Last week, the Seattle Seahawks canceled a planned meeting with Colin Kaepernick. My understanding is that the purpose of the meeting was for Kaepernick to work out with the team and to discuss potential opportunities with the franchise. However, according to reports, Seahawks management called off the meeting when Kaepernick would not disclose his plans for future off-field activities and also refused to say if he would continue to kneel during the national anthem. A day after the cancellation was reported, the Seahawks signed Stephen…
Dear Richard, It’s not like I didn’t know it was coming. It had been all over social media and sports radio for days. Still, when the official news broke, it hit me like a sledgehammer. I was at my desk at work and lost my breath for a moment. My gut knotted up. I was expecting it, but it still felt so surreal. The next day, you signed the deal with the 49ers. Any lingering hope that you might come back to the Seahawks was…
Last Sunday afternoon, I did the unthinkable: I turned off the Seahawks game. They were playing the Jaguars, and it was close to the end of the third quarter. I couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t a matter of turning it off in anger and disgust at the way they were playing. It was an act of self-preservation. It was too painful. I couldn’t watch them implode anymore. I got put in my shoes and grabbed my coat. In the haste of the moment, I…
-Getty Images Last week, Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman was injured in an ugly Thursday Night Football game against the Arizona Cardinals. My friend Nate and I watched the game at a little sports bar in West Seattle and saw the play and the injury. The visual of my hero crumpled on the field was upsetting. A chill ran through me, but I still held out hope that the injury was not significant. However, as I was driving home that night…
We're just days away from Seahawks football...mere days. And although it’s only preseason fare, any football is better than no football. Am I excited? Well, as my father used to say, “Is a hog’s hip pork?” I’ve survived the long ordeal of the off-season, enduring week after week of slow dreary Sundays. I’m ready. I’m ready for all of it: first downs, touchdowns, sacks and pick-sixes. Throw in a field goal or two. Dumb happy. Give me the sweet roar of the 12’s. Bliss baby.…
Things are rather heavy these days. There's a pall draping our collective psyche. I can see and feel it everywhere: on social media, in the weary faces of both loved ones and strangers, in the low vibration that moans just beneath the surface of everything. We’re despondent still over a looming Trump presidency and all – known and unknown – that it brings. We’re grieving so many things, including the demise of the country we thought we knew. We’re awash in ambiguity and it hurts.…
I recently came across a post by Jennifer Garam entitled “How to Keep Writing When No One Gives a Shit.” She begins the piece with an unflinching overview of the current state of her writing career: “…no publisher is wooing me with six figure advances…nothing I’ve written has gone viral…no one is compulsively refreshing my website, checking for my next blog post to be published.” She goes on to discuss other cruel metrics−sluggish web traffic, low engagement on social media, etc.− that seem to confirm…
photo by Elaine Thompson, AP Of course, Seattle football fans are in an ecstatic frenzy over the Seahawks defeat of the San Francisco 49ers in yesterday’s slugfest for the NFC Championship. The game was a classic nail biter down to the final seconds. Colin Kaepernick blasted a last effort pass to Michael Crabtree, only to have Richard Sherman tip the ball into the hands of Michael Smith for the interception that would nail the win and send the Seahawks to the…
photo by Joe Nicholson Technically speaking, the NFL was probably within its rights to fine Seattle Seahawk Marshawn Lynch for not talking to the press this season. The League policy states: “Cooperation with the news media is essential to the continuing popularity and financial prosperity of our game and its players. This is an important part of your job, especially in these challenging times when everyone in the NFL must do more to promote our game.” The language in the standard…
We completely lost our minds last night. It was one of those “one thing led to another” situations. I was hanging out with Lora and Jeff, my faithful football buddies. Whenever the Seahawks play, we’re together. We yell at the TV and each other. We jump around. We celebrate. We represent. We’re crazy for our team and we rock it hard. Although there are other good fans at our weekly gathering, Lora and Jeff are my mainstays. If there’s a heaven and I go there…
