Heads Giant

On the origin of the college basketball game trope

Over at Vice Sports today, David Roth has a delightful review of the history and cultural rise of the “Oversized Disembodied Head” (ODH) at college basketball games. It’s a wild ride from early-aughts San Diego State Shenanigans to Alabama Face Guy to (obviously) late capitalist ends:

Mongan’s contribution to the long tradition of fans trying to make things weird for the visiting team unfolds like basically every other cool thing in the culture, with young people messing around and being creative and trying to amuse and impress each other with acts of avant-garde dumbness. It was not just a DIY process but something like an artisan one; Mongan made the prints at Kinko’s and assembled them himself. “Back in the day,” he said, “there would almost be like an audible gasp or a cheer when we’d unveil a new one, because there was this element of surprise. I’d just like, roll in from Kinko’s and no one really knew what it was going to be. It was this cool time period where we just kind of had freedom, creatively, to pump out the weirdest stuff possible.”

You can read the whole thing here.

Those Oversized Disembodied Heads at College Basketball Games: A Life Story | VICE Sports