October 11, 2023 • 34 mins
Hosts Steve Raible and Jim Zorn reflect on the paths they took once their playing days came to an end. Today’s show: life after football (01:25), getting into broadcasting (4:02), getting into coaching (8:13), learning different systems (13:09), being a head coach (19:31), and the 2005 Super Bowl run (25:14).
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Seahawks Stories, taking you behind the scenes
with your favorite Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Set back to Bey and Zornher's back to pass as
time looks for the left sideline, throws a bomb down
there he's got a man in front. He makes to
grab a travel at a thirty down of the twenty.
Don't ever get him.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
He scores touch down Seahawks powered by Seahawks dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
And Zorn laid it in perfectly a Rabel who goes
in to score on an eighty yard pass and run play.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Now here's your host, the voice of the Seahawks, Steve
Rayball and Seahawks legend Jim Zorn. Hey, Steve, the thing
that I liked about the opening line was it was
our favorite Seahawks or your favorite Seahawks. Hey that the
announcer said it like it is. You're certainly my favorite.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Sea Oh yeah right, yeah, as you are mine, even
though you didn't throw me the ball very much. By
the way, this is Seahawks Stories in case you're just
picking us up here, finding us for the first time.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
We're really glad to have you along.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
And it is z Man and yours truly Steve Rabel
and we just get we get some time here to
talk about you know, there's so much talk, and rightly
so there should be. This is a great time for
the Seahawks there. You know, the team is young and exciting,
and we have a great time doing the broadcast. But
it's time to look back a little bit too. You know,
(01:20):
there was a foundation that was built low those many
years ago. But now this in the forty eighth year
of the franchise, and here you and I sit, and
we talked last time about those those early years, the
opportunities that we both got to come to a city
like this and both of us interestingly found what we
wanted to do in life. And even though you went
(01:40):
away for a short time to Green Bay, we both
ended up here.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We both have.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Families, wives, the rest of our families are here, and
we stayed.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
You know, we did.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I think that. I do remember as you were moving on,
I was still playing, but you were moving on to
bigger and better things. And I'll never forget why you
on I was a Channel nine telethon with the probably
the biggest bow tie and the most ruffled shirt I
(02:10):
think I've ever seen. It's called a tuxedo, yes, but
you were on there and you were making your way. Really,
you were laying groundwork for the excellence you do today.
And I had to you know, I was chuckling, but
I thought, this guy is putting in the same kind
of work, the sacrifice and the time that it took
(02:32):
to become well known as a broadcaster like you did
as a player.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, I think I told this story many times, but
I knew that. You know, there's you can't consider football
really a career. It's you know, guys talk about having
a great career, and that's and that's true, but that
whole career averages three years. You played ten, twelve, ten
or less. Yeah, okay, and I played six, and so
(02:59):
we both beat the odds by a whole bunch. But
it's not like when you got out, Oh okay, now
it's time to put my feet up. Maybe nowadays you
can do that, put your feet up a little bit
if you've put some money away. But back in those days,
it's not like we made a ton of money. So
we had to all look for something else. And for
me that after that sixth season, it dawned on me
(03:23):
with a collapse lung and I missed part of the
you know, miss six games, and I thought, you know,
there's a there's got to be an easier way to
make a living. But b you know, after six years now,
it's kind of that turnover time. And we could sort
of see it coming. You know, we had let some
of the veteran linemen go and we were bringing in
young guys who I think we've talked about before. You know,
(03:43):
couldn't really, in my estimation, couldn't play as well as
the veterans we let go. And I thought that hurt
us a little bit in nineteen eighty and h one,
so it was time to start looking around and did
you And so I did well.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I started setting the place for what I wanted to
do with it.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Did you have to? Did you know you had the
voice for it?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
No, I mean, because you have you have the right voice.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I literally did reach I didn't reach puberty until I
was forty six, So no, my voice, My voice was
terrible when we played. And I listened back to it now.
I listened to my retirement press conference because Cairo had
a camera crew there and all that stuff, and I
just I listened to that and I think, oh my god,
(04:27):
and I thought I could go into broadcasting sounding like that,
but it's like anything else. It's you know, it's you
developed that left arm to be able to throw that
pass across your body to the far right sidelines when
you're scrambling left. I eventually started to develop the exercises
and things I needed to do to develop a sound
that was at least somewhat that folks would at least
(04:51):
somewhat take too.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, even listening to you last week, you you're going along,
you're going along, and you're describing things right side, he's
going in, and then all of a sudden, bam, it's
just like you can't believe it. And then you make
it so you make it exciting enough to where we
can't believe it either of whatever just happened touchdown, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, well, and that's part of the that's a that's
the joy of the job. I mean, that's why I
love it so much. Is your we talked about it.
I think last time is that you're painting that picture,
so you have to also paint the excitement or this week,
you know, I was listening to some of the highlights
from the from the Lions game, and of course the
(05:35):
scoring touchdown was great, and I got crazy excited. But
you know, you got to go up and down. You
have to give the listeners something other than just this
shrill craziness. And I learned that along the way for
many years listening to Pete. When you listen to Pete
in that opening, you know he gets excited. He doesn't
(05:56):
get it quite off the rails as I do sometimes
with a touchdown. But I learned by watching him and
listening to him, and so I kind of tried to
lay that groundwork for a future that ended up taking
me actually in a direction that I didn't know that
I would go at the time, and that is becoming
a news anchor. And did that for twenty eight years
or something. When you were playing, I've asked Sam Adkins this,
(06:19):
I've asked other guys. When you were out there playing,
did you envision yourself as being a quarterback guru, coach,
offensive coordinator, head coach in the National Football League?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Not all of the above, but I because you know,
I couldn't. I couldn't vision. I couldn't vision where I
was going to go. But I knew coaching was an
aspect that I was intrigued with because I liked the
detail of it. I liked the in depth part of
the game, watching movement and being able to predict it.
(06:54):
Jerry taught me a lot of seeing things, being able
to move players on the defense, and I like that
part of it. So when I became you know, when
I got to the end of my career, I'll tell
you a little story. I went in and asked Chuck Knox,
(07:15):
who was the head coach of the Seahawks at the time.
I said, hey, Chuck, I'd love to work for the Seahawks.
I'd love to be a part of your staff. And
he said no, and I it kind of that's it,
just no. But he said, listen, you'll benefit more from
being on this staff then will benefit from you being
(07:35):
on our staff. And what he was saying, he said,
what you need to do is go and get as
high a level as you possibly can and just get
into it. I don't want to be your guinea pig,
is really what he was saying. I don't want to.
