I started collecting the Locker Room Hats in 2014 after the San Antonio Spurs won the 2014 Western Conference Finals (WCF) Championship. I became obsessed.

The WCF Hats are my favorite hats because they are a shorter manufacturing and selling run and therefor rare & highly collectable. The WCF hats are not as popular as Finals Champions hats with the public again adding to the collectability.

Lastly, collecting the hats is a great exercise that creates awareness of a team, players, dates, opposing teams, season ups and downs, etc. It deepens the fan experience.

Acquisition strategies for acquiring hats as follows:

• current hats: retail store purchases are the easiest but most expensive and the largest limitation is one cannot go back in time. Buy the hats when they are released.

• older hats: I was doing work in Houston TX and looked up a couple of sport hat distributers and they had “New Old Stock” (NOS). So in 2014 I walked to a shelf in a hat distribution warehouse and found a dozen brand new 1999, 2005, and 2007 SA Spurs Champions Hats still in a sealed box!

• flea markets, garage sales: but a big caveat here, I only purchased hats that appeared to be “unused” or “like new”. i passed up alot of dirty hats.