The
Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle
, Washington
, USA. They are currently members of the
Western Division of the
National Football Conference
(NFC) in the
National Football
League (NFL). The team, along with the
Tampa Bay Buccaneers, joined the NFL in
1976 as
expansion teams. Seattle is
the only team to have played in both the
AFC (American Football Conference) and
NFC Championship Games. The
Seahawks have one
Super Bowl appearance,
Super Bowl XL.
Franchise history
On June
15, 1972, Seattle Professional Football Inc., a group of Seattle
business and community leaders, announced its intention to acquire
an NFL franchise for the city of Seattle, WA
. Almost two years later on June 4, 1974, the
NFL awarded the group an expansion franchise. On December 5, 1974,
NFL Commissioner
Pete Rozelle announced
the official signing of the franchise agreement by Lloyd W.
Nordstrom, representing the Nordstrom family as majority partners
for the consortium. Nordstrom died of a heart attack on January 20,
1976, just months before the Seahawks played their first
game.
On March
5, 1975, John
Thompson, a former University of Washington
executive, was hired as the general manager of the
yet-unnamed team. The name
Seattle Seahawks
(another name for
osprey) was selected on
June 17, 1975 after a public naming contest which drew more than
20,000 entries and over 1,700 different names. Thompson recruited
and hired
Jack Patera, a
Minnesota Vikings assistant coach, to be
the first head coach of the new team. Patera was introduced as the
new head coach at a press conference on January 3, 1976. The
expansion draft was held
March 30-31, 1976,
with Seattle and the
Tampa Bay
Buccaneers alternating picks for rounds selecting unprotected
players from the other 26 teams in the league. The Seahawks were
awarded the 2nd overall pick in the
1976
draft, a pick they used on defensive tackle
Steve Niehaus.
The team took the field for the first time
on August 1, 1976 in a pre-season game against the San Francisco 49ers in the then newly
constructed Kingdome
.
The Seahawks are the only NFL team to switch conferences twice in
the post-merger era. The franchise began play in 1976 in the
NFC West division but switched conferences
with the Buccaneers after one season and joined the
AFC West. This realignment was dictated by the
league as part of the 1976 expansion plan, so that both expansion
teams could play each other twice and every other NFL franchise
once during their first two seasons. In 2002, the Seahawks were
returned to the NFC West as part of an NFL realignment plan that
gave each conference four balanced divisions of four teams each.
This was done after the
Houston
Texans were added as the thirty-second team. This realignment
restored the AFC West to its initial post-merger roster of original
AFL teams
Denver,
San
Diego,
Kansas City and
Oakland.
Seattle has won six division titles in their franchise history: the
1988 and 1999 AFC West titles, and the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007
NFC West titles. They have won the
NFC Championship Game once in 2005,
and lost the
AFC Championship
Game once in 1983. Before 2005, Seattle had the longest drought
of playoff victories of any NFL team, dating back to the
1984 season. That drought was ended
with a 20-10 win over the
Washington
Redskins in the
2005
playoffs. The all-time Seahawks playoff record is (7-10).
As a
tribute to the raucous fans that made the Kingdome the loudest
stadium in the NFL the
Seahawks retired the number 12 on December 15, 1984. Since
then #12 Jerseys have been sold by the team and worn by Seahawk
fans, often with the name "Fan" on the back. The Seahawks also have
a ceremony before each home game where a flag bearing the #12 is
raised by a prominent individual. In the 2005 season the fans were
again making a difference in games and were recognized with the
presentation of a special game ball for their efforts in a game
against the
New York Giants, a game
in which the Giants committed 11 false start penalties in large
part because of the crowd noise.
The team's
use of the phrase "12th Man" was
in a legal limbo for a while between the 2005 and 2006 season when
Texas A&M
University
sued the team for trademark infringement. Before
going to trial, both parties settled out of court with Seattle
agreeing to acknowledge ownership rights to the 12th Man slogan to
A&M. In return the Seahawks were allowed to continue to use the
phrase.
Starting in the 1998 season,
Blitz has been the Seahawks' official
mascot. In the 2003 and 2004 seasons, a
hawk
named Faith would fly around the stadium just before the team came
out of the tunnel. However, because of her relative small size and
an inability to be trained to lead the team out of a tunnel, Faith
was replaced by an
augur hawk named
Taima before the start of the 2005 season. Taima started leading
the team out of the tunnel in September 2006.