I don't want you to think see if you like
it or not. So go and if you really want
(07:56):
to coach, go and coach. If it's the high school level,
call level whatever. Before you come to the NFL. You
need to learn something. So I was so mad, I
want to.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Leave the area. I want to know merse Ryland. You
guys had a family.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But there was a coach at Boise State, Skip Hall,
who worked for Don James at the U DOUG. He
was a linebacker coach. He had been at Boise State
for a couple of years, a few years, and he
called me and asked if I would come and be
the quarterback coach, and we moved our whole family. We
just just said, yes, that's this is where I was headed.
(08:35):
And I remember sharing an office about this size with
another coach, and I was the exactly we had a window.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Though, and folks, for those of the description, this little
studio is probably ten by ten NASAs that sound about right.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, a little smaller than a shed.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
A little smaller than a jail cell actually, now that
I think about it.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Anyway, So we had two coaches and the coach uh
that was there had been the QB coach and now
he was the running back coach. But had helped me to,
you know, kind of conform which I had an issue with,
and helped me to understand what college coaching was all
about and really it's all about recruiting. It's about getting
(09:18):
the best athletes. And then I wanted it to be
all about just just being on the field and coaching
and scheming and planning and stuff like that. But there's
a lot to coaching, and it benefited me, it really did.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Let me ask you a question, so many really good
either quarterback coaches or offensive coordinators or even maybe moving
up into the area of head coaches that have been
quarterbacks have not been the star quarterbacks. You know, They've
been the backup guys. I remember Jerry saying about Sam Adkins.
You know, go into coaching, you really understand this stuff.
(09:54):
But star players it's not, they don't understand it. But
since you've been at the top, like you said, you
had to kind of start someplace else. And that's not
what the first star of this franchise does.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Right, Well, well, yeah, you just start as high as
you can. And I got the opportunity at Boise State.
I wanted I just love, I just wanted to share
what I knew, but but I discovered that I had
to learn as well. And uh, you know, I committed
(10:27):
to really knowing things being able to Uh, if you
asked me a question about a defense or an you know,
any any scheme. I wanted to be able to draw it,
and I wanted to be able to talk about it
in depth. Probably you would, You might get sick of
me even I'm talking about it. Might be already, But
as far as it's interesting that you talk about who
(10:49):
you know, either a star QB or a backup QB
I got. I had the opportunity a few years back
to spend the whole off season with a quarterback coming
out of cal. His name was Davis Webb. Davis Webb
was a third round draft choice for the New York Giants.
(11:10):
He was at Texas Tech, and the quarterback that was
there was a guy named Patrick Mahomes, right, So he
took off the into the portal and went to Cal
and so we started working, well, we worked all off season.
He got drafted by the Giants, I think he got released,
(11:30):
he signed with the Jets, and then I think he
then he went to Buffalo. Well, when he went to Buffalo,
one of the guys that was there was Brian Dayball,
who I had coached with in Kansas City, and Brian
then became the head coach of the Giants. Well, the
Buffalo coaching staff offered Davis the quarterback job, okay, and
(11:58):
he said, no, I still want to play o. Brian
dave All brought him in and he backed up a
year ago. He backed up at the at the position
for the Jones.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Right, uh.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Oh yeah yeah. So so now let's fast forward. It's
it's the off season. Well, is he going to be
a quarterback? No? He gets offered the quarterback job, coaching
job for the Denver Broncos, and he today has taken
well and rightly. So, I mean he he uh, he's
(12:35):
a student, you know, he really can dive in and
he gets what we're talking about. But we we talked
a lot of detail. We talked a lot of you know,
fundamentals and technique and then defense and and all kinds
of tips. And now he's coaching Russell Wilson in Denver
(12:56):
and he's a young guy. I mean he's so he
Russell's old than he is.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
His whole career ahead.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Of him and could very well be he could be
on that track to be a head coach perhaps someday,
because he's he's getting this start. I was lucky here
in Seattle. I had one offensive coordinator well two officially,
but the guy who coached me was Jerry and coached
you and coach Steve and and all of us on
offense more or less, and we had only one system.
(13:26):
I never had to learn another system. So I was
really lucky in that way. How many systems have you
had to learn over the years with different head coaches,
different philosophies, or when you went places, did you take
your system and say, guys, here's what I have.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
How do you want to add to it? How do
you do that?
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah? Well, when we we had that that sprint draw
system and movement, and we we dropped back, but we
had we had both a lot of play action and stuff.
So that was what I was familiar with. When uh,
when I I didn't really have a system I took
with me at the college level, I meld it in.
(14:04):
Although we ran a one back system. I became the
offensive coordinator at Utah State, and so we ran a
one back system and we ran zone inside outside zone,
We ran play action off of it, We ran naked
our boots off of that, and we dropped back. We
went to the we went to a bowl game first
(14:26):
time I think in years and years and years. That
Utah State went to a bowl game. I had a
guy named Anthony Calvillo. If you ever delve into who
he is or was, he is in the Hall of
Fame in the Canadian League. He threw over seventy five
thousand yards in the Canadian Football League and he's he
(14:46):
won a couple of great cups and he's coaching now
in the Canadian League. But okay, so as I went,
I got hired by Bobby Ross with the Detroit Lions.
I was, I was the quarterback coach there. But then
a guy named Mike Holmgren hired me. Hear me think
(15:08):
about that from Homer And so I came to Seattle
when Mike was here after his first year, and Mike
just did a really great job of with the system
that he had and it was called the West Coast system.
And the very first phone call I had, I asked, Mike,
tell me the mystique about the West Coast offense because
(15:30):
I'm going to interview with Marty morning Wig in Detroit
and I need to know what the mystique is. He goes,
give me the give me his number. What do you
mean he just tell him to hire you? So, uh,
Marty morning, Wig already had other plans, and so Mike
offered me an opportunity to come in and interview well,
that whole system, the West Coast system that everybody would say,
(15:56):
there's a there is a way, There was a a
there was a method to all the madness. And so
I learned that. But you're exactly right when you said,
did you attach other things? So when I went to
other places, and I went my next job was the
head coach of the Washington Redskins at the time, and
(16:16):
I took the West Coast offense there, but there were
already thirteen teams in the National Football League using that system,
so the terminology would be the same. And what I
did was I did attach other things, other ideas that
(16:37):
coaches had. But if you let it get too spread out,
you actually don't represent anything anymore. You just have a
menagerie of offense and you keep having these new ideas.
