When the Arizona Cardinals take the field Sunday for their crucial game with the Seattle Seahawks, what they have on their feet will be different than normal.
That’s because 33 players, including eight rookies, as well as eight coaches and other staff members will be wearing specially designed shoes as part of the ninth year of the NFL’s My Cause My Cleats initiative.
Throughout the league, last week and this week, more than 1,400 players, coaches, legends and staff are participating by highlighting important issues and non-profit organizations on their footwear.
The program also raises money for the various groups and fans can donate directly or bid on their favorite players’ cleats at the NFL Auction site:
Donate here or bid on cleats here.
Spearheading the Cardinals program are Josh Marriner, the director of player engagement, and his assistant Jared Reed. The planning has been going on since training camp.
Marriner said, “Our main responsibility is to go out and actually connect with these guys to figure out what truly matters to them. So everything that we do, trying to get to know them and when it comes to initiatives like this, we want to make sure that they highlight the causes they care about. Jared did a phenomenal job of connecting with guys in the locker room, following up with guys after the survey was out and then at the same time guys who had something that they were interested in, but really didn’t know what organization it would be a part of, he went from a full list of researching it with them and then connecting to the things that they can actually use their platform to speak on.”
“We just wanted to get a great list of non-profit organizations to be able to help them and we talk about just being servant leaders in the building,” Reed said. “So, just wanting to make sure that everyone has a cause that’s near and dear to their heart and that’s important to them. So being able to put those different organizations or resources in front of them, just being able to allow for them to choose the right one that’s best for them; it’s something that was important to us.”
Reed said starting in training camp was important because “they have so much going on, whether it’s on the field, off the field, just holistically. So we wanted to make sure that we had enough time in advance so that we could be comfortable within our process as we move administratively within the building. So being able to just go around and allow for them to take the time to make sure that’s the right cause or right non-profit for them was something that was important to me.”
Reed also communicated with Alex Katz at Stadium Kicks so players could then see mock-ups of the cleats as they were developed during the season.
As Marriner explained, “These cleats are designed to be something that they were passionate enough to wear on the field, not just to uplift the cause, but something that they were proud of when they put them on their feet.”
Head coach Jonathan Gannon has noticed. He said, “I’ve been checking them out because they’ve been breaking them in. There’s some cool causes out there; there really are.”
That goes for the coaches, too.
Gannon said, “I saw all the mock-ups of them. They’re sweet. Our coaches do a good job, too. I don’t want that to be overlooked. I expect those guys to do the same as the players, but they got some cool kicks.”
Because non-players don’t wear cleats, Marriner and Reed worked with equipment manager Jeff Schwimmer and they figured out that Nike Air Force Ones were the best ones to use.
Below is the complete list of the players and coaches participating, preceded by their thoughts on the causes they chose.
S Budda Baker, foster care (The Foster Alliance): Baker said, “I have someone very close to me that was in the foster care system. It’s how that system is and I want it to be better for kids. Because at the end of the day, they are innocent kids and I just want the best to give them all the things they don’t have.”
T Kelvin Beachum, World Vision (clean water access): Beachum worked with Mesa student Scout Rooney to design and paint his cleats. Rooney is with the Mesa Youth Creative Agency “that partners artistic students with local businesses to be hired for artistic projects.” Beachum added, “I wanted to bring awareness to the MYCA as well as support these students as they embark on their career path while learning about financial literacy. This ensures that I can bring attention to both of these causes in a unique and genuine way.”
DL L.J. Collier, pancreatic cancer: He lost his mom Ruby to pancreatic cancer and said, “As much awareness and support I can give to it, I will. When my mom passed away, there wasn’t much I could do, so now I hope no one has to go through that same feeling of watching your parent slowly die. I don’t want anyone to have that feeling. I was young and I didn’t understand you don’t really realize how much time you do or don’t have.”
LB Zaven Collins, Special Forces Foundation: The foundation he selected helps special forces members adjust to life after service. Collins said, “They’ve lived their lives as high-tier operators and this helps them adapt when they come back to civilian life. They’ve done something their entire lives and contributed, but it stops in a moment and they have to come back to the real world. That can be hard for them sometimes.” He shows his cleats in this video.
While emphasizing he isn’t comparing the military to athletes, Collins noted that there’s a “parallel path where some athletes have a tough time after working their entire lives for something, and then it stops all of a sudden.”
