Nike Basketball's Zoom Rise & LeBron Soldier 13 Salute Coach Kay Yow
The latest silhouettes in Nike’s long-running tribute to the late NC State women’s basketball coach.
Nike Basketball is continuing its long-running homage to late, great NC State women’s basketball coach Kay Yow with pink-tinted takes on two performance hoops silhouettes: the Zoom Rise and LeBron James‘s LeBron Soldier 13. Since Yow’s passing in 2009, Nike has frequently released pink sneakers adorned with the Kay Yow Cancer Fund‘s signature pink ribbon graphic — raising both awareness around and funds for Yow’s eponymous organization.
Where this dyad differentiates from past drops, however, is its inclusion of rich purples in the standard Yow-centric mix of pink and white. The Zoom Rise uses a textured pink mesh upper with a white heel counter and large white Swooshes that wrap from the toebox to the medial midfoot. Purple appears on the asymmetrical eyestays, tongue trim and tongue/heel tabs. Final pops of branding appear on the aforementioned heel counter, with a small purple Swoosh on the lateral half and a pink ribbon on the medial half.
Meanwhile, the Soldier 13 goes almost full pink on its laceless upper, using white for its adjustable hook-and-loop fit system and midfoot branding. Just like its Zoom Rise counterpart, heel pieces are white and equipped with purple Swooshes plus breast cancer awareness ribbons. From a court feel standpoint, both silhouettes use a Zoom Air cushioning setup. As a takedown of the AlphaDunk, the Zoom Rise uses a similar 10mm Zoom bag in its forefoot to its higher-priced counterpart, while the Soldier equips large-volume Zoom bags in both heel and forefoot.
The Nike Zoom Rise and LeBron Soldier 13 “Kay Yow” are both available on the Nike webstore now, priced at $140 USD each.
If you prefer Air Max to Zoom Air, check out the “What Max Means to Me” roundtable, with 17 sneaker industry luminaries sharing their favorite Air Max silhouettes, memories and more.
