jlaff35
New member
This is an article written by Walsh95 for our blog, hawksontap.com, but wanted to share it here for my friends at .net. If you want to read the article in it's best format, head to my blog where there are pictures, etc. But if not, enjoy it here!
My buddy was repeatedly making the same comment as the Seahawks finished the season on a hot streak and worked their way through the playoffs. “I keep trying to explain to (my five year old son) that the Seahawks don’t win the Super Bowl every year”. For a five year old, why wouldn’t he assume we win every year? We would typically follow this up with a discussion about how my nine year old son has seen as many Seahawks Super Bowls as I have, and his view of the Seahawks will be much different than the one I grew up with in the 80’s and 90’s.
I fear he may never have the privilege of wearing a Seahawks parka to junior high every day during a 2-14 season, while his friends are all buying Raiders gear. He may never listen to multiple uncles roll into the house around game time and ask if the Sea-Chickens are playing, each time convinced they had just made up the phrase in that very moment. My son will definitely never understand what the term Sea-Scabs means, and has been so completely spoiled by Marshawn Lynch that trying to explain the phrase “Warner, Warner, Turn the Corner” would figuratively blow his mind.
Their used to be so few of us who cared. It sounds like absolute fiction that the Seahawks were so close to relocating to California they actually had their equipment in moving vans rolling south on I-5. The Save our Seahawks campaign feels like so long ago, but it has been less than 20 years since my brother-in-law was in a call center in Spokane smiling and dialing to rally support for a new stadium. Commitment in the face of adversity defined being a Seahawks fan in the early days, not hanging a 12 flag from your balcony (which I also do, by the way).
All things being equal, an NFL team should only go to the Super Bowl every 16 years, and only win one every 32 years. The Seahawks have been to three Super Bowls in under 10 years. For many this seems completely reasonable and even expected, for others the feeling is completely surreal, even more so than what we just witnessed to conclude the season on Sunday.
You see, Seahawks fans can be over-generalized into two very distinct groups: those of us who lived through the drama mentioned above, and those who tuned in during the last three or so years. This isn’t a simple “diehards” versus “bandwagon” statement. Wether it was due to geography, the space-time continuum, or some other mitigating factor, many Twelves were late to the party. Being a recent fan doesn’t make you less of a fan, it only changes the lens through which you view the current state of affairs.
For the long-suffering Seahawks fans, our moment was the 2014 Super Bowl. We endured years of abuse, neglect, and underachieving, which led up to the spirit destroying Super Bowl of 2006. We were then forced to watch the team steadily decline for the next five years knowing our window had not only closed, the house would need to be torn down and rebuilt.
And so we waited. And we hoped. And we believed in Pete Carroll. And we projected all of our hopes and dreams and frustrations onto Russell Wilson.
And they delivered.
Seattle fans have always shared a special bond with each other, because being a Seattle fan is just like life itself. Life isn’t like Russell Wilson’s Twitter account, man how I wish it were. It would be great if everything that didn’t kill you made you stronger; but sometimes not dying is pretty impressive, even if you are a little weaker for it. Most of us can’t put in 110% every day to reach our maximum potential, we are doing pretty well just to show up.
For almost 40 years, tens of thousands of Seahawks fans have just shown up, and last year we were rewarded for our patience.
For those new to the Seahawks you can choose to be frustrated by the outcome on Sunday, but I think the result is exactly what you needed. Not because it will make you stronger. Not because from great challenge comes great opportunity. And not because we will live to fight another day.
No, the game on Sunday was so great because it resembles life. There are no free lunches, you can’t tune into a football team when it is convenient and get to enjoy two straight Super Bowl victories. Especially not in Seattle.
As I see more of my life in the rearview mirror every day, I realize that all the good things that I have were proceeded by not so good things. I can look back and see that when things were not good, I rarely had that one dramatic moment of great triumph where I came storming back to show life who is boss.
But even though I never had my great Jermaine Kearse redemption moment, each time I was down I still showed up. And I kept showing up. And each time I did I was rewarded for my consistency with something I probably didn’t deserve. Something much more meaningful than a fleeting moment of trash-talking supremacy.
I saw a lot more Seahawks jerseys when I flew into the Phoenix airport last week than I saw when I was flying out the day after the game. It was important to me to wear Seahawks gear flying out of Phoenix on Monday after that soul-crushing defeat, especially when I had to stand in line next to Bostonians in shiny new Patriots gear. It is entirely possible that I would have felt superior to those New England fans had we scored on that final offensive play, so it was important to be humbled on the way out. Life doesn’t let you choose only the good moments, and let you hide during the bad ones.
What I personally find most enjoyable about being a fan is the challenge of remaining consistent. Try to stay humble during the good times, and don’t get too low during the bad times. Pete Carroll uses his role as coach of the Seahawks to live and teach his life philosophy to others. We may not have the same grand scale on which to display our philosophy, but in your own little corner of the world how you root for the Seahawks does say something about how you approach life.
I love seeing my son’s face after the Seahawks win a big game, but he will have to go through so much more than just great victories in his life. I’m not suggesting my parenting philosophy consists solely of inspirational talks during a 16 game plus playoffs football season, but I would admit that a parent could do much worse than use the ups and downs of sports to instill life lessons.
Man, those vegetables went down rough on Sunday. But I’m glad they did, because being a Seahawks fan was starting to become a little bit too easy. And when things are so easy they don’t resemble real life, they become a little less enjoyable, and a lot less memorable.
