‘Gotta be the shoes?’ For Packers quarterback Jordan Love, gifting cleats to local teams is about more than just footwear

Marcos Martinez could feel his emotions starting to get the best of him. And it wasn’t because of the new football cleats he was wearing. For as much as he was loving the new Nikes he’d just been given — by none other than Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love — that wasn’t it. Nor was it the Love pass that the Green Bay Southwest junior linebacker had intercepted during a little pre-practice photo-op pitch-and-catch.

But for Martinez, the fact that Love was there — at his school, with his team — to launch the second year of his “10VE for CLEATS” campaign, which donates cleats to youth and high-school sports teams in Wisconsin and his native California, was even more overwhelming than the play he’d made.