Steve Raible - Tales from the Seattle Seahawks Sideline: A Collection of the Greatest Seahawks Stories Ever Told

TALES FROM THE
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
SIDELINE

A COLLECTION OF THE GREATEST
SEAHAWKS STORIES EVER TOLD

STEVE RAIBLE
WITH MIKE SANDO

Copyright 2004, 2012 by Steve Raible and Mike Sando

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Photos courtesy of Seattle Seahawks.

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN: 978-1-61321-229-5

Printed in the United States of America

For Sharon.

Thanks for the patience,
the support and the love.

Steve

CONTENTS

Chuck

Character and Characters

Crazy Days

Turbulence Ahead

1983 Cinderella Season

You Dont Know Jack

Steve Largent

Kenny Easley

The Man from Milton

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Jim Zorn

Pete,Wayne and the Gang

Silver Linings

The Jake

As I Was Saying

ACKNOWL EDGMENTS

T he authors thank the Seahawks for their cooperation. Photographer Corky Trewin came through in the clutch. Gary Wright, Dave Pearson and Michael Lipman were also particularly helpful, as always.

INTRODUCTION

I t was a simple second-down running play. If you were lucky, youd get three or four yards. With less than three and a half minutes to play, all the Seahawks wanted to do with running back Marshawn Lynch was pound the rock and hang on to an evaporating lead against the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints.

It was a matchup nobody expected. Seattle arrived at the playoffs as the first division winner in NFL history with a losing record (7-9). And it was a game few outside the Hawks locker room thought first-year coach Pete Carrolls rebuilding-process of a team could possibly win. But it was on this raw January 2011 afternoon in Seattle that the Seahawks were reborn. From our broadcast booth at Qwest Field (now CenturyLink Field), Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon and I watched the most improbable, impossible play unfold.

2nd and 10 at the 33. Matthew (Hasselbeck) under center. (Ben) Obomanu goes in motion right to left. Turn and hand to Lynch left side. Finds a little bit of a hole. (LOUDER) Keeps his legs moving. Hes across the 40... midfield... hes on the run, Lynch. (LOUDER) 40... pushes a man 35, look at him go. (YELLING) Hes down to the 20, 15 he could go. He is gonna go. (SCREAMING) Touchdown Seahawks!

(CROWD GOES NUTS) Oh my word, a 67-yard run! Marshawn Lynch unbelievable! He must have knocked five guys down on the way to the end zone. The Beast is alive and well!

That single play, that remarkable individual and team effort not only shook the football experts down to their shoelaces, it even registered on the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. Lynch finished with 131 yards, and Hasselbeck threw four touchdowns in Seattles 41-36 win over the Saints. Entering my 37th year with the franchise as player, analyst and now play-by-play voice of the team, Ive seen few plays so dramatic and so consequential.

For after the Holmgren era had passed and Jim Moras one-year tenure had run its course, Carrolls believers have made believers of us all. The Seahawks enter the 2012 season with the biggest, fastest, most talented Seattle defense since the days of Easley, Jake and Tez. The young offensive line is made up of athletic road graders. And Beast Mode is still well a beast! And for the 12th Man all those eternally hoarse fans who make Seattle the toughest road game in the NFL these are the Tales from the Seattle Seahawks Sideline with new and updated stories since our first go-around in 2004.

Now as then, special thanks to Mike Sando, to all those teammates and friends who shared their stories, and to the Seahawks for their support and assistance. And to the fans whose cheering for their Hawks will always ring in my ears.

Steve Raible, August 2012

CHAPTER 1

Chuck

C huck Knox had only two losing seasons in nine years as Seahawks coach. His teams made four playoff appearances during a six-year stretch in the 1980s, and one of those non-playoff teams finished 10-6. Thats impressive, particularly since the franchise had never reached the playoffs before his arrival.

Chucks greatest challenge, his greatest accomplishment, was getting that first team to believe it could win. He brought in some veterans like Reggie McKenzie, Cullen Bryant and Blair Bush. He drafted a difference maker in Curt Warner. But those 1983 Seahawks were largely comprised of Jack Pateras players.

Chuck Knox

Chuck had won with the Rams, of course, and there was a sense about him that the Seahawks hadnt really existed B.C. (Before Chuck). In fact, Chuck issued an order of sorts when he discovered team pictures hanging at Seahawks headquarters: Either write the team records on the pictures, or take the pictures off the walls. Of course, only the 1978 and 1979 teams had winning records. Perhaps that was Chucks point.

It was as though he were saying, OK, you guys thought you knew how to play, but you didnt know how to play and heres what you need to know now. That said, he did take them within a game of the Super Bowl that first year, and he did it with 90 percent of Jacks players.

Mike Tice, shown here with a very young Cortez Kennedy, walked into a punishing left hook from his own coach.

Chuck by TKO

T he bigger they come, the harder they fall. And at six foot eight, Mike Tice was plenty big. He came to us from the University of Maryland in 1981 as a quarterback, if you can believe it. Coaches took one look at big Mikes arm and moved him to tight end.

The switch paid off for all involved. Tice turned into a solid all-around player. He played 14 NFL seasons, including 10 with the Seahawks, and finished with 107 starts, 11 touchdown catches and one knockout loss to Chuck Knox.

Thats right, Mike Tice once lost a fight to his head coach. Except it wasnt a fight so much as an ambush.

A skirmish had flared on the field. As Tice fled the sideline to aid his teammates cause, Chuck intervened with a left hook straight out of the steel mills where he worked summers as a kid.

Chuck turns, hits me in the gut with a punch, drops me to one knee and knocks the wind out of me, Tice said.