Ultimate Hat Collection Finalist – @Soccerboycoop

Learn more about this official finalist in the Ultimate Hat Collector 2019 contest, then vote for your favorite and a chance at winning a $50 Lids gift card!

A Little About You

My name is Cooper O. (AKA @soccerboycoop) and I am from and currently live in Denver, CO. My teams are the Denver Broncos, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, St Louis Cardinals (Been a Cardinals fan my whole life), Colorado Rapids and Arsenal. I have worn/collected hats my whole life. I can’t really pick the exact moment I got heavy into collecting, but around my junior year of college someone was at my place and saw I had a spinning hat rack for all my hats and said they never saw one of these outside of a store.  I realized then that I have a lot more hats than most people.

“…around my junior year of college someone was at my place and saw I had a spinning hat rack for all my hats and said they never saw one of these outside of a store and I realized I have a lot more hats than most people.”

How You Got Started

My collection really took off when I was living in Chicago and got a job at the Lids on State Street.  It was there that I learned more about on-field styles and that 59FIFTY’s weren’t just made for sports. When I was chatting with one of our regular customers he mentioned a Facebook group called Team Fitted that was comprised of a bunch of New Era 59FIFTY collectors from all around the world and I was stoked to hear there was a group of collectors like me that I could interact with. Joining Team Fitted has been one of the best/worst (for my wallet) things that’s happened to me because it connected me to collectors that I interact with every single day. It introduced me to hats from all over the world that I never would have gotten if I wasn’t a member of this group. It caused my collection of around 50 New Era 59FIFTY’s to skyrocket to the now 1,600+. My collection consists mostly of St Louis Cardinals hats where I have about 200+ but my largest collection is of Minor League hats which is around 400+.

Favorite Caps in Your Collection

I love the different designs Minor League teams have and how creative they get with them; I also love finding older hats from now defunct teams where people will ask me who is this team or where did you find this hat? I also love collecting custom made hats from Team Fitted members or other hat collectors I’ve met on Instagram. I’ve seen a few of our members go from designing hats strictly for the group to getting their hats sold in stores worldwide and that’s one of the coolest things to see. Starting from nothing and now anybody can get one of their hats

Closing Statements

I would say one of my favorite parts of collecting is communicating with other collectors, whether it’s sharing where to find a hat or what someone likes/doesn’t like about a design or just a simple “Awesome hat!” It’s been awesome growing my collection and meeting new people through it, and is something I will do for the rest of my life!

VOTE FOR @Soccerboycoop