POCATELLO — You can tell when you’ve got a product that resonates with the public when it generates unsolicited excitement.

For example, sitting among the Montana fans at the Oct. 4 Idaho State University-Montana football game, several Grizzly fans were commenting on the “POKY” hats that ISU coaches were wearing.

That was noteworthy given that Montana fans don’t typically find much of anything related to ISU or Pocatello worthy of note.

The next day, a scan of Facebook showed several ISU players wearing the POKY hats, with comments asking, “Where do I get those hats?”

The answer is from Leo, a limited liability company started by ISU linebacker Junior Damuni.

Damuni, from Logan, Utah, has an older brother, Levani, a linebacker at the University of Utah, and a younger brother, Jovesa, who plays running back at Brigham Young University. They always seem to have some kind of swag that represents their schools and their state. Junior decided it was time Pocatello and ISU got the same treatment.

“Whenever I’d go home to Utah, my brothers that play at the universities were always repping something from their school, or from Utah in general,” said Damuni, who is a senior at ISU, but is out for the season with a torn ACL he suffered in the loss at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “There was a bunch of hats I saw in Utah. I thought it would be cool if Idaho State or Pocatello had some hats like that in general. I couldn’t find anything, so I decided to create it myself – make some designs that represent Pocatello.”

Damuni, who is a communications major, used the knowledge he got from classes like Photoshop and advertising, mixed that with his own observations about what inspired him, and created his own designs.

Then he started investigating how to get the hats manufactured. He checked on several companies in China, had them create samples, and then selected the company he felt produced the best product.

He had 500 hats produced in his first order and, with strong demand for his first run, he’s followed that up with an order for another 1,000 hats.

Damuni estimates he’s sold between 200 to 300 hats at $40 apiece so far, many to teammates and ISU coaches. He also has a name, image and likeness deal with his teammates to represent his company, and he pays them through the NIL process for promoting his product.

Among his original designs are the POKY hat, one that uses the 208 area code, another that is inspired by the Shoshone-Bannock Casino at Fort Hall and features a slot machine, and a camouflage design in deference to his many teammates who enjoy hunting.

“I think the POKY ones, they’ve been the most popular for sure with my teammates,” said Damuni. “It’s cool seeing them wearing them. … All of a sudden, it’s a cool thing to rep Pocatello. I just feel like Poky has a bad rep, but you just put a cool design to it and people will wear it. It will be a positive thing.”

Damuni and his wife, Tinola, are expecting their first child, a baby boy, in December. They started the company partly because they felt it would be a good way to stay involved in the Pocatello community after Damuni’s football career at ISU was over. He is planning to use his redshirt season to return to play for ISU next season.

The company name — Leo — was a joint decision by the Damunis. “We were just going through a bunch of names, and we just liked how Leo sounded,” he said. “It was something new, something both of us liked.”

Leo doesn’t have a license yet to produce ISU merchandise, but they do have approval from the school to use Bengal players wearing ISU uniforms to promote the hats. Damuni’s long-term goal is to focus Leo products on smaller schools like ISU and other FCS schools, as well as on smaller towns like Pocatello.

“There are a ton of other brands that focus on the big schools,” he noted. “We made this (company) especially for the lower-level schools and cities that don’t get a lot of representation. I thought it would be cool to give the brand that mission to take care of the underdogs, the overlooked cities and stuff like that. Going into the future, I would like to get licensed with a bunch of FCS schools just because the FBS already has a bunch of stuff. I’d like to cater to smaller schools like Idaho State."

The Damunis have created the company with no real business background. “I opened an LLC; I kind of just learned all of this off of YouTube,” said Damuni. “I didn’t take any business classes. Just learning off of YouTube and working with other guys that have experience in this. It’s been good — I got all the permits, the tax stuff.”

Leo’s merchandise is available on their Instagram page, Leodropped. They also have a web page, Leodropped.com, where you can leave your email address and the company will get in touch with you when the next batch of hats and the newest designs are available.

“It’s been super cool, I’ve gotten a ton of good reactions to it,” Damuni said of his hats. “I think people, they really like the whole idea of representing where they’re from, and what they do.”