Colin Kaepernick and the Perils of the Swoosh

Colin Kaepernick and the Perils of the Swoosh

Colin Kaepernick and the Perils of the Swoosh

We speak to former St. John’s soccer coach and human rights activist Jim Keady about his experience with Nike.

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

This week we speak about the new Nike ad campaign centered on Colin Kaepernick. We look at this collision of politics and commerce by speaking to Jim Keady, onetime soccer coach at St. John’s University who lost his job after standing up to Nike’s deal with the university. 

We also have commentary from Etan Thomas with a counter-view of this deal and what it means for the movement as well as Colin Kaepernick personally. I also have my own Choice Words about the Nike deal, Just Stand Up and Just Sit Down awards to the WNBA and the Washington Mystics and a racist politician. All that and much more!

Jim Keady
Twitter: @JWKeady
Jim Keady speaks out against Nike

Zirin
On Colin Kaepernick’s Nike Ad: Will the Revolution Be Branded?

Disobey authoritarians, support The Nation

Over the past year you’ve read Nation writers like Elie Mystal, Kaveh Akbar, John Nichols, Joan Walsh, Bryce Covert, Dave Zirin, Jeet Heer, Michael T. Klare, Katha Pollitt, Amy Littlefield, Gregg Gonsalves, and Sasha Abramsky take on the Trump family’s corruption, set the record straight about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s catastrophic Make America Healthy Again movement, survey the fallout and human cost of the DOGE wrecking ball, anticipate the Supreme Court’s dangerous antidemocratic rulings, and amplify successful tactics of resistance on the streets and in Congress.

We publish these stories because when members of our communities are being abducted, household debt is climbing, and AI data centers are causing water and electricity shortages, we have a duty as journalists to do all we can to inform the public.

In 2026, our aim is to do more than ever before—but we need your support to make that happen. 

Through December 31, a generous donor will match all donations up to $75,000. That means that your contribution will be doubled, dollar for dollar. If we hit the full match, we’ll be starting 2026 with $150,000 to invest in the stories that impact real people’s lives—the kinds of stories that billionaire-owned, corporate-backed outlets aren’t covering. 

With your support, our team will publish major stories that the president and his allies won’t want you to read. We’ll cover the emerging military-tech industrial complex and matters of war, peace, and surveillance, as well as the affordability crisis, hunger, housing, healthcare, the environment, attacks on reproductive rights, and much more. At the same time, we’ll imagine alternatives to Trumpian rule and uplift efforts to create a better world, here and now. 

While your gift has twice the impact, I’m asking you to support The Nation with a donation today. You’ll empower the journalists, editors, and fact-checkers best equipped to hold this authoritarian administration to account. 

I hope you won’t miss this moment—donate to The Nation today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel 

Editor and publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x