For the next two weeks, NFL players are wearing their philanthropic passion on their cleats

By Kyle Feldscher, CNN

(CNN) — Being a professional athlete, especially in the NFL, creates a unique brotherhood.

On the field, players compete tooth-and-nail against one another, often delivering some of the most violent and brutal hits that can be imagined. Off the field, they often regularly rely on one another for guidance as they navigate an almost unimaginable life of athletic stardom.

One of the quickest-growing connections throughout the league is in players’ philanthropic efforts, which are on full display in the next two weeks for the league’s My Cause My Cleats event.

“I have yet to come across a player in the many locker rooms that I’ve been in through the years that doesn’t have a desire to help, that doesn’t have a desire to make an impact to those less fortunate, or maybe injured, or the widows and the orphans of the world,” Miles Killebrew, a safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers, said.

The My Cause My Cleats event is a two-week campaign during which NFL players get to show off a little of their personal style while promoting the causes that are nearest to their hearts. The player-led initiative brings hundreds of personal causes to the forefront and gives each player a chance to show a bit more of their off-the-field personality during games.

Austin Hooper, a tight end for the New England Patriots, will be promoting the work his foundation is doing to support kids who are aging out of the foster care system. That work is born out of his own experience with a foster child living with his family when he was a kid.

“I don’t really think I’ve actually said this publicly before, but like, a part of me kind of felt a little guilty because I remember growing up when we’re thinking about having a foster care kid come stay with us full time,” Hooper told CNN Sports. “And I remember me and my siblings, we weren’t like against it, but … all three of us were really little, and we kind of felt bad that we would treat him right, but everyone else in the community would know that he wasn’t our family.

“So, kind of selfishly, when I got in the position, I was like, ‘Look, man, you messed that one up big time when you were a little kid, didn’t know any better. You got to kind of try to make this right.’”

It’s a chance to show off what Brian Hooks, the chairman and CEO of Stand Together, calls a “philanthropic locker room” – a term he attributed to New Orleans Saints linebacker Demario Davis – in which players can work together to accomplish the goals they’ve set for themselves in their community work. Hooks said his organization has worked with Killebrew and other NFL players to connect them with charities that work in areas that they’re passionate about.

“This isn’t about two weeks. It’s not even about what happens on game day,” Hooks told CNN Sports. “This is about a movement, a yearlong, player-led movement that helps people who want to make a difference take the next step, to get engaged in their communities.”

While the NFL has other league-wide events – such as Salute to Service early in November and Crucial Catch in October for breast cancer awareness – the My Cause My Cleats weeks allow players to promote their own individual causes.

“While we were the ones for years saying we have so many guys who care, and here’s what this person is doing and here’s what this guy’s doing, we don’t have to do it anymore in the same way,” Anna Isaacson, the league’s senior vice president of social responsibility, said to CNN Sports, “because this campaign allows players to have the platform to take the NFL’s marketing muscle and really showcase who they are as humans and what they care about.”

Picking their causes

The causes that players choose can be born out of life experiences as unique as the players themselves.

Hooper’s foundation works with foster children to provide material things – clothes, shoes, laptops, etc. – and provide mental health services.

“When you think of foster care, obviously you think of the infant. You think of the toddler. You don’t think of the 17-, 18-,19-year-old young man or woman that, depending on which state you’re in, you know, get a GED maybe, and $100 and it’s like, ‘All right, good luck. Go play life in America,’” Hooper said. “That’s a tough prospect. So, when I was made aware of that. I just kind of try to … kind of fill that role.”

For Killebrew, he’s been working with various charities since he entered the league but is representing Café Momentum during this season’s My Cleats My Cause.

Inspired by his parents, the former Detroit Lions safety has always had “a heart to serve.” He was connected with Café Momentum by former Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander and has since fallen in love with the group.

“The fact that Cafe Momentum, they take youth who are have some run in with the justice system (and) their reputation … is now tarnished to the world,” Killebrew said. “They take them and say, ‘No, you’re not your biggest mistake.’ They say, ‘You get a second chance.’ And they introduce them to the to the restaurant industry, and they provide them with everything that they need, all of the resources, all of the support to then reinvent themselves.”

He added, “It is so cool to see the transformation in these youth when all they have is someone saying that they believe in them. I wanted to be on board with that. That spoke to my heart and aligned with what I really wanted to achieve while I’m in the league, and I’ve been on board ever since.”

Showing off players’ passion

Isaacson told CNN Sports she had no doubt that My Cause My Cleats would be a success during its first season in the league. What’s surprised her is the passion players show each and every year as the campaign now enters its 10th season.

“It was hundreds of guys from the start,” Isaacson said. “So, I mean, I think we’ve been impressed that it has sustained itself … and every year there is a significant number of players who want to participate. But I think from year one, we were impressed by the number of guys who opted into this campaign.”

In a world of extreme attention on uniform uniformity – the NFL has 64 employees whose only job is to look for dress code violations on game day – there is not exactly a lot of room for displays of personality and individuality in the NFL uniform.

But being allowed to have flashy, loud shoes for even just a couple games can reveal a lot about the league, NFL senior vice president of player operations Tracy Perlman said to CNN Sports.

“This personalizes it for the fan, because fans see, ‘Oh, wait a minute, this player cares about foster care. This player cares about domestic violence,’” she said. “So I feel like it fits in perfectly, because it’s like, here are the pillars of what we do in the community, and here are all of the things that the NFL is touching through players and clubs.”

The players enjoy having those moments where they can show off their causes and their personalities.

Killebrew said he works closely with the artists who design his cleats and – though he won’t be able to play this year, due to a knee injury that ended his season last month – he was able to show kids working with Café Momentum that their faces would be featured on the cleats.

“We’re able to also have the actual youth that we’re representing like on our cleat, and we get to show them like in person,” he said. “We went down to Café Momentum with … (Steelers linebacker) Malik Harrison and (Steelers tight end) Connor Heyward and we were able to go down there and actually show them like, ‘Hey, this is our cleat we’re gonna wear this. That’s you on our cleat.’ And it was just cool to see the look on their face and just kind of that enjoyment, that excitement behind it.”

Hooper is a little less involved in the design – “I wear a helmet, they’re the artists,” he said – but loves playing while knowing that he’s representing his foundation.

“I wouldn’t say there’s more pressure,” he said, “I would say I actually have more fun. … When you’re out there, you got to be locked in on your job and be ready to get after it. But, I look at it a different way. This is a fun day. I get to do something that normally I wouldn’t do, other than, you know, my plain Jane cleats that I wear, something fun.

“And of course, when I got them on, I definitely want to score, for sure – put a stamp on ‘em wearing those.”

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