Seahawks Stories: Raible & Zorn On Steve Largent

Please welcome the Voice of the Seahawks Steve Raible and Seahawks Legend Jim Zorn to the show! Raible and Zorn join Seahawks Stories as the new hosts, and they've got stories for days. On their debut episode, they share some of their favorites about one of the best to wear a Seahawks uniform, Steve Largent. Today’s show: introduction to the show (00:32), the inaugural Seahawks season in 1976 (06:59), Seahawks offense in 1976 (14:09), NFL Draft in the ‘70s (16:56), Steve Largent’s first practice in Seattle (22:50), Steve Raible’s collapsed lung (26:28), Seahawks fandom (37:51), Jim Zorn and Steve Largent’s milk commercial (44:05), fans being too loud and causing game delay (50:48), and the Zorn to Largent Connection (55:49).

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Seahawks stories, teaking you behind the scenes
with your favorite Seahawks.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Set back to Bey and Zorn, who's back to pass
as time looks for the left sideline, throws a bomb
down there, he's got a man in front.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
He makes the grab a travel. It's a thirty down
to the twenty.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
They'll never get him.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
He scores touched down.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Seahawks powered by Seahawks dot Com and.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Zorn later 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
Raeball and Seahawks legend Jim Zorn.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hey, everybody, let me tell you it was a perfect pass,
because that's the only way I would have caught it
had it been a perfect throw from z Man. This
is a real treat that Jim and I are going
to be able to do this now on a semi
regular basis, and that is this podcast talking about kind
of Seahawks legends and about the old days and heaven knows, Jim,

(00:53):
where we're definitely of age where everything now was the
old days.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah, we were asked even a remind everyone on who
we are. So it has been a while. I haven't
heard Pete Gross's voice in so long, and he just
did a great job. He got excited, and I think
he trained you, although you're not needing any training any longer.
But describe your relationship with him a bit, oh.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
My, Well, you know, he was my mentor in this field.
I had others who helped me along the way when
it came to radio, I mean when it came to
television and especially news, but Pete was so special. And
I remember when we played and Pete would come in
and want to talk to us, and he was just
so genuine and so honest. And Kenny easily said this

(01:41):
years later about Pete. He said, Pete was the only
guy who would walk up to him either after practice
or after a game, and instead of sticking the microphone
in his face and just asking a question, he'd always say, Kenny,
do you mind? Can I ask you a couple of questions?
Every single time? And that's the way Pete did it.
And so I hope maybe we all learned a little
something from Pete.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
He was a tremendous human being, a tremendous person, and
a great voice. Always got excited. Everybody loved hearing what
he was going to say and how he was going
to call the game.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Well, and his enthusiasm obviously has carried over to me
as I listened to that play, and listen, when you
don't have a lot of highlights, you remember all of them,
and so I really remember that one.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
So do you remember what game that was? That was
Minnesota Vikings.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Our rookie season nineteen seventy six, back in Minneapolis at
the old met Stadium outdoors with painted dirt instead of
green grass because it was.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Late years, crazy for me, and it was frozen.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
It was hard as a raw.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
I remember going back in and I had a file
and I filed my round cleats. Did you really to
kind of like slits so I could dig into the
frozen ground? And remember both teams were on the same sideline. Yeah,
that game. I remember that throw. And I also remember

(03:02):
throwing a touchdown pass going the other way to I
think it was Steve. I'm not sure exactly sure who
it was, but we were in the red zone and
I threw it and I'm watching the play and all
of a sudden, this arm comes right through my face
mask and just hits me right square in the nose
and it was car No, it wasn't it. It was

(03:23):
Alan Page and it was late and I was going,
I'm looking around for a mister official and they're watching,
you know, they're saying touchdown, right, and he got away
with it and no penalty in those days.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
I mean, we'll, we'll as and we're going to do this, folks,
for more than just today. We hope to make this
somewhat regular event. Although you folks will decide because if
you don't listen, then we don't have a job. So
I'm imploring you, we're begging you, please please listen and
give you a give your feedback. Everything was different in

(03:59):
those days, and that's to say it was certainly any better.
But let's start with the fact that you could get
away with virtually anything in those days that you can't
get away with now, hitting the quarterback being the number
one thing you I'm sure took shots as a QB
then that today would get guys even thrown out of
the game, let alone get a fifteen yard penalty. So
some of the changes there, and the other thing I

(04:20):
wanted it before I forgot and obviously at our advanced age, Jim.
We we tend to forget that Minnesota Viking team we
played that day. I believe in nineteen seventy six. Did
they not go to the Super Bowl that year and
we almost beat them? Or they were in the Super
Bowl the year before?

