“It’s just a game”. I get that a lot. Many people don’t understand why I live and die during every Seahawk game. It is not easy to explain but it is “more than just a game”.
It started in about 1980. I was the same age as my son and starting to get into sports. I lived in Juneau Alaska so we didn’t have a “home” team so, for the most part, we claimed the Seahawks. My Mom and Dad had been divorced for 2 years now. I went to my father’s house every Sunday and he watched the Seahawks without fail.
At that time in my life I couldn’t understand why my parents were divorced and why we couldn’t still live together. My brother and I were lucky that we all still lived so close to each other (that would change a couple of years later). At that age we were close to our father. He went to all of our sporting events, we always had a second Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthday with him and we talked on the phone a couple times a week. And we always, always watched the Seahawks together. He taught me how that game worked, he told me who his favorite players were, and he showed me how to be a fan.
As I grew older we grew apart. My brother and I moved when I went into middle school. While I spoke to my Dad every month on the phone I only saw him on Christmas break for a week and a couple more weeks in the summer. As the years went by we had less and less to talk about. He didn’t know me real well, he didn’t have the opportunity to watch me in my events or get to know my friends or girlfriends (who am I kidding, I never had girlfriends). My interests were pretty foreign to him and he was quickly just becoming a voice on the other side of the phone. From what I hear this isn’t much different from many teenage boys who live WITH their Dad. Boys grow up and start thinking for themselves. Fishing trips are few and far between, they roll their eyes when their fathers try to give them advice, and there is less and less common ground. So while our conversations fell short on substance we always got around to talking Seahawks. We talked about our favorite player Steve Largent and how he never ceased to amaze us, we talked about how underrated Dave Krieg was and how scary Daryll “Burner” Turner could be. We complained when Fredd Young would get snubbed for the Pro Bowl and how many rings Jacob Green would have if he played for a contender and we would fight about whether or not The Boz was a Hall of Famer or a joke (in my defense I was at a very impressionable age. No matter how far apart we were in life we could always talk Hawks. Our situation reminds me of a line in “City Slickers” when the Daniel Stern’s character talks about his Dad and him talking about baseball when they couldn’t communicate in any other way. That little scene has stuck with me since that movie came out in 1991 and chokes me up every time I see it.
My Dad died almost a year ago. He didn’t get to see this superbowl matchup happen or live through this magical season. We didn’t get to talk about what happened after all the big games. We didn’t get to talk about how nervous I was to play the “Hated 49’ers” for the right to go to the Superbowl. We didn’t get to go over matchups or story lines or who we thought would be the hero. I miss him more now than when he died. That may not easy for many to understand but this game and this team was real to us, it was a very large part of our relationship. That may sound sad to you but not to me. All those conversations we had were real. And I miss that.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYw7S_RJXGs[/youtube]
It started in about 1980. I was the same age as my son and starting to get into sports. I lived in Juneau Alaska so we didn’t have a “home” team so, for the most part, we claimed the Seahawks. My Mom and Dad had been divorced for 2 years now. I went to my father’s house every Sunday and he watched the Seahawks without fail.
At that time in my life I couldn’t understand why my parents were divorced and why we couldn’t still live together. My brother and I were lucky that we all still lived so close to each other (that would change a couple of years later). At that age we were close to our father. He went to all of our sporting events, we always had a second Thanksgiving, Christmas, and birthday with him and we talked on the phone a couple times a week. And we always, always watched the Seahawks together. He taught me how that game worked, he told me who his favorite players were, and he showed me how to be a fan.
As I grew older we grew apart. My brother and I moved when I went into middle school. While I spoke to my Dad every month on the phone I only saw him on Christmas break for a week and a couple more weeks in the summer. As the years went by we had less and less to talk about. He didn’t know me real well, he didn’t have the opportunity to watch me in my events or get to know my friends or girlfriends (who am I kidding, I never had girlfriends). My interests were pretty foreign to him and he was quickly just becoming a voice on the other side of the phone. From what I hear this isn’t much different from many teenage boys who live WITH their Dad. Boys grow up and start thinking for themselves. Fishing trips are few and far between, they roll their eyes when their fathers try to give them advice, and there is less and less common ground. So while our conversations fell short on substance we always got around to talking Seahawks. We talked about our favorite player Steve Largent and how he never ceased to amaze us, we talked about how underrated Dave Krieg was and how scary Daryll “Burner” Turner could be. We complained when Fredd Young would get snubbed for the Pro Bowl and how many rings Jacob Green would have if he played for a contender and we would fight about whether or not The Boz was a Hall of Famer or a joke (in my defense I was at a very impressionable age. No matter how far apart we were in life we could always talk Hawks. Our situation reminds me of a line in “City Slickers” when the Daniel Stern’s character talks about his Dad and him talking about baseball when they couldn’t communicate in any other way. That little scene has stuck with me since that movie came out in 1991 and chokes me up every time I see it.
My Dad died almost a year ago. He didn’t get to see this superbowl matchup happen or live through this magical season. We didn’t get to talk about what happened after all the big games. We didn’t get to talk about how nervous I was to play the “Hated 49’ers” for the right to go to the Superbowl. We didn’t get to go over matchups or story lines or who we thought would be the hero. I miss him more now than when he died. That may not easy for many to understand but this game and this team was real to us, it was a very large part of our relationship. That may sound sad to you but not to me. All those conversations we had were real. And I miss that.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYw7S_RJXGs[/youtube]
