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Apr 24, 2026 By Garrett Neese 3 min read

As the Heisman Trophy winner and consensus favorite as top pick of the NFL Draft, nobody would predict Fernando Mendoza to fall to the bottom of the first round.

But if the reigning Super Bowl champs somehow nabbed him with the 32nd pick, he’d immediately be handed a Seattle Seahawks jersey with his name on the back.

It’s not sorcery — just workers from the area scrambling behind the scenes to make it happen.

Stahls’ Decorating Fulfillment Center, which has operations locally in Fayette and Greene counties, has been in charge of making the jerseys each draft night since 2012.

By then, they were already a licensed partner with the NFL, which at the time contracted with Nike to make the jerseys, said Josh Ellsworth, Stahls’ chief revenue officer. One of Stahls’ sales executives pitched the idea.

Ellsworth said it gave the business a chance to show “what we were capable of, to be able to commemorate that live in very quick timing.”

A couple of weeks in advance, Stahls’ gets a list of the players who will be attending the draft in person.

Stahls’ prepares for thousands of potential draft combinations, creating name bars for those players in the color of all 32 teams’ jerseys. They also prepare multiples, in case teams trade up to acquire multiple first-round picks.

Once a team’s on the clock, the workers in the jersey room will load the uniforms on the heat press to have them ready for whatever name gets announced.

“We’ll have two presses, and each will be loaded with the same team’s jersey, just so we have redundancy,” Ellsworth said.

Another person will be responsible for sorting through the names and getting the right piece to the heat-press operator.

“And all that happens in about 90 seconds from the time we get the pick announced to us, before the commissioner announces it to everybody else from the stage,” Ellsworth said.

The heat presses that apply the names come from Stahls’ Hotronix division, located in Carmichaels. Stahls’ also has a decorating fulfillment center in Masontown, where they produce items for the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS and even European club soccer teams like FC Barcelona.

The workers travel to the draft every year, including ones in Detroit, where Stahls’ is headquartered, and in Cleveland, where they have another large facility.

But in a region that “bleeds black and gold,” it’s even more exciting to be able to do the work for the draft in Pittsburgh, Ellsworth said.

“We’re super excited for this team that does a lot of the work for the draft, to have it in the backyard,” he said. “We’re kind of the best-kept secret here in Fayette County, so it’s good to be able to shine a light on what our people do, and on this night.”