I think the players, when they know that there's a
system to what you do, there's a better buy in
(17:00):
if you will. And I think as the year what
I saw with Mike. As the years go on, and
these and you and you repeat, and you repeat, and
you repeat. Guys know it and they go right to it.
Then you can add things, but it's it makes sense
to add something after you really know. I've heard a
(17:20):
coach say, we want to know it so well, you
can't make a mistake, right.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
But as you said, the guys know it, but defenses
know it too, don't. I mean they see it so
much now, they see it over and over again, so
aren't they a little bit more in tune with it?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Well? Yeah, I mean all defensive coordinators are evil Steve,
and they have no good in mind for any offense.
So yeah they do. But what happens is you show
them this thing that they have planned, they go here,
it comes, and then you do something different because and
(17:55):
you do something different that they haven't seen maybe, but
it's the exact same thing you've done. It's just a
different personnel group. You get to the formation by a
shift or emotion and you're running the same thing. But
they haven't prepared for that because you haven't shown it
to him yet. And there's also stuff that you have
prepared for. I mean, every coach has an abundance of plays, right,
(18:18):
so you can't prepare your quarterback with two hundred and
fifty plays. Hey, we got, you know, we got a
big playbook, we got two hundred fifty plays. No, we
would only run I have on the game plan, plays
that we had worked on during the week. Well, you
still can't run all of those. So if you can
(18:39):
save those, the exact same if you didn't show it,
and you could save those and then insert them into
the next game. Again, there's less teaching involved. But yeah,
every defensive coordinator you almost have to Every game is different.
That's what what makes football so exciting. Because one plays
(19:00):
a lot of zone. One team blitzes a lot. One
team will blitz you know. And you know what I
really hate is you read all you know, you do
all the video work, and you say they have their
their biggest blitz down is second and seven to ten.
And then when they get you get that in the game.
Here it comes here, they play zone and they drop
(19:22):
eight or whatever.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
So these defensive coordinators they don't stay with it.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
No, Well, like you said, they're they're evil.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I guess biggest difference between and I know there's one
hundred of them. We don't need one hundred different answers here,
But the biggest difference between being a coordinator or an
assistant coach and stepping into the big guy's office as
the head coach.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Well, probably the biggest difference is you're responsible for everything
and what you're uh. The Some of the keys are
making sure that your players, your coaches, and the staff
they know the vision that you're setting before the team.
Your vision with clarity is hugely important. And staying with
(20:11):
that so that everybody knows where you're headed, and being
able to verbalize that and have your team, your team
verbalize those things. I see this around the Seahawk office
all the time, statements that Pete has made and those
are things you can, you know, stick with and no
no direction, you know, I mean that's I think that's
(20:34):
and then you're responsible for it all. I could say
that being a coordinator is great because you're in second
place and you get to have the influence with the
head coach. Him influencing me. I know, really, Mike Holgren
influenced me an awful lot. Even when I was the
(20:54):
quarterback coach. I wasn't the coordinator. I was just I
was a quarterback coach. But he gave me a lot
of responsibility, which I really enjoyed. And you know, you
kind of take a breath when you get responsibility because
it means a lot, and it means a lot to him,
and I wanted him to feel, you know, like the
decisions he was making or allowing me to do, we're
(21:16):
going to be hugely successful. So you know that that
there's a lot of mental little things going on during
the whole season as you as you work work your
way down the road.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
You were in a tough situation back there in Washington,
the franchise, the ownership, which has now changed. But there
were a lot of things. I don't know how much
of that you want to or care to talk about
any of that, but the bottom line was, you know,
it didn't It wasn't a you know, a long lasting
relationship between you and Washington. Anything you kind of you
(21:50):
look back on, you say, you know, if I had
it to do over again, either there or somebody, I'd
maybe do this differently. Was or did you feel like, listen,
we put in the best people, We worked our behinds off.
Some of the things worked out and some of them didn't.
And I was grateful for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Well, I was always I'm always grateful for that opportunity. Uh,
And I would say, people have to know that Dan
loved the Redskins. He loved owning the team, he loved
being involved too much, maybe yeah, too much, just getting
just into too much, just interest in maybe in some
(22:27):
places that he you know, he he, I don't even
know if he would regret. But I didn't know enough
about being a head coach. I was a rookie head coach,
and I wanted his backing, just like any other owner
would want to back their their guy. And so there's
(22:49):
all kinds of there's there's many many stories. I would say, Yeah,
I appreciated the opportunity. I would I do things over. Yeah,
I feel like I should still be there, you know
what I mean. I don't feel like I was out
of my element.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
But that was the second oldest head coach in the
national Football You were still back there.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, but I'm not. And so I have to come
to you know. I took a big breath and had
to come to grips with that as well, because it's
embarrassing to get, you know, to not finish the job.
And there's you know, maybe when we turn the microphone
phones off, I can you know a little bit about
(23:33):
some of the some of the issues, but yeah, I
don't care to pout about it. I care. I care
more about you know, I cared a lot about the
players and what they were doing. We nowadays how many
how many coaches are there on an average, on average
on a staff got to be twenty five. I think
(23:55):
I think there's I think there's I think there's about
twenty five coaches. And we had eighteen eighteen, yes, and
I had the opportunity to hire four of the eighteen,
and so that would be something that just from a
not that I had. I had good coaches, but I
knew at some point that there's you know, they weren't
(24:18):
hired by me. They weren't, you know, but they were.
They were my guys. I mean, I made that very
very clear early in the in the tenure that first
year that these these are my coaches. And and they
were good. They worked, they You're exactly right. They worked
so hard to try to work the work into the
(24:41):
vision that I had set. And it was new, it
was different, you know. Joe Gibbs was a big personality
in that program. The very first thing I saw were
three Super Bowl trophies in the case in the entry
in the entrance of the Redskin facility and they all
had his name on it, you know, and here I
(25:02):
am coming in. So yeah, there was some big shoes
to fill there. And then you know, things happened that
were honestly out of my control.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Uh. What do you remember about the five Super Bowl
run with Mike And.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
That was a great run? Steve who was with you
at that time? Who who were both? Yeah in the
book Warren, Yeah, you guys were. Uh, I'll never forget.
