Enshrined: Pete Uses Her Passion to Find Peace
All-American thrower known for her work in art world
Mike Brohard
She never quite knew how to answer the question.
As Aaliyah Pete ventured out into the world, made connections and built relationships with people, stories are shared back and forth. Where are you from? What did you do growing up? Pete had done – and accomplished -- a lot athletically, primarily as a thrower at Colorado State.
One phone call from CSU Director of Athletics John Weber finally presented her a tidy way to answer.
“I had been talking more about my athletic career to others and I was like, ‘man, I did so much,’ and I thought, I don't have any kind of one specific thing to point to when people ask me, ‘like, were you really good? Were you great?’ And so now oh man, there's a place I could point to where I'm in the Hall. I am cherished somewhere and I can point to that.
“So I cried about the news every day cause I found out.”
Pete, who framed a fabulous career, is one of five former Rams who will be inducted into Colorado State’s Athletic Hall of Fame on Oct. 2 during a ceremony at Canvas Stadium. Tickets are available for the banquet, which begins at 4 p.m.
There was a conundrum for her, so many places she could go to answer the query. She earned three All-American honors, all in shot put, indoor and outdoor. She won seven conference shot put titles in total – three indoor and four outdoor – collecting a total of 10 all-conference credits, leaving ranked in the top 10 in multiple throws, displaying her versatility.
Her coach, Brian Bedard, knew exactly where to start.
“She just came in and was an immediate contributor, just missed being a conference champion indoors her freshman year, and then won the conference championship in the outdoor shot. She was one of the top juniors in the country, finished second at the Junior Nationals, qualified for the World Junior Team,” he said. “She was just a real competitor. She’d do anything we asked to help the team, multiple event scorer. I think she really put us on the map as far as female shot putters. We had Mustafa (Hassan, a fellow Hall of Famer) at the time, and then she was a female shot putter that was nationally ranked often and multiple conference titles. I think she really put us on the map as far as female shot putters. We had a pretty good reputation for discus, but shot, I think she definitely helped grow our program up.”
So touched was Pete by the news, it inspired her to put her thoughts and emotions on paper. She crafted a poem which puts her emotions on display and highlights the creative and artistic person she has always been.
The Girl with the Cannon
By: Aaliyah Pete
Transiting eclipses
legitimize the past
Sitting on a ballast mountain
Flipping an hourglass
Freshly torn from a manacle
all of my lucency
Exiting the chrysalis maze
Destiny is rumbling
the stakes of victory
surfacing the corporeal
six feet beneath
Will the best on paper remain so
On the day council tends the records
Black opal, crown jewel
branded with a burden of proof
levitate above the rafters
In a galactic war formation
In defense of
in memory of
the centripetal, centrifugal force of women
who play with iron and toy with steel
who smith their reputation
Do I get to pick my picture?
The one that hangs in the hall
next to the others
the laurel leaves chose to be great
on the day it counts
Child with the volition of planet Mars
anchored here by Saturn’s rings
infinitely known as the girl with the cannon
The best on paper I remain
Whisper this legend in the women's tent
The significance of what I was going through, and the significance of the art itself, are intertwined.Aaliyah Pete
Pete finds herself in a good place currently, though she notes she has spent the most recent spell of her life mentally healing from a trying childhood. She said she came to Colorado State seeking peace, bit by bit finding a section more through her journey into adulthood.
Pre-colonial African art captured her imagination as a child and still does to this day.
“I really viewed it as a chance to escape and make a name for myself. But it was in the midst of having to do some very intense healing that I had no idea that I would even have to do when I got there,” Pete said. “I've always used writing and artistic expression as a way to get through that. It kind of just happened, and continuing to engage with it once I was finished ended up being the way that I make a living now.”
At Colorado State, she studied communications and ethnic studies. She remembers going to multiple art exhibits growing up and enjoyed visiting museums, and her family collected art.
After college, she went to see an exhibit in Denver and started up conversations with the organizers, finding out an uncle had helped provide some of the pieces on exhibit. She shared her passion with some of those in charge, conversations which led to her being brought into the industry.
Over time, she has created her own career, mostly as an independent provider who is involved with every aspect of an exhibit, additionally working with the board of an art school.
Based in Colorado, the exhibits she becomes involved with go on display throughout the western part of the United States. She helps connect collectors with galleries, filling in every gap. She designs the exhibits and has earned a great reputation as a writer, her descriptions of the pieces or the exhibits as a whole painting the story of what every corner represents and means.
It’s a life she didn’t know was out there for her, but one she feels blessed to have crafted for herself. It helps the adult in her remember what it was like for the little girls seeing the art for the first time and becoming immersed in the story the exhibits were sharing with her.
“It's amazing because I get to set my own price. I just try to create the environment for me to provide for myself where there's no limits,” she said. “Anything I can use my other gifts to sustain myself, I'm happy to do that.
“The significance of what I was going through, and the significance of the art itself, are intertwined. I just needed something where it was kind of easy to show up for work every day. Something that doesn't require too much of me because I was sick.”
Competition was a happy place for her at Colorado State. Her teammates helped make it a safe space for her to be herself, to grow, to heal. She always looks back with fond memories of being a Ram track and field athlete, and she’s excited to come back and share the moment with people she refers to as sisters.
And now, she has a response to the question.
“Hall of Fame sounds pretty good,” Pete said.
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