Shaun Alexander takes pride in what he helped build in Seatt

[Seafan]

Who is Shaun Alexander?

 

[homerun1970]

He is a distant relative of Shawn. Shawn played for the Seahawks according to many.

 

[ivotuk]

I just don't think Shaun knows how to word things properly.
He was a part of building on to the foundation that was there. But the winning seasons did bring in a lot of support and I'm sure mass it an easier decision for Paul to build the VMAC. So he was a part of expanding the foundation, and had those years been losers, the Seahawks wouldn't have been an attractive destination.

 

[IndyHawk]

I don't want to trash Alexander, I loved cheering for that guy.

But he is way offbase. The Twelves were rabid before him. And rabid after. Curt Warner was more instrumental in building what there is now than Alexander.

True..The 12s were there from the start..

 

[Sgt. Largent]

[

Every other previous player I have seen make comments recently were more towards being proud of being part of the history and enjoying what this current team is.

Alexander may be stating approximately the same thing, but it comes out of his mouth as "look what I did." This is exactly the impression I had of him while he was playing. It always seemed to me he was playing for his stats and if it helped the team that was just a bonus..

How do you come to this conclusion from these quotes?

“It's what I always wanted it to be when I first walked into this city the first time,” Alexander told Yahoo Sports. “When I first got here, we were playing in Husky Stadium. When I first got here, we were 6-10. I told my brother when he asked what it is like in Seattle, I told him, 'Coming from Alabama, we have work to do. We don't have our own stadium and we are at a small college for our building offices.' He asked me what I thought and I said, 'We will go to a Super Bowl in five years.'

“I think that we built that. I felt great knowing that I was a part of that success. The norm is average, the norm is not for winners

“We turned this challenge here in Seattle into being a champion in the sport," Alexander said. "That along with building this. You can only have pride in two things: Building something that is great or continuing of something that is great. Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson and everyone – they've got the thing still rolling. Pretty much sitting on the shoulders of what we built.”

It's all true, Pete and John did continue to build on a good foundation of what Holmgren and that era of players started. Without Holmgren coming here, C-Link and VMAC probably don't get built, which propelled this franchise into the top tier of NFL franchises............when then allowed Allen to attract a coach like Carroll.

 

[Seahawks1983]

This comment from the author was absurd and made me realize this story was mostly just misinformed opinion:

the Seahawks struggled to draw crowds let alone generate a home-field advantage.

This was generally only true during the dark times under Behring.

 

[BlueTalons]

I think many of you are missing the point. The culture/facilities when he go here were abysmal. By the time he left they became first class/state-of-the-art. Shawn didn't do it himself; but he was in the middle and part of the morphing of this franchise. From Husky stadium to C-Link, from the old school uniforms to the new. From the old training facilities to VMAC. He was a part of that.

But Pete and John came in and finished what Shawn's Seahawks got rolling. A culture of winning consistently was a part of Shawn's (era) Hawks. They set a STANDARD. Paul recognized quickly that he was losing that culture with Mora and swiftly made the bold change. Pete and John simply carried the dropped torch forward to what we now have.

 

[IndyHawk]

I think many of you are missing the point. The culture/facilities when he go here were abysmal. By the time he left they became first class/state-of-the-art. Shawn didn't do it himself; but he was in the middle and part of the morphing of this franchise. From Husky stadium to C-Link, from the old school uniforms to the new. From the old training facilities to VMAC. He was a part of that.

But Pete and John came in and finished what Shawn's Seahawks got rolling. A culture of winning consistently was a part of Shawn's (era) Hawks. They set a STANDARD. Paul recognized quickly that he was losing that culture with Mora and swiftly made the bold change. Pete and John simply carried the dropped torch forward to what we now have.

Put this way, I agree..

 

[bmorepunk]

Alexander didn't win the Super Bowl and neither did I. But he was a major part of a time when this franchise gout out of the crapper and started being competitive. The time between Knox's and Holmgren's tenures was brutal. People here post about the "dark years" consisting of the end of the Holmgren and short Mora era as if it compares. It just doesn't.

