Other than a medal, the most coveted item at February's Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City was the Roots blue beret that was part of the official uniform of the American team. Scalpers hawked the jaunty headgear, which retails at seven Roots stores in the U.S. and on its Web site for $19.95, for $200, while the QVC shopping network sold 40,000 before showing them on air. The cap even passed the celebrity cool test. "Someone threw it onstage," says Sheryl Crow, who performed during the Games. "I've been wearing it ever since."

The hat's triumph is an Olympic repeat for Roots co-founders Michael Budman and Don Green, whose outdoor wear generates a reported $250 million in annual sales. At the '98 Games in Nagano, they outfitted the Canadian team in red "poor boy" caps. "The Canadians looked so great," says Matt Biespiel, a managing director for the United States Olympic Committee, "that we started talking to Roots about what they could do for us."

Budman, 56, and Green, 53, who founded Roots in Toronto in 1973, responded with leather topcoats, fleece shirts and, of course, the now-famous beret. Budman, who has two children with his architect wife, Diane Bald, 44, and father-of-three Green, who is married to Roots product designer Denyse, 50, will next outfit the Americans at the 2004 Summer Games in Athens. "We're hoping to make it three for three," says Green.

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