We met her when Coeur first launched. It was September of 2013 at Interbike and we didn’t even have clothes to sell yet. We were launching the company during the trade show and had decided to allocate a small bit of our cash to sponsoring a few athletes for literally one day during the super sprint race.
We emailed three ladies who were on the start list and Katie was one of the three. Unfortunately, she couldn’t race because of an injury, but when we met her, we fell in love. She was kind, witty, and her laugh was beyond contagious.
From the beginning, we knew that we wanted Coeur to be more than a clothing company. As foolish as it may sound, we wanted to use the company to, in some small way, make the world a better place.
One way to do that was to try and help young athletes make a living doing what they love. We knew that market realities forced many young women to accept “clothing only” deals with no guaranteed cash or to forego being a professional all together. As a start-up, cash was beyond tight, but we still set aside a meager amount to go with every deal and we fumbled through the process of signing Katie as our first real sponsored athlete without ever seeing her race.
Over the next two years, she confirmed our belief that she was an incredible individual. Kind, thoughtful, and supremely talented. With the Olympics coming up, we knew that someone with deep pockets would likely come in and make an offer that she couldn’t turn down.
Indeed, that is what happened and despite being deeply saddened not to be able to call her a Coeur athlete again, we are thrilled at how things have turned out.
A young woman is getting a chance to realize a dream and we like to think that we played some tiny role in her story. As we continue to grow as a company, we know that we’ll be able to allocate more money to our sponsorship deals and that we’ll be able to help more young female pros as they chase their dream.
So, as we bid her farewell, we say…Good luck Katie! We know you’ll continue to race with Heart and Courage and we’ll be there cheering.
Your Friends at Coeur