After Holmgren stopped screwing around as GM, this team became real. Alexander and his teammates made this franchise from something that rarely went to the playoffs (and certainly never won) to a team that made it to a Super Bowl. Even though the Seahawks lost in the "we want the ball and we're going to score" game, it was the first time since I was a little kid that this team was legitimate.

How awesome has it been to be a Seahawks fan in the last 11 years? They've made the playoffs 8 times. They've won 8 playoff games and been to two Super Bowls.

Holmgren, Hasselbeck, and Alexander take varying levels of hate from our very fan base at times, but they legitimately were key in turning this into a real franchise once again. That definitely contributed to the situation that allowed the team we have now to come in and be awesome.

 

[SalishHawkFan]

I don't think this is nearly as rabid without that era of football. That era was win all this "Seahawks Nation" and all this loud stuff really became popular. Before his era, there were old Seahawks fans, and that was really about it. How many tens of thousands of people became Seahawks fans during their run? Those guys you run into in your line of work that wear Seahawks hats to work? Those guys probably became fans around 2004. Ask them.

So by my calculations, since you obviously must be too young to remember how rabid and loud the Seahawk fans have ALWAYS BEEN, you must be around mid 20's to 30's? Am I right?

 

[SalishHawkFan]

[

Every other previous player I have seen make comments recently were more towards being proud of being part of the history and enjoying what this current team is.

Alexander may be stating approximately the same thing, but it comes out of his mouth as "look what I did." This is exactly the impression I had of him while he was playing. It always seemed to me he was playing for his stats and if it helped the team that was just a bonus..

How do you come to this conclusion from these quotes?

“It's what I always wanted it to be when I first walked into this city the first time,” Alexander told Yahoo Sports. “When I first got here, we were playing in Husky Stadium. When I first got here, we were 6-10. I told my brother when he asked what it is like in Seattle, I told him, 'Coming from Alabama, we have work to do. We don't have our own stadium and we are at a small college for our building offices.' He asked me what I thought and I said, 'We will go to a Super Bowl in five years.'

“I think that we built that. I felt great knowing that I was a part of that success. The norm is average, the norm is not for winners

“We turned this challenge here in Seattle into being a champion in the sport," Alexander said. "That along with building this. You can only have pride in two things: Building something that is great or continuing of something that is great. Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson and everyone – they've got the thing still rolling. Pretty much sitting on the shoulders of what we built.”

It's all true, Pete and John did continue to build on a good foundation of what Holmgren and that era of players started. Without Holmgren coming here, C-Link and VMAC probably don't get built, which propelled this franchise into the top tier of NFL franchises............when then allowed Allen to attract a coach like Carroll.

That would only be true if Carroll had inherited a winning team. He inherited a losing team. He wasn't attracted to Seattle because we had a top tier franchise. He was attracted to Seattle because he had carte blanche to tear it down and rebuild it in his own vision. I highly doubt that had the Seahawks continued in their winning ways that Carroll would have even been interested in coming here.

Pete literally rebuilt this franchise from the foundation up and Alexander is wrong. The winning attitude that the Seahawks had was already gone. Pete threw out the trash and brought in fresh blood and instilled his OWN winning attitude to this team.

If Pete did this on Alexanders shoulders it's because Alexander was in his usual position, laying on the ground a yard behind the line of scrimmage, before being hit and Petes feet just drove his shoulders deep into the mud.

Pete probably didn't even notice Shaun coughing on dirt and grass laying beneath him. His eyes were on his vision of what he was going to build in the future, not on what others had done before.

 

[NJSeahawk]

love SA, the first reason the Seahawks caught my eye, but I gotta say he's wrong on this, just my two cents

 

[Escamillo]

I don't have much problem with what Shaun Alexander said. I have more problem with what the writer of the piece said in between the Alexander quotes. Such as:

For a while at the humdrum and sterile Kingdome and then at Husky Stadium, the Seahawks struggled to draw crowds let alone generate a home-field advantage.