G Trystan Colon, homeless women/domestic abuse (UMOM): Colon said Marriner and Reed helped “put me in their direction. I wanted to do something that had to do with single mothers. The way I grew up with my mom working three jobs, sometimes four, making sure me and my brothers all had clothes and cleats. It’s something that’s close to my heart and something that I can expose everybody to.”
C Hjalte Frojoldt, injured police officers/servicemen: The Denmark native has gone international with his cleats, supporting The Thin Blue Line that helps police officers and servicemen that were wounded either mentally or physically. Froholdt said, “They’re trying to shine a bit of light in Denmark and once a year they make a trip over to the U.S. because there’s a lot of support for retired officers and servicemen. They have a really good connection with people here in Phoenix. I host them for a barbecue at my house. It’s an awesome non-profit.”
When it was mentioned that having an international angle is unique, he said in the past he supported an epilepsy center in Denmark because his sister has the disease and is doing well. Froholdt concluded, “I enjoy finding some non-profits in the home country and use my platform to help.”
WR Marvin Harrison Jr., mental health (The Jed Foundation): Harrison said, “Mental health is extremely important for athletes and people in general. Any time I can bring awareness to something like that on a bigger stage than just football, I’m gonna try to do that.”
Rookie running back Trey Benson, like Harrison, also features The Jed Foundation for mental health on his cleats. Benson said, “When I was at Oregon, I tore my ACL. Mentally, I wasn’t there, and it took a while to come back from that. But I worked on my mental health and saw a therapist. I just tried to stay positive throughout the ordeal because once you’ve got your mental health right, that’s when everything else comes together.”
T Paris Johnson Jr., Pat Tillman Foundation and Paris Johnson Jr. Foundation: “I feel like our values align with wanting to serve in the community and obviously just the legacy of Pat all together,” Johnson said. “Being able to align yourself with that is just an honor and so it was a no-brainer to become involved with them in any way possible.”
Johnson said, “I’ve been hearing stuff about Pat since I was a kid. He was still around when my family was a part of the organization, so to work with them is a full circle moment not only for myself but even for my mom.”
Johnson’s dad, Paris Sr., was with the team for one season in 1999 as a fifth-round pick. That was Tillman’s second season with the Cardinals.
TE Trey McBride, breast cancer: Named as the team’s nominee Thursday for the NFL Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, McBride is involved with many organizations. He chose to honor his grandmother who died from breast cancer.
He said, “It’s to just give back and shine a light that these women need help and selling the cleats could help research and so whatever I can do to help give back to that area. It lets the patients and their families know that they’re not alone. We’re with them, and we care for and support them.”
CB Max Melton, gun violence: Melton has seen people he knows lose loved ones because of handgun incidents and he said, “It’s something I like to support. If I can help spread the awareness, that’s what I’m going to do. If we can stop that, it would be a better place. And if we can do it together it would be a better world.”
Noting how much gun violence there is, he said, “It’s nuts. You’ve got to adapt to your surroundings. Be like a chameleon. The world’s going to be the world. Laws are gonna be the laws. That’s why I want to spread the awareness about it.”
TE Tip Reiman, human trafficking (Polaris Project): The rookie said, “I’ve always felt pretty strongly about human trafficking as we all should, but the movie Sound of Freedom highlighted it for me and since then, seeing that, it opened my eyes to new avenues of which human trafficking does occur and we all should know more about and do more about it.”
LBs coach Sam Siefkes, substance abuse addiction (The Herren Project, founded by Chris Herren): Siefkes said, “It’s been close to home for me; a foundation that I love to support. I know it’s a huge growing issue in the world.”
Asked about other coaches taking part, Siefkes deferred to the players, noting, “What’s really cool is the foundations that the players have. That’s the most cool thing is their passion about what they like to do and you get to see the other side of them outside the football piece.”
TE Bernhard Siekovits, Sport mit Vorbildern: An International Pathway Program participant from Austria and on the practice squad, he went outside the U.S. like Froholdt. The organization helps kids from difficult upbringings. Seikovits added, “They use different sports — boxing, football, soccer – to help kids stay locked in, to stay in school and stay away from the streets. It’s helping people from Austria, but also immigrants coming to Austria. It helps them get their life started.”
