Fairleigh Dickinson’s Historic NCAA Tournament Run Gets The Bobblehead Treatment

The whirlwind chain of events propelling Fairleigh Dickinson’s basketball program into the national spotlight is less than a week old.

And now because of how the New Jersey school was able to make history, it is getting another way to celebrate its history making upset of Purdue as the second 16th seed to ever beat a one seed.

While t-shirts and posters exist, another way of celebrating is in the form of a bobblehead, the popular collectible often resulting in fans getting to stadiums hours early to ensure they get possession of one.

This time no waiting outside of a venue is required as the National Hall of Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum unveiled a bobblehead honoring Fairleigh Dickinson on Thursday, adding to the Northeast Conference school’s notoriety that includes 21-year-old Sports Information Director Jordan Sarnoff and coach Tobin Anderson, who parlayed the success in his first year from Division II St. Thomas Aquinas into the coaching job at Iona when St. John’s hired Rick Pitino earlier this week.

The design includes a likeness of a player wearing a No. 16 jersey to signify FDU’s place in college basketball history. The likeness wears the uniform similar that players such as Sean Moore sported while scoring 19 points in FDU’s 63-55 monumental upset over Purdue on the fifth anniversary of Maryland Baltimore-County’s stunning upset 20-point upset over Virginia.

Besides the likeness and uniform, the bobblehead has the headline “FDUnbelievable! as a play on words of the school and the significance of the achievement that other 16 seeds such as 1989 Princeton against Georgetown fell short of.

The bobblehead marks the second straight time a New Jersey school earned the distinction of being honored. Last year, St. Peter’s got the bobblehead treatment for its run to the Elite Eight after it beat Kentucky, Murray State and Purdue before bowing out to eventual national runner-up North Carolina.

Those schools wound up with their own version of the collectible similar to Villanova’s Picolo Girl in 2015 or Ron Hunter falling off the chair while coaching Georgia State to an upset of Baylor in the same tournament.

“It especially resonates with the fan bases,” Phil Sklar Co-Founder and CEO said via email. “Schools like FDU and Saint Peter’s never had a bobblehead until their March Madness moments captivated fans across the country. There are also quite a few college basketball fans that are collecting bobbleheads featuring unique moments going back to Villanova’s Piccolo Girl, Ron Hunter falling off his chair, UMBC’s upset, Saint Peter’s and now FDU among some others.”

The bobblehead was made after No. 16 seeds improved to 2-153 against No. 1 seeds. It occurred after television cameras filmed Anderson expressing his confidence in the Purdue matchup after FDU’s 84-61 rout in a First Four game on March 15 by saying: “The more I see Purdue, the more I think we can beat them.”

As FDU was captivating audiences and making history in Columbus Ohio, Sklar was watching and rooting for the school for the same reason similar to many others of liking notable upsets.

“As soon as the final buzzer sounded, we knew would need to make a bobblehead to commemorate the achievement,” Sklar said. “We immediately reached out to the school and licensing organization (CLC) to pitch the idea and they liked it. We added FDU as a school—we are now approved to produce bobbleheads for over 100 schools across the country. We then got working on the rendering first thing on Saturday and released it today.”

From there, there was a 2D rendering which goes through a few rounds of changes and alterations. Then came presenting it to FDU, which approved it and then comes the making of the clay mold, which after approval gets painted and produced.

Eventually FDU’s run ended with a competitive loss to Florida Atlantic, costing the school a trip to Madison Square Garden for the Sweet 16. How the Knights captivated anyone other than Purdue fans watching the tournament resonated so much that Sklar and his colleagues felt compelled to quickly make a bobblehead to celebrate the occasion nobody will ever forget.

“It’s been very positive,” Sklar said. “They helped move things along quickly so we could release it in a timely manner while the tournament was still going on.”

Even though FDU is not among the remaining eight teams, nobody will forget what was achieved similar to St. Peter’s last year and the memories are the impetus for this kind of collectible.