Mark Pattison

Mark Pattison is a former wide receiver who played four seasons in the NFL for the Los Angeles Raiders, Los Angeles Rams, and New Orleans Saints. Mark also played college football at the University of Washington. Following his NFL career, Mark took up mountain climbing. In 2013, he began a goal to climb the Seven Summits, the highest points on each of the seven continents. To date, his successful ascents include Mount Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) in 2013 (19,333'),^[1] Mount Elbrus (Russia) in 2014 (18,666'), Mount Kosciuszko (Australia) in 2015 (7,310'), and Aconcagua (Argentina) in February, 2016 (23,000'). Pattison would become one of only about 350 people who have climbed the highest peaks on all seven continents ^[2] and the first NFL player to climb all Seven Summits.^[3]

While the overcoming the rigors of playing in the NFL and the challenges of climbing mountains has been an amazing journey and accomplishment for Mark, his daughter Emilia has been striving to overcome the challenges of living with epilepsy since she was 8 years old. Mark now serves as an Ambassador for the Epilepsy Foundation’s Athletes vs Epilepsy initiative. His goal is to raise $29,029 (which is the summit of Mt Everest) and create awareness to eliminate all seizures for the millions who deal with this each day. As a child, Emilia was unable to play on the monkey bars, ride a bike and experienced the challenges of learning in school because of her condition. As an adult she continues to face a variety of challenges every day because of her seizures, including not being able to drive a car. “As a member of Athletes vs Epilepsy, my goal is to help Emilia and others who are afflicted with epilepsy find cures. That is my SUMMIT! “