earlier and this is why it was even more interesting to learn more about big heads.

The story of big heads started in 2002, when San Diego State alumnus Conor Mongan presented the very first Michael Jackson big head at the college basketball game. His initial idea was to distract free-throw shooters and, indeed, his idea worked and the opponent missed both free throws that game.

Years later, big heads became popular all across the US and joined foam fingers, rally towels and thunder sticks as part of the collegiate fandom artifacts. From one big head the idea grew to the multi-million dollar industry. At Marquette university big heads are sponsored by the company which name is featured on the back of each item and are called Big Noggin program in general. What also changed is that now big heads lost its original meaning and mostly used to gain TV attention.