New England Patriots safety Jabrill Peppers took the field this season looking a little different from his teammates. The NFL veteran’s helmet was covered with a protective soft shell called a Guardian Cap. These covers are designed to add more protection to the player’s head and reduce the impact from hits, with the NFL seeing preseason concussions, in 2022, drop by over 50%.
“I’m a hitter, so the more protection I can get, why not?” Peppers told The Athletic. “As long as it’s not impeding me or slowing me down, I don’t see why not.”
Protecting players has been of greater emphasis among football programs and leagues in recent years, and two Eagle Scouts are helping support that push.
Seeing a need
Lee Hanson, his wife Erin and their son Jake, run Guardian Sports in Peachtree Corners, Ga., just outside of Atlanta. The family-run business, which employs about two dozen people, provides protective gear for more than half a million athletes in the U.S. and Canada.
These include all National Football League players, who wear Guardian Caps during practice and this year have the option to wear them during regular season games, like Peppers is doing. The company also supplies gear to more than 500 colleges, 5,000 high schools, more than 1,000 youth programs and the Canadian Football League.
Guardian Caps can also be used in hockey and lacrosse.
“We’re the primary player in the space,” Jake says. “We wrote five different patents around the Guardian Cap itself.”
The padded helmet covers stemmed from a need the Hansons heard about to upgrade the standard football helmet. As reports unveiled the link between repeated concussions to the neurodegenerative disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, people began looking at redesigning the helmet to help reduce concussions.
Lee relied on his expertise in chemical engineering to concoct a cover that could easily snap onto any football helmet. This cover not only would add cushioning but would also deflect the energy from impacts.
“It was like a Scout project,” Lee says. “We put a lot of thought and engineering into it. We came up with a pocketed design. We wanted to have one-size-fits-all and for it to be low cost.”
Lee and Erin literally sold the caps out of the trunk of their car, selling the first in 2012. Within a few years, high schools and dozens of colleges were using them, and the NFL began to take notice.
Eagle expertise
Lee grew up in Rome, Ga., where he was part of a Scout troop. He earned the Eagle Scout rank when he was 17 years old. He attended Georgia Institute of Technology, where he studied chemical engineering. A little over a decade later, he and Erin launched a material science company, providing bespoke development work to clients like BASF, 3M and other chemical giants, creating new solutions for the military such as bullet-proof glass and self-sealing fuel tanks, and for consumers, getting into rock climbing hold manufacturing and the coating for golf balls.
Lee also served as a Scout leader in Jake’s troop. Jake heard about his father’s Scouting stories and wanted to have his own camping, caving and backpacking adventures. But the biggest takeaway from Scouting that both Lee and Jake point to are the tenets of the Scout Oath and Law.
“I always say church and my faith gave me my direction, but Scouting gave me the tools to get there,” Jake says.
Jake also earned the Eagle rank at age 17 and went to Georgia Tech. He studied finance initially starting his career in consulting. He now serves as the chief operating officer while Lee is the company’s president.
“I think integrity and loyalty – both of those are huge components to our business,” Jake says. “Always putting our customers first. We’ll figure out how to make our products better.”
Guarding athletes
Guardian Sports produces more than helmet covers. The company makes lacrosse balls, designed not to get greasy or hard over time. Jake played lacrosse for Georgia Tech and knew rubber balls could get hard as a rock over time. Guardian Sports’ ball won’t do that, and the NCAA picked up on it and partnered with the company to supply balls for its collegiate championships.
Guardian Sports also designed infill for synthetic turf fields. Many fields use rubber from ground-up tires, but that comes with potential environmental and health dangers. So Guardian Sports developed a more natural solution.
“It’s made of corn and soy,” Lee says. “It’s softer, reflective and 27 degrees cooler. It’s safe enough to flow into a river and won’t kill the fish. It’s extremely safe for kids to play on. Our whole mission is protecting kids. Everything we’re doing has a safety aspect to it.”
And the company is seeing that through its primary product: protective headgear. The NFL’s studies reveal that the Guardian Caps helped reduce the number of concussions, even hitting a seven-year low in concussions during training camps. The covers, which only weigh about 7 ounces, also reduces radiant heat to the athletes’ head by up to 20 degrees.
The company’s goal is to continue to saturate existing markets, and expand and innovate products for other sports.
“That’s what our focus is: to help mitigate risks in the sports that athletes love,” Lee says.
Support the Eagle Scout Scholarship Fund
Contribute to the National Eagle Scout Association (NESA) Scholarship Fund. Donations to this fund go directly to providing scholarships to deserving Eagle Scouts, allowing them to pursue their dreams and make a positive impact on the world.
Donate Today