CB Star Thomas V, breast cancer: Thomas’ mother, Stephanie Williams, lost her life to breast cancer when he was a freshman in college, and Thomas said the non-profit V.I.R.T.U.E helps with finances for women dealing with the disease. He said, “It’s good having something I can relate to and represent and give back to something that I really care about.”
WR Xavier Weaver, foster care: Like Baker, Weaver chose The Foster Alliance, while noting that his mom was in the foster system growing up. He said, “To know there are kids out there that don’t have parents is heartbreaking, and I wanted to show support to those children.”
All of the players are glad the NFL has the program every year.
Johnson: “It’s exciting. I love the NFL initiative where we are able to do that and show off organizations we support.”
Reiman recalls seeing pictures of the cleats before he got to the NFL and said, “We’ve got a good platform and we need to accentuate the right things about our platform and this is a way to do that.”
Melton said, “I think it’s great the NFL is using their platform to bring awareness to things like this. We’re using our platform and they’re using theirs.”
Said Colon, “It does raise a lot of money for different organizations and helps a lot of people in need. Being able to do something like this and help give back is a really cool opportunity that the NFL provides.”
Harrison said it’s “amazing and probably one of the best things the NFL does to bring awareness to real issues in this world. Obviously, we’re all out here playing a game and at the end of the day, it’s what it is, a business. In the game, you go out there and have fun. But there are actually real issues going on out there in the world so anytime the platform the NFL has, the biggest sports biggest brand in America, and they can do something like that to bring awareness to those real causes, that’s really good.”
Collier concluded, “It’s a special opportunity and it gives us a chance and a voice to show awareness for anything that we choose.”
Cardinals participation in My Cleats My Cause
Player, Cause, Organization
G Isaiah Adams, Wildlife Care World, Wildlife Fund
S Budda Baker, Foster Care, The Foster Alliance
T Kelvin Beachum, Clean Water Access, World Vision
RB Trey Benson, Mental Health, The Jed Foundation
LB Baron Browning, Youth Project, 2442 Foundation
CB Kei’Trel Clark, Mental Health, Men’s X Mental
DL L.J. Collier, Pancreatic Cancer, Action Network
LB Zaven Collins, Military, Special Forces Foundation
G Trystan Colon, Domestic Abuse, UMOM
RB DeeJay Dallas, Youth, DeeJay Dallas Foundation
RB Emari Demercado, Cancer Awareness, Living Beyond Breast Cancer
WR Greg Dortch, Gun Violence Prevention, Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence
C Hjalte Froholdt, Military, Thin Blue Line Denmark
P Blake Gillikin, Mental Health, The Samuel L. Asbury Foundation
WR Marvin Harrison Jr., Mental Health, The Jed Foundation
T Paris Johnson Jr., Military Support, Pat Tillman Foundation & Paris Johnson Jr. Foundation
DL Naquan Jones, Mental Health, Mental Health America
LB Jesse Luketa, Youth, 40 Reason Foundation
TE Trey McBride, Breast Cancer
CB Max Melton, Gun Violence, Stop Handgun Violence
CB Sean Murphy-Bunting, Youth, Successful Jocks
QB Kyler Murray, Military, The Kyler Murray Foundation
TE Tip Reiman, Human Trafficking, Polaris Project
DL Dante Stills, Cancer Awareness, American Cancer Society
S Dadrion Taylor-Demerson, Homelessness, Habitat for Humanity
CB Star Thomas V, Cancer Awareness, V.I.R.T.U.E.
LB Xavier Thomas, Youth, Make-A-Wish Arizona
S Jalen Thompson, Youth, L.A. Boys and Girls Club
QB Clayton Tune, Disaster Relief, Team Rubicon
TE Travis Vokolek, Disease Awareness, Uplifting Athletes
WR Xavier Weaver, Foster Care, The Foster Alliance
CB Garrett Williams, Mental Health, Mental Health America
LB Mack Wilson Sr., Disabilities, Kulture City
Coach, Cause, Organization
Chris Cook, Anti-Bullying, Boys & Girls Clubs
Autry Denson, Homelessness, Denson Family Legacy Foundation
Drew Petzing, Prostate Cancer, Shaw Cancer Center
Sam Siefkes, Substance Abuse, The Herren Project
Ryan Smith, Multiple Myeloma, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Ben Steele, Military, Play the Next Play Foundation
Rob Rodriguez, Child Advocacy, Child Advocacy Center of El Paso
Spencer Whipple, Cancer Awareness, Mayo Clinic
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