When we started that season, a guy named ed Bisters
came to speak and Todd LAWICKI uh brought him in
and they had put up in our team meeting room
(25:42):
this massive picture of Mount Rainier. And every week we won,
we got a carabiner, right, and we hooked them together.
Do you remember that I do?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
By the way, for those of you out there, carabiners
are those little oval shaped they clip on and you
can clip somebody to you, or a bag you or a.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Rope to you.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
You can clip yourself to a rope along the along
the face of a mountain or something like that.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
These you wouldn't necessarily want to clip yourself into. They
were very small. Think but your key chain, yes, not
your body but every week they put this kind of
the score of the game, and every week and ed
Wister is kind of late, you know. He was talking
about the extremity, you know, the extreme mountain climb to
(26:30):
all of us, and we, I don't know we caught
wind of it, but I remember that in the beginning,
I thought, Okay, so think about this. You're at week
one or two and you've got this little card up
there that says what the score was and who we played.
But then you know, we're getting in a week fourteen
and fifteen, and now we're almost at the top of
(26:51):
the mountain. We're going to be in the playoffs. And
I remember how hard it was, but I remember how
good a team we had too, and it was was amazing.
When you have a good team, you coach less. There's
not as much coaching because the players they generate, they
want they don't want to let each other down. When
(27:13):
winning kind of breeds this idea that it's about us,
not about the coaches, not about anybody, but about us,
and they come together and so, uh, those are the
those are good memories we had Sean Alexander, and I
still remember Sean, you know, not not being on the field.
(27:33):
And then when we get to the red zone, all
of a sudden, Sean just running in. Nobody put him in.
He just ran in. He could smell the goal line.
And I thought Matt was playing at such a high level.
He was taking everything and but he was able to
really perform it. He he would make he would make
(27:55):
you feel like we had a no huddle offense and
we were going so fast asked, and that was part
of our strategy. He and I because of putting a
defensive coordinator. Those nasty guys in stress because they couldn't
get the call that they really wanted to think about
and make. They had to they had to make it quick.
(28:18):
And Matt was a master of being able to get
things going very quickly and keep up tempo with a huddle.
You know, he was in and out of the huddle
and when we and also remember in that two thousand
and five season, Tony Romo dropping a ball hole he
(28:39):
was holding for his field goal kicker, and it was
cold and I've held I held every year I played,
and I knew this ball. The balls are a little
bit they're stiff, and they're a little slick, and they
get cold and the kickers do not have the same Uh.
You know, you can dock or a ball even today.
(29:02):
You can't deinflate it today. But you can doctor footballs today.
But kickers they doctor them differently. They don't do the
same things to it. So I'm just saying that this
ball was probably a surprise to him when it hit
his hands. And then big play Babs came up with
(29:22):
because he almost scored, and that's that set us off.
I guess at the end of it all, I always
call our we have an NFC championship ring, and I
always call it the loser's ring.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
But the.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
You know, the sports psychologists, they cringe and they said, no,
don't call it a loser's ring, call it a learn
the learner's ring, a learning ring. Okay, but you win
that because you didn't win the Super Bowl, and my
heart went out. My heart goes out to you know,
Mike Homgrin, it goes out to all the players and
(29:59):
the fans, well, you know everybody. How about you, Steve,
what do you remember about that particularly?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I just remember I still to this day, I think
we were the better team. Gil Haskell, your offensive North
and he said that day and after the game he said,
I don't have any doubt we were the best team,
but we had a couple of key guys get hurt
in that game. Suddenly our defense was back on its heels,
and you know, plays that we had scored on. Guys
who had always made plays kind of didn't have quite
(30:27):
the game that they should have had. But that whole season,
the things I'll always remember, Matthew Sean and maybe the
best left side of an offensive line almost ever. I mean,
you have to go back to Anthony Munoz and some
of those guys, but Walter Jones, Steve Hutchinson, even Robbie
tobec Cott center kept everybody in line. I want to
(30:48):
as we wrap up here, I want to go back
to one thing you mentioned, because it really sparked something
for me when Ed Veisters came in and talked to
you guys, and he talked about climbing that mountain. And
here's a guy that actually knew about climbing Mountain Becase
climbed everything.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
You and I are in.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
A it's actually a fairly large group of people nowadays
but that have climbed Mount Rainier and now I didn't
do any others. I don't know if you climbed any
other mountains, But I remember you and Steve and the
late great Howard Mudd right climbed Mount Rainier, and I
remember Steve saying, when you guys got done, he said,
that might have been one of the hardest things I
(31:24):
ever did. And I kind of laughed, and like, the
next year I climbed it with a group of people,
and I completely agree. And Steve was a whole lot
better shape and you know, better athlete and everything than me.
And it kicked my behind. And here are people that
climb the highest peaks or climb Mount Rainier on a
Sunday afternoon just for a fun climb. I'm so I'm
(31:47):
so enamored of those people. I'm getting. What I'm getting
around to is that's right here in our backyard, right
And it's kind of gets us back to where we started.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
That we're two.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Guys who went off and you know, came from different places,
and you went off and made your bones as a
coach and came back here. And yet here we end
up in the shadow of Mount Rainier to this day,
cheering for a football team that we've been a part
of for almost fifty years. It's it's I don't know,
it's just seems it just seems right to me.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Yeah, it's very comfortable to be a part of the Northwest.
It's very comfortab. You know, it feels home, like I'm
at home and I get to see friends like you
and Reminisce like this, right, and some of it is
who cares, but some of it but it was part
(32:39):
of a part of our past. And I don't think
we live each day. And you know, I don't staple
my name on the back of my shirts or anything
like that. I haven't seen that with you either. But
it's fun to be a part of the Northwest and
to walk around and see people get super excited about
Northwest sports, especially the Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
It's fun on Sundays when I get to see you
on the sidelines. And Ron Howard, our buddy and former teammate,
he's down there. He works for the league on Sundays
making sure everybody's socks are pulled up. Uh and and uh.
And it's just it's just good that those of us
who are still here can can keep in touch and
can stay involved in this organization. James uh project number
(33:23):
two here of Seahawks Stories now in the books, so
thank you.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
The next time we.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Ought to get some guests because people are really growing tired.
