#CoachTheVote

On September 17th, 2020, in an effort to raise voting awareness and stand for Black equity, Pete and his newly formed company Amplify Voices launched #CoachTheVote, to challenge all collegiate and professional coaches to get their teams registered to vote.
To kick off #CoachTheVote, Pete sent out a tweet to challenge other coaches to rally up their players and get every single one of them registered to vote. Out of hundreds or 1000s of coaches, the majority of them do not have social media accounts and are not active online. We knew that if we really wanted to make a difference, we would have to figure out a way to reach out to as many college coaches as we could. We sent an email to every athletic director and head coach in the US.
Another way to amplify the message was for Pete to have #CoachTheVote painted on his famous Nike Monarch shoes to wear during the next Seahawks game. Instead of using a famous shoe artist, we looked for up-and-coming black artists on Instagram and Etsy. We found artists Jordan and Ari to paint the shoes and also capture their process on video. Through sharing their story on Pete’s social pages, we got the message out about voting and also gave a new platform for these young artists. In addition, after the game, we auctioned off the game-worn shoes with all proceeds going to a Seattle-based non-profit called Urban Artworks that supports young artists through painting murals. Due to the great response from all sides, we continued the campaign over the next 4 games with 4 different artists all designing custom shoes with the last pair worn two days before the election. All artists were featured on Pete’s social pages and picked up by local media. In addition, after the game, we auctioned off the game-worn shoes with all proceeds going to a Seattle-based non-profit called Urban Artworks that supports young artists through painting murals.