Here is to a healthy off-season of recovery, both mental and physical. Just stay the course Seahawks fans, and my life experiences tell me there are plenty more good times ahead.
My buddy was repeatedly making the same comment as the Seahawks finished the season on a hot streak and worked their way through the playoffs. “I keep trying to explain to (my five year old son) that the Seahawks don’t win the Super Bowl every year”. For a five year old, why wouldn’t he assume we win every year? We would typically follow this up with a discussion about how my nine year old son has seen as many Seahawks Super Bowls as I have, and his view of the Seahawks will be much different than the one I grew up with in the 80’s and 90’s.
I fear he may never have the privilege of wearing a Seahawks parka to junior high every day during a 2-14 season, while his friends are all buying Raiders gear. He may never listen to multiple uncles roll into the house around game time and ask if the Sea-Chickens are playing, each time convinced they had just made up the phrase in that very moment. My son will definitely never understand what the term Sea-Scabs means, and has been so completely spoiled by Marshawn Lynch that trying to explain the phrase “Warner, Warner, Turn the Corner” would figuratively blow his mind.
Their used to be so few of us who cared. It sounds like absolute fiction that the Seahawks were so close to relocating to California they actually had their equipment in moving vans rolling south on I-5. The Save our Seahawks campaign feels like so long ago, but it has been less than 20 years since my brother-in-law was in a call center in Spokane smiling and dialing to rally support for a new stadium. Commitment in the face of adversity defined being a Seahawks fan in the early days, not hanging a 12 flag from your balcony (which I also do, by the way).
All things being equal, an NFL team should only go to the Super Bowl every 16 years, and only win one every 32 years. The Seahawks have been to three Super Bowls in under 10 years. For many this seems completely reasonable and even expected, for others the feeling is completely surreal, even more so than what we just witnessed to conclude the season on Sunday.
You see, Seahawks fans can be over-generalized into two very distinct groups: those of us who lived through the drama mentioned above, and those who tuned in during the last three or so years. This isn’t a simple “diehards” versus “bandwagon” statement. Wether it was due to geography, the space-time continuum, or some other mitigating factor, many Twelves were late to the party. Being a recent fan doesn’t make you less of a fan, it only changes the lens through which you view the current state of affairs.
For the long-suffering Seahawks fans, our moment was the 2014 Super Bowl. We endured years of abuse, neglect, and underachieving, which led up to the spirit destroying Super Bowl of 2006. We were then forced to watch the team steadily decline for the next five years knowing our window had not only closed, the house would need to be torn down and rebuilt.
And so we waited. And we hoped. And we believed in Pete Carroll. And we projected all of our hopes and dreams and frustrations onto Russell Wilson.
And they delivered.
Seattle fans have always shared a special bond with each other, because being a Seattle fan is just like life itself. Life isn’t like Russell Wilson’s Twitter account, man how I wish it were. It would be great if everything that didn’t kill you made you stronger; but sometimes not dying is pretty impressive, even if you are a little weaker for it. Most of us can’t put in 110% every day to reach our maximum potential, we are doing pretty well just to show up.
For almost 40 years, tens of thousands of Seahawks fans have just shown up, and last year we were rewarded for our patience.
For those new to the Seahawks you can choose to be frustrated by the outcome on Sunday, but I think the result is exactly what you needed. Not because it will make you stronger. Not because from great challenge comes great opportunity. And not because we will live to fight another day.
No, the game on Sunday was so great because it resembles life. There are no free lunches, you can’t tune into a football team when it is convenient and get to enjoy two straight Super Bowl victories. Especially not in Seattle.
As I see more of my life in the rearview mirror every day, I realize that all the good things that I have were proceeded by not so good things. I can look back and see that when things were not good, I rarely had that one dramatic moment of great triumph where I came storming back to show life who is boss.
But even though I never had my great Jermaine Kearse redemption moment, each time I was down I still showed up. And I kept showing up. And each time I did I was rewarded for my consistency with something I probably didn’t deserve. Something much more meaningful than a fleeting moment of trash-talking supremacy.
I saw a lot more Seahawks jerseys when I flew into the Phoenix airport last week than I saw when I was flying out the day after the game. It was important to me to wear Seahawks gear flying out of Phoenix on Monday after that soul-crushing defeat, especially when I had to stand in line next to Bostonians in shiny new Patriots gear. It is entirely possible that I would have felt superior to those New England fans had we scored on that final offensive play, so it was important to be humbled on the way out. Life doesn’t let you choose only the good moments, and let you hide during the bad ones.
What I personally find most enjoyable about being a fan is the challenge of remaining consistent. Try to stay humble during the good times, and don’t get too low during the bad times. Pete Carroll uses his role as coach of the Seahawks to live and teach his life philosophy to others. We may not have the same grand scale on which to display our philosophy, but in your own little corner of the world how you root for the Seahawks does say something about how you approach life.
I love seeing my son’s face after the Seahawks win a big game, but he will have to go through so much more than just great victories in his life. I’m not suggesting my parenting philosophy consists solely of inspirational talks during a 16 game plus playoffs football season, but I would admit that a parent could do much worse than use the ups and downs of sports to instill life lessons.
Man, those vegetables went down rough on Sunday. But I’m glad they did, because being a Seahawks fan was starting to become a little bit too easy. And when things are so easy they don’t resemble real life, they become a little less enjoyable, and a lot less memorable.
Here is to a healthy off-season of recovery, both mental and physical. Just stay the course Seahawks fans, and my life experiences tell me there are plenty more good times ahead.
but the point is well taken.