I'm just sensing that they're growing tired of listening to
you and me. I really can't blame them. I'd love
to get Mike sitting at that microphone over there, get
Sam McCallum to get on the phone, Nick Bebout or
Sherman Smith.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
So we'll work on that for our next time around.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
But in the meantime, thanks pal, and this has been great,
and uh, let's let's keep talking Seahawks all right, man.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Talk to you later, yes, sir, right toge
You're listening to Seahawks Stories, taking you behind the scenes
with your favorite Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Set back to Bey and Zornher's back to pass as
time looks for the left sideline, throws a bomb down
there he's got a man in front. He makes to
grab a travel at a thirty down of the twenty.
Don't ever get him.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
He scores touch down Seahawks powered by Seahawks dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
And Zorn laid it in perfectly a Rabel who goes
in to score on an eighty yard pass and run play.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Now here's your host, the voice of the Seahawks, Steve
Rayball and Seahawks legend Jim Zorn. Hey, Steve, the thing
that I liked about the opening line was it was
our favorite Seahawks or your favorite Seahawks. Hey that the
announcer said it like it is. You're certainly my favorite.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Sea Oh yeah right, yeah, as you are mine, even
though you didn't throw me the ball very much. By
the way, this is Seahawks Stories in case you're just
picking us up here, finding us for the first time.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
We're really glad to have you along.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
And it is z Man and yours truly Steve Rabel
and we just get we get some time here to
talk about you know, there's so much talk, and rightly
so there should be. This is a great time for
the Seahawks there. You know, the team is young and exciting,
and we have a great time doing the broadcast. But
it's time to look back a little bit too. You know,
(01:20):
there was a foundation that was built low those many
years ago. But now this in the forty eighth year
of the franchise, and here you and I sit, and
we talked last time about those those early years, the
opportunities that we both got to come to a city
like this and both of us interestingly found what we
wanted to do in life. And even though you went
(01:40):
away for a short time to Green Bay, we both
ended up here.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
We both have.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Families, wives, the rest of our families are here, and
we stayed.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
You know, we did.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I think that. I do remember as you were moving on,
I was still playing, but you were moving on to
bigger and better things. And I'll never forget why you
on I was a Channel nine telethon with the probably
the biggest bow tie and the most ruffled shirt I
(02:10):
think I've ever seen. It's called a tuxedo, yes, but
you were on there and you were making your way. Really,
you were laying groundwork for the excellence you do today.
And I had to you know, I was chuckling, but
I thought, this guy is putting in the same kind
of work, the sacrifice and the time that it took
(02:32):
to become well known as a broadcaster like you did
as a player.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, I think I told this story many times, but
I knew that. You know, there's you can't consider football
really a career. It's you know, guys talk about having
a great career, and that's and that's true, but that
whole career averages three years. You played ten, twelve, ten
or less. Yeah, okay, and I played six, and so
(02:59):
we both beat the odds by a whole bunch. But
it's not like when you got out, Oh okay, now
it's time to put my feet up. Maybe nowadays you
can do that, put your feet up a little bit
if you've put some money away. But back in those days,
it's not like we made a ton of money. So
we had to all look for something else. And for
me that after that sixth season, it dawned on me
(03:23):
with a collapse lung and I missed part of the
you know, miss six games, and I thought, you know,
there's a there's got to be an easier way to
make a living. But b you know, after six years now,
it's kind of that turnover time. And we could sort
of see it coming. You know, we had let some
of the veteran linemen go and we were bringing in
young guys who I think we've talked about before. You know,
(03:43):
couldn't really, in my estimation, couldn't play as well as
the veterans we let go. And I thought that hurt
us a little bit in nineteen eighty and h one,
so it was time to start looking around and did
you And so I did well.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I started setting the place for what I wanted to
do with it.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Did you have to? Did you know you had the
voice for it?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
No, I mean, because you have you have the right voice.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I literally did reach I didn't reach puberty until I
was forty six, So no, my voice, My voice was
terrible when we played. And I listened back to it now.
I listened to my retirement press conference because Cairo had
a camera crew there and all that stuff, and I
just I listened to that and I think, oh my god,
(04:27):
and I thought I could go into broadcasting sounding like that,
but it's like anything else. It's you know, it's you
developed that left arm to be able to throw that
pass across your body to the far right sidelines when
you're scrambling left. I eventually started to develop the exercises
and things I needed to do to develop a sound
that was at least somewhat that folks would at least
(04:51):
somewhat take too.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Well, even listening to you last week, you you're going along,
you're going along, and you're describing things right side, he's
going in, and then all of a sudden, bam, it's
just like you can't believe it. And then you make
it so you make it exciting enough to where we
can't believe it either of whatever just happened touchdown, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Yeah, well, and that's part of the that's a that's
the joy of the job. I mean, that's why I
love it so much. Is your we talked about it.
I think last time is that you're painting that picture,
so you have to also paint the excitement or this week,
you know, I was listening to some of the highlights
from the from the Lions game, and of course the
(05:35):
scoring touchdown was great, and I got crazy excited. But
you know, you got to go up and down. You
have to give the listeners something other than just this
shrill craziness. And I learned that along the way for
many years listening to Pete. When you listen to Pete
in that opening, you know he gets excited. He doesn't
(05:56):
get it quite off the rails as I do sometimes
with a touchdown. But I learned by watching him and
listening to him, and so I kind of tried to
lay that groundwork for a future that ended up taking
me actually in a direction that I didn't know that
I would go at the time, and that is becoming
a news anchor. And did that for twenty eight years
or something. When you were playing, I've asked Sam Adkins this,
(06:19):
I've asked other guys. When you were out there playing,
did you envision yourself as being a quarterback guru, coach,
offensive coordinator, head coach in the National Football League?
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Not all of the above, but I because you know,
I couldn't. I couldn't vision. I couldn't vision where I
was going to go. But I knew coaching was an
aspect that I was intrigued with because I liked the
detail of it. I liked the in depth part of
the game, watching movement and being able to predict it.
(06:54):
Jerry taught me a lot of seeing things, being able
to move players on the defense, and I like that
part of it. So when I became you know, when
I got to the end of my career, I'll tell
you a little story. I went in and asked Chuck Knox,
(07:15):
who was the head coach of the Seahawks at the time.
I said, hey, Chuck, I'd love to work for the Seahawks.
I'd love to be a part of your staff. And
he said no, and I it kind of that's it,
just no. But he said, listen, you'll benefit more from
being on this staff then will benefit from you being
(07:35):
on our staff. And what he was saying, he said,
what you need to do is go and get as
high a level as you possibly can and just get
into it. I don't want to be your guinea pig,
is really what he was saying. I don't want to.
