The ACL Origin Story - When Heat Met Bad Decisions

Written by Sam Stein | Founder, Trucker Hat Boots

It All Started at Austin City Limits (But My ADHD Brain Forgot)

Let me be real with you – I have pretty bad ADHD, so I probably thought of these goddamn trucker hat-styled boots about 3-5 times before I actually wrote the idea down. The concept was always the same: it's blazing hot outside, I'm usually a few drinks in, and those cowboy boots everyone's wearing look absolutely killer but feel like wearing ovens on your feet.

Maybe it's not just ADHD. Maybe it's the heat making me stupid.

My girlfriend swears the first time I had this brilliant (or insane) idea was at Austin City Limits Festival – a whole month before that legendary Thanksgiving rivalry game I always talk about. I was there to catch Misterwives then Orville Peck, but the heat was so brutal I needed to conserve energy for Chappell Roan later that evening.

So there I was, ducking out of concerts and half-watching the football game while lying flat on my back in the craft beer tent like some kind of festival casualty.

The Fashion Inspiration Hit Different at ACL

Chappell Roan, Orville Peck – the crowd was bringing their absolute best festival fashion. Men in tanks, trucker hats, and flip flops. Women in fanciful tops, jeans, and those perfect western boots that were probably cooking their feet like thanksgiving turkeys.

Meanwhile, my overheated, Grand-Funk-Railroad-listening ass was lying there thinking about how cool boots would look... and how it was way too damn hot to actually wear them. Tisk tisk on all these folks suffering in cowboy boots for the sake of style!

The lightbulb moment came from what I was wearing: a lime-green trucker hat that made a joke out of some political ad. That mesh was keeping my head cool while everyone else's feet were dying in leather. That's when Trucker Hat Boots officially entered my subconscious (even if my ADHD brain would forget and "reinvent" them several more times).

From Crazy Idea to Mesh Dreams

I started mentally crossing out traditional boot designs, figuring out exactly where to put those mesh panels, dreaming up boots that would give a nod to tradition while keeping your feet from turning into BBQ. What started as heat-induced delirium became a full-blown obsession.

Next post: How a rivalry game in 90-degree November weather turned my forgotten ACL idea into an actual prototype (featuring ChatGPT hallucinations and a very patient girlfriend with a JoAnn's gift card).