Dave Wyman - Seattle Seahawks: Stories from the Seattle Seahawks Sideline, Locker Room, and Press Box

To my wife, Shannen, for putting up with me burying myself in my computer to write this book, and to my children, Jake and Kendall, for telling me when something was boring and sucks.

DW

To my sons, Curtis and Marcus, who have made this all worth it.

BC

Contents

Foreword by Dave Krieg

As the door closed on the tiny puddle jumper of my first ever airplane flight, I was in fear. Not only was I in the air and climbing, but there was more unknown ahead. I was heading to my first minicamp with the Seattle Seahawks. I was a wide-eyed kid about to fulfill a dream I had since I was 5 and growing up in Wisconsin, visualizing maybe someday playing for Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers. It was May 15, 1980, a date easy to remember because Mount St. Helens erupted three days later. As I think back, its strange that I got to see a mountain erupt and then the Kingdome implode 20 years later.

The Seahawks were still a young franchise then, playing their first game in 1976. What I mostly knew of the Seahawks were their special teams orchestrated by the guru himself, assistant coach Rusty Tillman, and kicker Efren Herrera, who may be the best receiving kicker in the history of the NFL. Things slowly would change, though, and for a while in the mid-1980s, the Seahawks rose to national prominence, setting the foundation for what is now one of the best franchises in all of sports.

And in a few years, wed be in the playoffs one game away from the Super Bowl. Who could have imagined that? Thats what I call visualizing! But I could not have visualized Dave Wyman writing a book. In all seriousness, Dave has an absolute love for the game. And after playing in the NFL in the 1980s and 1990s, he now sits aside the legend himself, Steve Raible, doing color commentary on the radio broadcasts for the Seahawks. I cant think of any better pairing. Both of these guys are passionate ambassadors for the city of Seattle, the state of Washington, and the Northwest.

Dave and I might disagree at times; he is ultracompetitive in that department, too. But overall Id like to think we had the same destination in mind. Its just how we got there that might have been different at times. Dave showed his courage and guts long before he got to the NFL. He suffered a gruesome knee injury his senior year at Stanford. Someone on the sideline that day told me hed never seen a leg bend back like that.

He was then drafted by the Seahawks in the second round in 1987. Imagine coming off major ACL, MCL, and patella tendon surgery and straight into an expectation-laden business.

But he persevered and became a great player, a better teammate, and a close friend. Heck, I even let him babysit my boys when they were infants. I, however, did hear of one incident when my son, Mikey, bit Dave on the stomach while wrestling with him.

Dave can have biting commentary, too. As youll see in this book, he isnt one to mince words. This book offers great insight into the inner workings of the Seahawks front office, particularly in the last decade, as Pete Carroll and John Schneider have built the team into one of the most successful in the NFL and brought Seattle its first Super Bowl title.

He goes into vivid detail about the excitement of being drafted, the physical pain he endured, and the agonizing realization when it was finally over. He gives you a look into the linebackers perspective. He brings you right into the trenches, and you will get to know the current and former players and personalities on and off the field.

That brings me back to the start of my Seahawks career. I was in Minneapolis for the connection to Seattle and started to walk onto the plane, and there was this mountain of a man in front of me. It was 66 and 270 pounds of Ron Essink, or Shank, as he was affectionately called. As we got situated into our first-class seatsanother first for meI found out the offensive tackle was a 10 th -round pick. Shank would go on to protect my blind side as our left tackle through the glory days of the early 80s, and we became best friends. An All-American in both football and wrestling at Grand Valley State, he was a workout fiend. Being in peak shape was the standard for him.

My first impression of Seattle was one word: beautiful. You could see the mountains, the water, the blue skies with clouds floating. It was like that old TV show, Here Come the Brides .

We got off the plane and were shuttled to the Bellevue Holiday Inn. Maybe that doesnt sound like much, but for mecoming from tiny Milton Collegeit was the nicest place.

Our first practice was Friday, May 15, and there were two rookies to a locker. We were told to bring our helmets and shoes. Our Milton College helmets were gold like Notre Dames, and my shoes were rubber-bottomed Riddells with the cleats worn down like a bowling shoe. Practicing on the best manicured football fields and seeing sparkling Lake Washington was sure something.

The next day I got called up from the field to the general managers office. I went upstairs with my helmet and cleats still on, thinking I was getting cut. I didnt have an agent, but they offered me a three-year contract with an option plus a signing bonus of $500. It must have been the quickest negotiation ever. I walked out of there on cloud nine.

Football was the ultimate opportunity for me. Growing up in central Wisconsin, the life options there were basically working at a paper mill or a dairy farm like the one my dad, Myron Krieg, grew up on. Eventually, my dad got a job with the Wisconsin State Patrol. The only sport my dad played was farm league baseball. Milking cows, bailing hay, and shoveling manure were jobs that had to be done every day at 5:00 am and 5:00 pm . That work ethic shown by Grandpa and my family would become invaluable to me. After my senior year of high school, my dad suggested college. I was a good athlete, but I wasnt All-Conference or anything like that, so I had no offers.

My high school coach, Dick Ambrosino, recommended Milton, a school that had 300 students at the time and was located in the southern part of Wisconsin in a town that had a population of about 3,000. Head coach Rudy Gaddini told me Id have a shot at quarterback. We were seven deep at that spot, and I had to start at the bottom. I had an inauspicious start at Milton, separating my shoulder in my first scrimmage game. After five weeks of healing and with the offense struggling, Coach Gaddini put me in. If the beginning was a little rocky, I quickly found out that Milton was an unbelievably fortuitous place for me. I was able to play four years, getting invaluable experience and reps. We did not have reporters in the locker room or TV coverage. In a small way it bonded us as teammates because not one person was getting the blame or credit. Id learn later that I wished I had more reps with reporters.

But after four years at Milton in the rearview mirror and a signed contract with the Seahawks, it was go time. My next flight was to Spokane to start training camp in Cheney at Eastern Washington University. It was evident immediately that this experience was more intense than any game Id ever been in, and it was only practice! This was back in the day when teams brought in seven quarterbacks. A couple of the quarterbacks got homesick, and another was cut. After a matter of weeks, I was all the way up to fourth string.

That first camp when Jack Patera was still the coach was far and away the most tortuous camp I remember. The mental grind for any player is difficult, but for a quarterback, its even more. You are expected to simply say the play while at same time, thinking, Which way do I turn? Who do I throw to? Whats going to be the coverage? Whats the snap count?