I don't want you to think see if you like
it or not. So go and if you really want
(07:56):
to coach, go and coach. If it's the high school level,
call level whatever. Before you come to the NFL. You
need to learn something. So I was so mad, I
want to.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
Leave the area. I want to know merse Ryland. You
guys had a family.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But there was a coach at Boise State, Skip Hall,
who worked for Don James at the U DOUG. He
was a linebacker coach. He had been at Boise State
for a couple of years, a few years, and he
called me and asked if I would come and be
the quarterback coach, and we moved our whole family. We
just just said, yes, that's this is where I was headed.
(08:35):
And I remember sharing an office about this size with
another coach, and I was the exactly we had a window.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Though, and folks, for those of the description, this little
studio is probably ten by ten NASAs that sound about right.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, a little smaller than a shed.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
A little smaller than a jail cell actually, now that
I think about it.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Anyway, So we had two coaches and the coach uh
that was there had been the QB coach and now
he was the running back coach. But had helped me to,
you know, kind of conform which I had an issue with,
and helped me to understand what college coaching was all
about and really it's all about recruiting. It's about getting
(09:18):
the best athletes. And then I wanted it to be
all about just just being on the field and coaching
and scheming and planning and stuff like that. But there's
a lot to coaching, and it benefited me, it really did.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Let me ask you a question, so many really good
either quarterback coaches or offensive coordinators or even maybe moving
up into the area of head coaches that have been
quarterbacks have not been the star quarterbacks. You know, They've
been the backup guys. I remember Jerry saying about Sam Adkins.
You know, go into coaching, you really understand this stuff.
(09:54):
But star players it's not, they don't understand it. But
since you've been at the top, like you said, you
had to kind of start someplace else. And that's not
what the first star of this franchise does.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Right, Well, well, yeah, you just start as high as
you can. And I got the opportunity at Boise State.
I wanted I just love, I just wanted to share
what I knew, but but I discovered that I had
to learn as well. And uh, you know, I committed
(10:27):
to really knowing things being able to Uh, if you
asked me a question about a defense or an you know,
any any scheme. I wanted to be able to draw it,
and I wanted to be able to talk about it
in depth. Probably you would, You might get sick of
me even I'm talking about it. Might be already, But
as far as it's interesting that you talk about who
(10:49):
you know, either a star QB or a backup QB
I got. I had the opportunity a few years back
to spend the whole off season with a quarterback coming
out of cal. His name was Davis Webb. Davis Webb
was a third round draft choice for the New York Giants.
(11:10):
He was at Texas Tech, and the quarterback that was
there was a guy named Patrick Mahomes, right, So he
took off the into the portal and went to Cal
and so we started working, well, we worked all off season.
He got drafted by the Giants, I think he got released,
(11:30):
he signed with the Jets, and then I think he
then he went to Buffalo. Well, when he went to Buffalo,
one of the guys that was there was Brian Dayball,
who I had coached with in Kansas City, and Brian
then became the head coach of the Giants. Well, the
Buffalo coaching staff offered Davis the quarterback job, okay, and
(11:58):
he said, no, I still want to play o. Brian
dave All brought him in and he backed up a
year ago. He backed up at the at the position
for the Jones.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Right, uh.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Oh yeah yeah. So so now let's fast forward. It's
it's the off season. Well, is he going to be
a quarterback? No? He gets offered the quarterback job, coaching
job for the Denver Broncos, and he today has taken
well and rightly. So, I mean he he uh, he's
(12:35):
a student, you know, he really can dive in and
he gets what we're talking about. But we we talked
a lot of detail. We talked a lot of you know,
fundamentals and technique and then defense and and all kinds
of tips. And now he's coaching Russell Wilson in Denver
(12:56):
and he's a young guy. I mean he's so he
Russell's old than he is.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
His whole career ahead.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Of him and could very well be he could be
on that track to be a head coach perhaps someday,
because he's he's getting this start. I was lucky here
in Seattle. I had one offensive coordinator well two officially,
but the guy who coached me was Jerry and coached
you and coach Steve and and all of us on
offense more or less, and we had only one system.
(13:26):
I never had to learn another system. So I was
really lucky in that way. How many systems have you
had to learn over the years with different head coaches,
different philosophies, or when you went places, did you take
your system and say, guys, here's what I have.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
How do you want to add to it? How do
you do that?
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah? Well, when we we had that that sprint draw
system and movement, and we we dropped back, but we
had we had both a lot of play action and stuff.
So that was what I was familiar with. When uh,
when I I didn't really have a system I took
with me at the college level, I meld it in.
(14:04):
Although we ran a one back system. I became the
offensive coordinator at Utah State, and so we ran a
one back system and we ran zone inside outside zone,
We ran play action off of it, We ran naked
our boots off of that, and we dropped back. We
went to the we went to a bowl game first
(14:26):
time I think in years and years and years. That
Utah State went to a bowl game. I had a
guy named Anthony Calvillo. If you ever delve into who
he is or was, he is in the Hall of
Fame in the Canadian League. He threw over seventy five
thousand yards in the Canadian Football League and he's he
(14:46):
won a couple of great cups and he's coaching now
in the Canadian League. But okay, so as I went,
I got hired by Bobby Ross with the Detroit Lions.
I was, I was the quarterback coach there. But then
a guy named Mike Holmgren hired me. Hear me think
(15:08):
about that from Homer And so I came to Seattle
when Mike was here after his first year, and Mike
just did a really great job of with the system
that he had and it was called the West Coast system.
And the very first phone call I had, I asked, Mike,
tell me the mystique about the West Coast offense because
(15:30):
I'm going to interview with Marty morning Wig in Detroit
and I need to know what the mystique is. He goes,
give me the give me his number. What do you
mean he just tell him to hire you? So, uh,
Marty morning, Wig already had other plans, and so Mike
offered me an opportunity to come in and interview well,
that whole system, the West Coast system that everybody would say,
(15:56):
there's a there is a way, There was a a
there was a method to all the madness. And so
I learned that. But you're exactly right when you said,
did you attach other things? So when I went to
other places, and I went my next job was the
head coach of the Washington Redskins at the time, and
(16:16):
I took the West Coast offense there, but there were
already thirteen teams in the National Football League using that system,
so the terminology would be the same. And what I
did was I did attach other things, other ideas that
(16:37):
coaches had. But if you let it get too spread out,
you actually don't represent anything anymore. You just have a
menagerie of offense and you keep having these new ideas.