Headquarters and training camps
During the
Seahawks' first ten seasons ( -85),
the team's headquarters was at Carillon Point on the shores of
Lake
Washington
.
The summer
training camps were initially held at Eastern
Washington University
in Cheney
, just southwest of Spokane
. When the team's new headquarters across
town in Kirkland were completed in , the Seahawks held training
camp at home for the next eleven seasons (1986-96), staying in the
dormitories of the adjacent
Northwest College. In
Dennis Erickson's third season as
head coach, the team returned to the hotter and more isolated
Cheney in , where they held training camp through . In 2007,
training camp returned to their Kirkland facility, because of the
scheduled
China Bowl game that was later
canceled.
In 2008, the Seahawks held the first three
weeks of camp in Kirkland, then moved to the new 19-acre Virginia Mason
Athletic Center
on August 18 for the final week of training
camp. The new facility, adjacent to Lake
Washington in Renton
, has four full-size practice fields: three natural
grass outdoors and a one FieldTurf
indoors.
Logos and uniforms
Seattle Seahawks uniform
combination
Seattle Seahawks uniform,
1976-1982
Seattle Seahawks uniform,
1983-2001
When the Seahawks debuted in , the team's logo was a stylized royal
blue and forest green hawk's head based on Northwestern
tribal art. The helmet
and pants were silver while the home uniforms were royal blue with
white, blue and green arm stripes. The road uniform was white with
blue and green arm stripes. Black shoes were worn for the first
several seasons, one of the few NFL teams that did in the late
1970s.
In , coinciding with the arrival of
Chuck
Knox as head coach, the uniforms were updated slightly. The
striping on the arms now incorporated the Seahawks logo, and the TV
numbers moved onto the shoulders. Helmet facemasks changed from
gray to blue. Also, the socks went solid blue at the top, white on
bottom.
In , to
coincide with the team moving to the NFC as well
as the opening of Seahawks
Stadium
, both the logo and the uniforms were heavily
redesigned. The Wordmark was designed by Mark Verlander and
the logo was designed by NFL Properties in-house design team. The
colors were modified to a lighter "Seahawks Blue", a darker
"Seahawks Navy" and seafoam green piping. The helmets also were
changed from silver to the lighter "Seahawks Blue" color after a
fan poll was conducted. The logo artwork was also subtly altered,
with an arched eyebrow and a forward-facing pupil suggesting a more
aggressive-looking bird. At first, the team had planned to wear
silver helmets at home and blue helmets on the road, but since NFL
rules forbid the use of multiple helmets, the team held the fan
poll to decide which color helmet would be worn. Because of the
reflectivity of the paint used, the appearance of the helmets'
color can vary widely between gray, navy, and turquoise, depending
on the lighting. The team has usually worn all blue at home and all
white on the road since 2003. The blue jersey and white pants combo
has been worn for only one regular season game, the 2005 season
opener at the
Jacksonville
Jaguars, while the white jersey and blue pants combination has
not been worn regularly since late in the 2002 season and made its
final appearance in a December 7, 2003 game against the
Minnesota Vikings. On November 22, 2009,
the Seahawks once again wore the white jersey and blue pants
combination in a game against the Minnesota Vikings. The Seahawks
also wore their home blues during
Super
Bowl XL despite being designated as the visitor, since the
Pittsburgh Steelers insisted on
wearing their road uniforms because of their recent road
success.
With the
Oakland Raiders wearing
their white jerseys at home for the first time ever in a game
against the
San Diego Chargers on
Sept. 28, 2008, the Seahawks have become the only NFL team to have
never worn their white jerseys at home.
On Sept. 27, 2009, the Seahawks wore seafoam green jerseys for the
first time, paired with the blue pants in game against the
Chicago Bears. The jerseys were designed in
honor of the new Major League Soccer team
Seattle Sounders FC who also wear a
seafoam green jersey with blue pants (or in SSFCs case, shorts). It
was originally reported by
Chris Berman
from
ESPN during the Week 3 predictions of his
2-Minute Drill portion of
SportsCenter
and confirmed by QB
Matt
Hasselbeck.
Seasons
As of 2009, the Seattle Seahawks have competed in 33 NFL seasons,
dating back to their expansion year of
1976.