The Kingdome was not "humdrum and sterile". That place rocked during the heyday of the Nordstrom years. It was 1984 when the "12th Man" concept was created (yes, I say created ,because even though TA&M might have had similar concept going, the Seahawks didn't copy it from them, they created it independently (I doubt the Seahawks front ofice knew anyting about TA&M's tradition), in tribute to the rauckus fans. It was those same fans that cause the NFL to put in its lame "crowd noise" penalty. There were sellouts for the fist umpteen years, and 20k waiting list for season tickets.

Then, the Dark Times came, a couple years after Ken Bering bought the team. And yes, after Allen bought the team, it took a couple years rebuilding fan support, but it was never the Kingdome's fault that fan support waned under Behring.

 

[Heyseed]

Shaun totally ripped it up (The game against Minnesota was epic to see in person)
Our first Seahawk Action Hero (McFarlane Action Figures)
But... he faded out quickly, and that's ok, now

 

[XxXdragonXxX]

love SA, the first reason the Seahawks caught my eye, but I gotta say he's wrong on this, just my two cents

If SA I'd the first reason the Seahawks caught your eye, then he is absolutely right. You might not be a Seahawks fan right now without him, or without the Holmgren years. And many others are the same.

Without the Holmgren years, this team would have been bad for 2 decades straight. Instead they were bad for a decade and good for a decade and had a Superbowl appearance under their belt. The Holmgren years gave this team something to build off of. Something to show Pete Carroll when they offered him the job. Yeah, Carroll took over a bad team, but the great years before those 2 bad years showed potential. Without those years, this team would look like the Browns. Perennial losers don't land coaches like Carroll.

 

[NJSeahawk]

love SA, the first reason the Seahawks caught my eye, but I gotta say he's wrong on this, just my two cents

If SA I'd the first reason the Seahawks caught your eye, then he is absolutely right. You might not be a Seahawks fan right now without him, or without the Holmgren years. And many others are the same.

Without the Holmgren years, this team would have been bad for 2 decades straight. Instead they were bad for a decade and good for a decade and had a Superbowl appearance under their belt. The Holmgren years gave this team something to build off of. Something to show Pete Carroll when they offered him the job. Yeah, Carroll took over a bad team, but the great years before those 2 bad years showed potential. Without those years, this team would look like the Browns. Perennial losers don't land coaches like Carroll.

Touche, can't disagree with any this.

 

[onanygivensunday]

The Holmgren years gave this team something to build off of. Something to show Pete Carroll when they offered him the job. Yeah, Carroll took over a bad team, but the great years before those 2 bad years showed potential. Without those years, this team would look like the Browns. Perennial losers don't land coaches like Carroll.

I don't buy that rationale.

In the absence of Carroll stating that he took the Seattle job because he wanted to finish what Holmgren fell short of (i.e., winning the Lombardi), there is no basis for your statements.

From what I read and learned over time, Pete took the job because he wanted the opportunity to test his "Win Forever" system in the NFL and he needed an owner that would allow him to be in charge of personnel along with the traditional HC-ing duties.

He got such a deal from Paul and Todd.

I am of the opinion what happened in Seattle the years prior to 2010 (success or no success) had no bearing on Pete's decision to accept Paul's/Todd's offer.

 

[hawk45]

SA both wrong and egotistical. PA got holmgren here, he would have gotten Pete. Pete and Schneider built from nothing. And the fans were only dormant, waiting to turn instantly rabid, SA and the success of those teams did not create that, not one single bit.

Statistically SA one of the greatest Seahawks of all time. His selfish style of play at attitude make him rank, for me at least, as follows in terms of beloved RBs:

1) Lynch
2) Warner
3) John L. Williams
4) Ricky Watters
5) SA

Yes, I feel more fondness for Ricky Watters than Alexander.