I think the players, when they know that there's a
system to what you do, there's a better buy in
(17:00):
if you will. And I think as the year what
I saw with Mike. As the years go on, and
these and you and you repeat, and you repeat, and
you repeat. Guys know it and they go right to it.
Then you can add things, but it's it makes sense
to add something after you really know. I've heard a
(17:20):
coach say, we want to know it so well, you
can't make a mistake, right.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
But as you said, the guys know it, but defenses
know it too, don't. I mean they see it so
much now, they see it over and over again, so
aren't they a little bit more in tune with it?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Well? Yeah, I mean all defensive coordinators are evil Steve,
and they have no good in mind for any offense.
So yeah they do. But what happens is you show
them this thing that they have planned, they go here,
it comes, and then you do something different because and
(17:55):
you do something different that they haven't seen maybe, but
it's the exact same thing you've done. It's just a
different personnel group. You get to the formation by a
shift or emotion and you're running the same thing. But
they haven't prepared for that because you haven't shown it
to him yet. And there's also stuff that you have
prepared for. I mean, every coach has an abundance of plays, right,
(18:18):
so you can't prepare your quarterback with two hundred and
fifty plays. Hey, we got, you know, we got a
big playbook, we got two hundred fifty plays. No, we
would only run I have on the game plan, plays
that we had worked on during the week. Well, you
still can't run all of those. So if you can
(18:39):
save those, the exact same if you didn't show it,
and you could save those and then insert them into
the next game. Again, there's less teaching involved. But yeah,
every defensive coordinator you almost have to Every game is different.
That's what what makes football so exciting. Because one plays
(19:00):
a lot of zone. One team blitzes a lot. One
team will blitz you know. And you know what I
really hate is you read all you know, you do
all the video work, and you say they have their
their biggest blitz down is second and seven to ten.
And then when they get you get that in the game.
Here it comes here, they play zone and they drop
(19:22):
eight or whatever.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
So these defensive coordinators they don't stay with it.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
No, Well, like you said, they're they're evil.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
I guess biggest difference between and I know there's one
hundred of them. We don't need one hundred different answers here,
But the biggest difference between being a coordinator or an
assistant coach and stepping into the big guy's office as
the head coach.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Well, probably the biggest difference is you're responsible for everything
and what you're uh. The Some of the keys are
making sure that your players, your coaches, and the staff
they know the vision that you're setting before the team.
Your vision with clarity is hugely important. And staying with
(20:11):
that so that everybody knows where you're headed, and being
able to verbalize that and have your team, your team
verbalize those things. I see this around the Seahawk office
all the time, statements that Pete has made and those
are things you can, you know, stick with and no
no direction, you know, I mean that's I think that's
(20:34):
and then you're responsible for it all. I could say
that being a coordinator is great because you're in second
place and you get to have the influence with the
head coach. Him influencing me. I know, really, Mike Holgren
influenced me an awful lot. Even when I was the
(20:54):
quarterback coach. I wasn't the coordinator. I was just I
was a quarterback coach. But he gave me a lot
of responsibility, which I really enjoyed. And you know, you
kind of take a breath when you get responsibility because
it means a lot, and it means a lot to him,
and I wanted him to feel, you know, like the
decisions he was making or allowing me to do, we're
(21:16):
going to be hugely successful. So you know that that
there's a lot of mental little things going on during
the whole season as you as you work work your
way down the road.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
You were in a tough situation back there in Washington,
the franchise, the ownership, which has now changed. But there
were a lot of things. I don't know how much
of that you want to or care to talk about
any of that, but the bottom line was, you know,
it didn't It wasn't a you know, a long lasting
relationship between you and Washington. Anything you kind of you
(21:50):
look back on, you say, you know, if I had
it to do over again, either there or somebody, I'd
maybe do this differently. Was or did you feel like, listen,
we put in the best people, We worked our behinds off.
Some of the things worked out and some of them didn't.
And I was grateful for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Well, I was always I'm always grateful for that opportunity. Uh,
And I would say, people have to know that Dan
loved the Redskins. He loved owning the team, he loved
being involved too much, maybe yeah, too much, just getting
just into too much, just interest in maybe in some
(22:27):
places that he you know, he he, I don't even
know if he would regret. But I didn't know enough
about being a head coach. I was a rookie head coach,
and I wanted his backing, just like any other owner
would want to back their their guy. And so there's
(22:49):
all kinds of there's there's many many stories. I would say, Yeah,
I appreciated the opportunity. I would I do things over. Yeah,
I feel like I should still be there, you know
what I mean. I don't feel like I was out
of my element.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
But that was the second oldest head coach in the
national Football You were still back there.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, but I'm not. And so I have to come
to you know. I took a big breath and had
to come to grips with that as well, because it's
embarrassing to get, you know, to not finish the job.
And there's you know, maybe when we turn the microphone
phones off, I can you know a little bit about
(23:33):
some of the some of the issues, but yeah, I
don't care to pout about it. I care. I care
more about you know, I cared a lot about the
players and what they were doing. We nowadays how many
how many coaches are there on an average, on average
on a staff got to be twenty five. I think
(23:55):
I think there's I think there's I think there's about
twenty five coaches. And we had eighteen eighteen, yes, and
I had the opportunity to hire four of the eighteen,
and so that would be something that just from a
not that I had. I had good coaches, but I
knew at some point that there's you know, they weren't
(24:18):
hired by me. They weren't, you know, but they were.
They were my guys. I mean, I made that very
very clear early in the in the tenure that first
year that these these are my coaches. And and they
were good. They worked, they You're exactly right. They worked
so hard to try to work the work into the
(24:41):
vision that I had set. And it was new, it
was different, you know. Joe Gibbs was a big personality
in that program. The very first thing I saw were
three Super Bowl trophies in the case in the entry
in the entrance of the Redskin facility and they all
had his name on it, you know, and here I
(25:02):
am coming in. So yeah, there was some big shoes
to fill there. And then you know, things happened that
were honestly out of my control.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
Uh. What do you remember about the five Super Bowl
run with Mike And.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
That was a great run? Steve who was with you
at that time? Who who were both? Yeah in the
book Warren, Yeah, you guys were. Uh, I'll never forget.
When we started that season, a guy named ed Bisters
came to speak and Todd LAWICKI uh brought him in
and they had put up in our team meeting room
(25:42):
this massive picture of Mount Rainier. And every week we won,
we got a carabiner, right, and we hooked them together.
