After designing the most important graphic of his young career, Iowa native Dallas Hobbs realized something. The “WEWANTTOPLAY” graphic he made would be circulating around the internet was going to be carrying a powerful and important message for college football players.

But no one was going to know who actually made it. So, Hobbs, sitting in the office space he created in his Washington apartment, logged onto his Twitter @HobbsDesigns_, took a picture of the graphic on his computer and composed a message revealing that it was him, behind it: “20 mins to save the world…. that’s all the time they wanted to give me (with emoji).” 

“I definitely thought about putting my name, my little logo on there,” Hobbs said in a phone interview with the Des Moines Register Monday. “That’s why I did that tweet to kind of follow up and show that it was my workspace that it came from. Everyone knew after that where it came from.”

Just about everyone in the sports world has seen Hobbs’ work now. Hobbs, a former basketball and baseball player at Cedar Rapids Washington High School, is a defensive lineman for the Washington State football team. The redshirt junior appeared in 13 games last season including seven as a starter and recorded 13 tackles including a pair of sacks.

But perhaps Hobbs’ biggest contribution to college football has come as part of a movement from players demanding changes or else they’d boycott the 2020 season. Hobbs was one of 13 players in the Pac-12 who included their demands in an article published on The Players Tribune. Hobbs has been working with other college football players as a part of the We Are United Movement. The players called for, among other things, an end to racial injustice in college sports and better health and safety precautions.

Their work wasn’t done, though.  

The players, using the hashtag, #WeAreUnited, heard that college conferences could be making a decision on the future of the 2020 season during the COVID-19 pandemic. Hobbs said they wanted to be a part of the conversation. But they needed another way to get their message out. A statement with a graphic was pitched. Hobbs was pitched as the guy to do it by another Iowan, Dylan Boles a defensive end from Van Meter who plays at Stanford.

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“He put me in the group to really voice my opinion and also say, ‘Hey, this guy is a designer that will help make the statement that’s getting released,’” Hobbs said.

Hobbs did have plenty of experience doing commitment edits and top school picks for recruits. He’s also spent time working in the Washington State athletics department designing promotional and event stuff. But this project would be the biggest of his career.  

The original plan was to compile something and put it out Monday morning. But with conferences, like the Big Ten reportedly getting near a decision on the season, the players pushed for something quicker. Hobbs, who was told he had just 30 minutes to make something, rushed to his room, shut the door and was on FaceTime with about 10 members of the leadership core of the group as he went to work.

“I had to change all the conference logos to white because I didn’t have any of them but the Pac-12,” Hobbs said. “So, those are always hard to find. I had to manipulate those to turn them white and make sure everything was good on that point. Really, after that, it was kind of just setting up everything where it goes. I just copied and pasted the statement that they had already created and added the ‘we want to play’ graphic.”

Hobbs said they wanted to make sure their statement came out before other conferences made a decision. If conferences did, the group hoped they would model their statements after the one they had. So, Hobbs was pushed to get it done as quickly as possible.

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“They’re just like, ‘Hey, we’ve got to get this out at 9 p.m., — you’ve got 15 minutes, you’ve got 10 minutes left, you’ve got five minutes left,’” Hobbs said. “So, it was a big pressure situation. I don’t really like designing quick because you can make some errors but it turned out well and exactly what we wanted.”

The statement was shared throughout social media by some of college football’s biggest stars including Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Hobbs, who hopes to get into a career in graphic design, wanted to capitalize on the moment. So, as the statement made the rounds, he posted his tweet announcing him as the creator.

“I bet people are going to start asking so I kind of wanted to put something out there that would kind of show that,” Hobbs said.

Hobbs, who called the graphic his biggest design yet, said he’s gotten rave reviews about it. He hoped it would not only help the cause but him down the road.

“I think it definitely helps out a lot,” he said. “It kind of puts my portfolio out there. I haven’t finished my website completely yet. It helps to see some stuff that I made out there.”

Tommy Birch, the Register’s sports enterprise and features reporter, has been working at the newspaper since 2008. He’s the 2018 Iowa Sportswriter of the Year. Reach him at [email protected] or 515-284-8468. Follow him on Twitter @TommyBirch.

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