It was a hot and humid day in July just outside of Richmond, Virginia. It must of been about 100 degrees Farenheit, but the turf we were playing on was probably 10 degrees hotter than that. Sweating and losing steam, my teammates and I dropped our lacrosse stick in a pile and went for the ice bucket, which to our delight had frozen towels that we draped over our faces, all half listening to my coaches half-time pep talk. That's when one of my friends said "wow, I wish I could take this onto the field with me."

We continued our tournament, and to be honest with you I can't remember the scores, if we won or not, or even which friend said that statement, but an idea occurred to me and it would't stop bugging me. Was I stupid? has this been done before? In my mind at that point it was really just an ice-pack headband.

I started doing research. It turns out, many studies suggest that cooling ones head enhances performance. So I made a prototype out of one of my favorite headband companies, Skida headwear, based out of Burlington, Vermont. I emailed Corinne, the founder, and she was interested in my idea and wanted to meet with me.

Later that summer, we designed a headband that could slip a ice pack in and out. We used the scraps from the making or her other headbands, which was great, because it was upcycling and creating a new summer product.

I had a lacrosse Tournament up in Stowe, Vermont later that summer. I contacted the tournament about having a Skida booth there--featuring my headbands of course. In between my games, I sold my product at the booth. Before the day was even half over, I had sold out! My whole team had them for the rest of the tournament of course, and with it being my last tournament of my high school career, "cool bands", as I called them, made it extra special.