Do you remember that I do?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
By the way, for those of you out there, carabiners
are those little oval shaped they clip on and you
can clip somebody to you, or a bag you or a.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Rope to you.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
You can clip yourself to a rope along the along
the face of a mountain or something like that.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
These you wouldn't necessarily want to clip yourself into. They
were very small. Think but your key chain, yes, not
your body but every week they put this kind of
the score of the game, and every week and ed
Wister is kind of late, you know. He was talking
about the extremity, you know, the extreme mountain climb to
(26:30):
all of us, and we, I don't know we caught
wind of it, but I remember that in the beginning,
I thought, Okay, so think about this. You're at week
one or two and you've got this little card up
there that says what the score was and who we played.
But then you know, we're getting in a week fourteen
and fifteen, and now we're almost at the top of
(26:51):
the mountain. We're going to be in the playoffs. And
I remember how hard it was, but I remember how
good a team we had too, and it was was amazing.
When you have a good team, you coach less. There's
not as much coaching because the players they generate, they
want they don't want to let each other down. When
(27:13):
winning kind of breeds this idea that it's about us,
not about the coaches, not about anybody, but about us,
and they come together and so, uh, those are the
those are good memories we had Sean Alexander, and I
still remember Sean, you know, not not being on the field.
(27:33):
And then when we get to the red zone, all
of a sudden, Sean just running in. Nobody put him in.
He just ran in. He could smell the goal line.
And I thought Matt was playing at such a high level.
He was taking everything and but he was able to
really perform it. He he would make he would make
(27:55):
you feel like we had a no huddle offense and
we were going so fast asked, and that was part
of our strategy. He and I because of putting a
defensive coordinator. Those nasty guys in stress because they couldn't
get the call that they really wanted to think about
and make. They had to they had to make it quick.
(28:18):
And Matt was a master of being able to get
things going very quickly and keep up tempo with a huddle.
You know, he was in and out of the huddle
and when we and also remember in that two thousand
and five season, Tony Romo dropping a ball hole he
(28:39):
was holding for his field goal kicker, and it was
cold and I've held I held every year I played,
and I knew this ball. The balls are a little
bit they're stiff, and they're a little slick, and they
get cold and the kickers do not have the same Uh.
You know, you can dock or a ball even today.
(29:02):
You can't deinflate it today. But you can doctor footballs today.
But kickers they doctor them differently. They don't do the
same things to it. So I'm just saying that this
ball was probably a surprise to him when it hit
his hands. And then big play Babs came up with
(29:22):
because he almost scored, and that's that set us off.
I guess at the end of it all, I always
call our we have an NFC championship ring, and I
always call it the loser's ring.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
But the.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
You know, the sports psychologists, they cringe and they said, no,
don't call it a loser's ring, call it a learn
the learner's ring, a learning ring. Okay, but you win
that because you didn't win the Super Bowl, and my
heart went out. My heart goes out to you know,
Mike Homgrin, it goes out to all the players and
(29:59):
the fans, well, you know everybody. How about you, Steve,
what do you remember about that particularly?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
I just remember I still to this day, I think
we were the better team. Gil Haskell, your offensive North
and he said that day and after the game he said,
I don't have any doubt we were the best team,
but we had a couple of key guys get hurt
in that game. Suddenly our defense was back on its heels,
and you know, plays that we had scored on. Guys
who had always made plays kind of didn't have quite
(30:27):
the game that they should have had. But that whole season,
the things I'll always remember, Matthew Sean and maybe the
best left side of an offensive line almost ever. I mean,
you have to go back to Anthony Munoz and some
of those guys, but Walter Jones, Steve Hutchinson, even Robbie
tobec Cott center kept everybody in line. I want to
(30:48):
as we wrap up here, I want to go back
to one thing you mentioned, because it really sparked something
for me when Ed Veisters came in and talked to
you guys, and he talked about climbing that mountain. And
here's a guy that actually knew about climbing Mountain Becase
climbed everything.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
You and I are in.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
A it's actually a fairly large group of people nowadays
but that have climbed Mount Rainier and now I didn't
do any others. I don't know if you climbed any
other mountains, But I remember you and Steve and the
late great Howard Mudd right climbed Mount Rainier, and I
remember Steve saying, when you guys got done, he said,
that might have been one of the hardest things I
(31:24):
ever did. And I kind of laughed, and like, the
next year I climbed it with a group of people,
and I completely agree. And Steve was a whole lot
better shape and you know, better athlete and everything than me.
And it kicked my behind. And here are people that
climb the highest peaks or climb Mount Rainier on a
Sunday afternoon just for a fun climb. I'm so I'm
(31:47):
so enamored of those people. I'm getting. What I'm getting
around to is that's right here in our backyard, right
And it's kind of gets us back to where we started.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
That we're two.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Guys who went off and you know, came from different places,
and you went off and made your bones as a
coach and came back here. And yet here we end
up in the shadow of Mount Rainier to this day,
cheering for a football team that we've been a part
of for almost fifty years. It's it's I don't know,
it's just seems it just seems right to me.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Yeah, it's very comfortable to be a part of the Northwest.
It's very comfortab. You know, it feels home, like I'm
at home and I get to see friends like you
and Reminisce like this, right, and some of it is
who cares, but some of it but it was part
(32:39):
of a part of our past. And I don't think
we live each day. And you know, I don't staple
my name on the back of my shirts or anything
like that. I haven't seen that with you either. But
it's fun to be a part of the Northwest and
to walk around and see people get super excited about
Northwest sports, especially the Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
It's fun on Sundays when I get to see you
on the sidelines. And Ron Howard, our buddy and former teammate,
he's down there. He works for the league on Sundays
making sure everybody's socks are pulled up. Uh and and uh.
And it's just it's just good that those of us
who are still here can can keep in touch and
can stay involved in this organization. James uh project number
(33:23):
two here of Seahawks Stories now in the books, so
thank you.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
The next time we.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Ought to get some guests because people are really growing tired.
I'm just sensing that they're growing tired of listening to
you and me. I really can't blame them. I'd love
to get Mike sitting at that microphone over there, get
Sam McCallum to get on the phone, Nick Bebout or
Sherman Smith.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
So we'll work on that for our next time around.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
But in the meantime, thanks pal, and this has been great,
and uh, let's let's keep talking Seahawks all right, man.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Talk to you later, yes, sir, right toge
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