As the cliché goes, idle hands are the devil’s workshop. When Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Mike Kafka had some downtime between NFL gigs, he designed something specifically for those idle hands.
“Two years ago, I was out of football for a year,” the former quarterback of Northwestern University said. “I would work out in the morning, and then I’d have the rest of the day to myself. I was losing my mind. I started thinking about stuff I wanted to make, looking into different products. How are they manufactured? What goes into building them?”
Kafka came up with the idea of creating the Roo Inferno, a handwarming pouch for people who work and play outdoors, much like quarterbacks use on wintery gamedays. “At first, I asked myself if I would wear something like this,” Kafka said. “Then I started asking people I knew well. My friend Riley Cooper of the Eagles said, ‘You know I bet hunters would use this when they were out in the cold.’ Then I asked my dad, and he said, ‘I’m sure utility workers and policemen and firemen would like to have something like this. Any outdoor job where you can’t really wear big bulky gloves.’ Suddenly, I started to envision a market place for it.”
Kafka has begun a Kickstarter campaign that you can view here that will fund production of the Roo. If all goes well, he hopes to be in production in time to have the product ready for February. “We’re excited about bringing the product to people,” Kafka says. “We’ve tried to take the best technology out there and put it all in one place.” Right at your fingertips.