The team has compiled a 250-266 record (257-276 counting the
playoffs) for a .484
winning percentage (.482 counting the
playoffs). Seattle has reached the playoffs in ten separate
seasons, including losing
Super Bowl
XL in 2006 against the
Pittsburgh Steelers.
Team records
Players of note
Current roster
Pro Football Hall of Famers
Note: Although
Mike McCormack served as
head coach, president, and general manager for the Seahawks, he is
only listed in the Pro Football Hall of Fame for his
contributions as a tackle for the
New
York Yanks and the
Cleveland
Browns.
Retired Numbers
Coaches of note
Head coaches
Current staff
Sea Gals (Cheerleaders)
The Seahawks cheerleaders are called the
Sea
Gals. During the off-season, a select performing group from the
Sea Gals travel parades and with other
NFL Cheerleaders on the road.
12th man
The term "12th Man" was coined and marketed to represent the Texas
Aggie fans after the 1922 Dixie Classic. While intellectual
property laws recognize such common law uses in trademark disputes,
the official registration of the mark was not filed by Texas
A&M (U.S. Reg. No. 1948306) until September 1990, and later
significantly bolstered by the passage of the Federal Dilution
Trademark Act of 1995. This law allowed Texas A&M to use
potential damage to the trademark through dilution as a
justification in its lawsuit against the Seattle Seahawks.
According to statements made by Texas A&M officials, they sent
requests to stop using the phrase to the Seattle Seahawks (2004,
2005), Buffalo Bills (undated), and the Chicago Bears (undated).
Both the Bills and the Bears responded to the requests stating they
would no longer use the phrase, however the Seahawks failed to
respond to the request.
In January 2006, Texas A&M filed suit against the Seattle
Seahawks to protect the trademark and in May 2006, the dispute was
settled out of court. In the agreement, Texas A&M licensed the
Seahawks to continue using the phrase "12th Man" in exchange for a
licensing fee and public acknowledgement by the NFL franchise as to
Texas A&M's ownership of the phrase.
The
Seahawks have some of the loudest fans in the NFL, dating back to
the days of the Kingdome. In 1984, the number twelve was retired to
honor the fans.
The
Seahawks began playing at Qwest Field in 2002. Every regular season and playoff
game at Qwest Field since the 2nd week of the 2003 season has been
played before a sellout crowd, a streak of 52 consecutive
games.
Inside Qwest Field the noise level can reach as high as 137
decibels, or the equivalent of a jet
engine. Indeed, this has caused problems for opposing teams, making
them have numerous false starts and penalties. From 2005 through
the end of the 2008 season, the 12th man has caused a league high
78 false start penalties.
Prior to kickoff of each home game, the Seahawks salute the
second-loudest fans in football - behind Texas A&M University's
fans at Kyle Field - by raising the 12th man flag at the south end
of the stadium. Current and former players and coaches, various
local celebrities, fans, other Seattle area athletes, and current
owner
Paul Allen have raised the
flag.
Team owners
Radio and television
, the Seahawks' flagship station is KIRO
97.3FM. The current announcers are former Seahawks players Steve Raible (who was the team's color commentator from 1982-2003) and Warren Moon. The Raible-Moon regular season pairing has been together since 2004 (during the preseason Moon works for the local television broadcast so the color commentary is split between former Seahawks Paul Moyer, Sam Adkins, and Brock Huard). Pete Gross, who called the games from until just days before his death from cancer in , is a member of the team's Ring of Honor. Games are heard on 47 stations in five states and Canada making the Seahawks the NFL's largest area in terms of network coverage.
Past announcers include; Steve Thomas (Radio: 1992-1997),
Lee Hamilton also known as "Hacksaw"
(Radio: 1998-1999), and Brian Davis (Radio: 2000-2003).
Preseason
games not shown on national networks are televised by KING-TV
, channel 5 (and, in 2008, also on sister station
KONG-TV
since KING, an NBC affiliate, was committed to the
Summer Olympics in China)
Curt Menefee replaced Vern Lundquist as the Seahawks TV voice for
the 2009 preseason. The games have been produced by
FSN Northwest.
See also
Notes and references
- Look Back
- Look Back
- 1976 NFL Expansion Draft - Pro Football Hall of
Fame
- http://www.seahawks.com/vmacwebcam.aspx
-
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/seahawks/2008123067_hawk19x.html
- http://www.seahawks.com/tickets/season-tickets/index.html
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