As an artist and a fan of the Dallas Maverick’s basketball team from a young age, Baylor alumnus Geoff Case knew there was something missing from the team’s uniform.

“I’ve always in the back of my mind seen a skyline on the jersey,” Case said. “I had drawn a version with one back in high school just on my notebooks and stuff.”

This past week, Case’s design featuring the Dallas skyline was selected as the official jersey for the 2015-2016 season.

Case was given the opportunity to make his sketch come to life when the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, started a contest in May 2013 on his blog . Cuban encouraged fans to design new jersey ideas for the team. Case said at first he thought he was too busy with work to enter, but he knew exactly what the team needed and found himself at the computer designing.

Case’s design was one of the top 10 selected by Cuban, which were then voted on by fans.

“Sometimes there is more creativity from the world than there is in house,” Cuban wrote in an email to the Lariat. “We work with great designers, but I wanted to open the door for anyone to try. Just as importantly I wanted to get people talking about the Mavs during a slow time.”

Case said his idea to feature the Dallas skyline came from the correlation he saw between the Mavericks’ success on the court and the city’s success off the court.

Sarah Melton, director of basketball communications for the Mavericks, said that after fans narrowed the top 10 designs down to three, Cuban chose the winner.

“The skyline was really appealing,” Melton said. “For the Mavs, it’s new and fresh and it was just recently named the best skyline in the country, so it was cool to piggy-back off that. But really, Mark loved it from the beginning and the fans did too.”
Melton said that Cuban’s love of fan input is what ultimately inspired and drove the contest.

Case said it was a completely unreal feeling to see his design chosen by the public, and by Cuban himself.

“When your design ultimately ends up on top and it’s for your favorite team, you get to be a part of their history and legacy,” Case said. “It’s just one of those unreal processes that only happens because of a guy like Mark Cuban.”

Since submitting his design for the contest, Case has started his own design company, 1 Man Agency. As a professional designer, Case said he could think of only one other jersey with such appeal to the eye.

“Besides this Mavericks jersey, the Baylor Bears’ all-black jerseys with the golden chrome helmets are the best I’ve ever seen,” he said.