Kevin Coates has a daughter. Before NQOY was on a single shirt, it was the thing he said to her — over and over, in the car, at the door, on the hard days — until she could say it back to him without being asked.
Never quit on yourself.
He said it to her because somebody needed to say it to him first, and for a long stretch nobody did. What happened in those years is his to tell, and he tells it — on stages, in rooms full of people who assume they’re the only one carrying what they’re carrying. He got out. Not cleanly, and not without a cost, but he got out.
The shirts came after. Somebody saw the phrase, asked where they could get one, and that was that. A friend who prints and presses professionally — and who happens to be an artist — started turning Kevin’s ideas into designs. They’ve been at it for years now. New drops every couple of months.
You can’t control what happens in this world. That part is settled before you get a vote. What’s left is what you make out of it — and these designs are what one man made out of his.
That’s why the bear exists, and why there’s a heart in the line. They’re not filler. They’re for the people who kept going when quitting was the reasonable choice, and for the kids who need to hear it before they’re old enough to say it back.
Every piece is made to order. Nothing sits in a box waiting for you. You ask for it, and then it gets made.
Kevin does more than print shirts
He coaches people through self-awareness work, runs adversity awareness training, and speaks — to congregations, to companies, to rooms of young people who look a lot like he did.
Book himQuestions, wholesale, or something custom? Email Kevin.