The Daily Observer London Desk: Reporter- Judith Benjamin
From a blank mind to a blank page: after everything faded to black for FJ Hogg, his younger brother Carter turned to a white sheet. Just as dad had always taught them to do.
FJ has a picture of his Washington and Lee University football team celebrating a conference title back in January 2022. He just doesn’t remember the game. The former linebacker suffered a career-ending concussion that day. It was an injury that persuaded his brother to join the family business: invention.
Their grandfather – a former FBI special agent – was a pioneer in the development of credit cards, dad Jason has dozens of patents to his name. Within a year of his brother’s head knock, Carter was the brains behind a revolutionary balaclava that – early tests show – can reduce the risk of concussion by up to 60 per cent.
He is in talks with the NFL; pro players have already worn it in preseason. So has Carter – a sophomore economics student and defensive back from Dallas – and some of his teammates at Johns Hopkins University.
All the while, the long-term risk of head injury continues to cloud the NFL: this week alone, Brock Purdy, Deshaun Watson and Bijan Robinson have been caught in the fog of concussion and controversy.
Carter Hogg (centre) pictured alongside his brother FJ (left) and their father Jason (right)
He developed G8RSkin, a 5mm-thick balaclava that stabilizes the neck and protects the head
‘Obviously it’s a major issue and people are coming up with new ideas but within my family, invention is such a key concept,’ Hogg explains. ‘So I just figured: why can’t I at least try to bring something new to the table?”’ That curiosity and conviction stems from what his father called the ‘white-sheet approach’.
‘Don’t just build off what is existing, feel free to imagine something that might not exist right now,’ Hogg explains. So he did: the G8RSkin, a 5mm-thick balaclava – worn under a player’s helmet – that helps stabilize the neck and soften the impact of blows to the head.
But Hogg isn’t done there. Alongside his degree, he is tweaking the device for other sports such as hockey, lacrosse and skiing. In time, he hopes it can be adapted for rugby and soccer. The sophomore is developing ideas to revolutionise shoulder pads, mouthguards and cleats, too. His end goal? ‘Players are able to play almost fear-free,’ he explains. ‘They can go and do whatever they want to do and not have the fear of injury or long-term consequence to playing these different wonderful sports.’
Hogg had been conscious about concussion long before his brother’s injury, which has left FJ with lingering vision problems. He would research helmet technology and which offered the best protection.
‘But when he had that incident, it really drove me to seek a new solution,’ the 20-year-old explains. ‘Because he was already in one of the best helmets that existed at the time… so clearly the solutions out there weren’t sufficient.’
San Francisco’s Brock Purdy is among the NFL stars affected by concussion in recent weeks
The student has been working to adapt the hood for other sports such as hockey and lacrosse
Hogg could see that across sports, innovative changes to equipment were rare. ‘That really drove me not to expect somebody to come out and have this new solution,’ he says. Still, very few teenagers would join those dots and conclude that change was down to them. But very few youngsters had their mind furnished with invention from such a young age.
‘My father founded his own company back in the early 2000s – Revolution Money – he sold it to American Express and when I was four, living in Florida, I used to go into the office with him, I’d sit in some meetings,’ Hogg explains.
‘He would actively bring us into what he was doing and explain what he was inventing, how it functioned and everything like that.’ Results didn’t come immediately. ‘Back in the day, I didn’t really have that great ideas,’ Hogg says. ‘I would really just tinker around and make little gadgets.’
In the 12 months after FJ’s injury however, Carter and his dad struck gold. Initially, they focused on improving helmets. But with so much money and research already flooding into that area, Hogg decided his time would be better spent elsewhere. ‘Being a player myself, I really wanted something that was capable of being worn in practice and in games, that wasn’t going to inhibit the player at all and that’s what really drove me down the road to the balaclava.’
He’d seen them worn by teammates and NFL stars such as Lamar Jackson. ‘Why can’t you take something like that and make it into a piece of protective equipment?’ he thought. That bulb flicked on in the spring of 2022. For the next six months, the challenge was simple: develop a balaclava could go from flexible to rigid under impact.
Hogg had seen teammates and NFL players such as Lamar Jackson wearing balaclavas
‘Something my dad has always focused on (is) that test, learn, iterate process,’ he says. ‘That’s how we got to where we are today.’ By December 2022, they had a physical prototype. By January 2023, they knew they were on to something. ‘We tested it for the first time and saw the amazing benefits,’ Hogg recalls.
‘We went in looking for a 10-20 per cent efficacy (in concussion risk reduction)… and we got numbers as high as 60 per cent. ‘That was a moment where we thought: we have to dig into this and get going because just sitting around with this product, not doing anything is not only a waste from a financial standpoint but there a lot of people that can be helped… not only in the short term – concussion numbers decreasing – but it’s something that’s going to make a long-term difference in those players’ lives and the lives of their families.’
Since those initial tests, Carter and his dad have been searching for ways to make the balaclava even sleeker and even more effective – ‘to the point that it’s essentially just a balaclava.’
They want the G8RSkin to be worn across multiple sports and, before long, adapted for athletes who don’t wear helmets. Initial testing saw even more remarkable results in skiing and ice hockey. A team doctor for USA Hockey, who serves on G8RSkin’s medical advisory committee, believes the balaclava could ‘change the game.’
Talks and testing continue with the NFL. Players have been trialling the hood and giving their feedback, too. Last month, teams ranging from middle school to college joined a pilot. ‘We are attacking it from all different angles so that we can get that league adoption as fast as possible.’ All the while, Hogg is eyeing ways to reduce concussions through mouthguards and improve performance by changing players’ cleats. He has already filed a provisional patent application for a concept that would change shoulder pads, too. The aim is to reduce injury and improve performance.
‘The current shoulder pads stop you at about 90 degrees when you’re trying to raise your arm above you head whereas our new design would basically give you a full-range of motion,’ he explains. ‘(To) allow players to play like they would if they were in a t-shirt.’ A t-shirt and a balaclava, perhaps.