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah? That right? Was it the Raiders? I think it
was the Raiders that they had played in the Super
Bowl or maybe even I can't even remember now. Yeah,
they were a good team. Somebody has to.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Fran Tarkington Hall of Famer, the Purple People leaders that
maybe one of the best front fours defensively ever in football.
Jack coach them. Jack petera our head coach, coached them
when he was at Minnesota. Uh. He also coached for
many people to Fearsome Forsome in l A, another great
front four. So Jack obviously came with credentials as a

(05:10):
defensive They were They were very.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Very good teams. Jeff Semen was our middle linebacker and
he played for many years. I have a lot of
respect for him. Uh, and you know stayed up in Seattle. Remember, uh,
Alerts Mobler, oh my and I still talked to Alerts
every so well. He was one of the funniest guys
in football. Yeah, and made a career out of it.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
You know what was funny about Alerts is when he
Alerts played for Minnesota with the Gang. They're the Purple
People leaders, Carl Eller, Alan Page.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
I cannot remember that. Those are the two.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Those are the two of the big ones. Yeah, I
know there's a couple that I'm missing. Gosh. Oh well,
fans will remind us. But Alerts was like the number
five guy. He was the rotation guy in We got
him in a trade. So we got him from Minnesota
because because Jack knew him.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
And that was his nickname, bench Warmer Bob exactly.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
And he ended up what he ran a bank, and
he had a car dealership, and he had a newspaper
and all that kind of stuff Vikings Vikings Report or whatever.
But he knew Jack, and he knew Jack in a
way that we didn't as young players. And so I
was always envious because he could stand over there and
talk to Jack and they'd be laughing. And yet Jack

(06:25):
would stand there stern with the rest of us and
and kind of look at us and all right, player,
it's your turn next, you know, get up there, go
hit somebody. And then he'd go back and talk to
alerts and start laughing again. And it took us a
while before we were veterans that we could kind of
make that step, that next step, and I think Jack.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Wanted us to take those steps, but everybody was a
bit intimidated by Can you imagine they had ten coaches
on the field when we first started. Yeah, the Seahawks was.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
A step many.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Yeah, it was ten coach is Jerry Rome was our
court He was the quarterback coach, their wide receiver coach,
the tight end coach, and I think and he called
the play, so he had some coordinator responsibility and h wow,
you know that was That's a lot of those are
a lot of responsibilities in today today's game just doesn't happen.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
No, Andy McDonald was a running backs coach and special
teams coach.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
And Howard Mudd was our O line coach and what
a you know, uh, the whole they they kind of
liked each other as as I remember, that staff liked
to be together and they liked to play things. Can
you imagine today that a team that would not have
water on the football field out in Cheenee, Washington, when

(07:48):
it's over one hundred, one hundred degrees and Jack because
of his experience in Minnesota. Hey, what was ever good
for Minnesota is going to be good for us? No water?
Did you ever have any falling out because you didn't
have water?

Speaker 2 (08:04):
You know, maybe the first couple of days. And I
remember we got a guy in the expansion draft. Mostly
as I remember, it was some of the older veterans
who had been other places, and they were the ones
that seemed to have the most trouble with it. A
fullback named Bill Olds, remember Billy Olds from Baltimore, from
the Colts. And I just remember we were running gassers

(08:25):
after practice, and it was a hard practice, and it
was hot, and we were in full gear, and I
just remember I had made it over to the side
and turned to get ready to run the next gasser,
and here comes Billy staggering toward me. And you know,
you feel like there's a guy that's about ready to
drop dead in front of you. And he literally fell
forward almost into my arms, and his legs just curled

(08:47):
up behind him and he was cramping up so badly.
And I don't think Billy was with us a whole
lot longer after that, probably because he decided, you know
what this is not the place for me. This is,
in fact, a good place for us to just remind everybody.
Jim Zorn from nineteen seventy six through nineteen eighty four.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
I got I got released in eighty five eighty.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Five here with the Seahawks, and you finished your career
in Green Bay.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
I finished that year in Green Bay in nineteen eighty five,
and that's when the Chicago Bears, who is the Green
Bay Packers rival, That's when they went to the Super
Bowl and won the Super Bowl Championship.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Great defense. So you have to look at those guys
twice twice across the shim.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, And I still I'm haunted because I still feel
like we should have beat him. And I got to
play in both those games during the during the season.
We can talk about that another time, as I can
still I can still picture some throws. But can you
imagine in training camp we had a linebacker early in

(09:50):
seventy six, Mike Curtis Baltimore Colt's face. It was his
nickname face because he had that chisel. He looked like
an actor well.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
And he also first thing in the morning, looked terrible.
I mean all the wrinkles and everything and it's all
gnarly looking.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Faith, I'll never forget. Between the first and second practice,
he called the NFLPA office, did he really, Yeah, to
see if we had a practice. Yeah, to see if
it was legal for us as a team to go
out in practice in one hundred and five degree weather
in Cheenie, Washington or we were all huddled up and

(10:26):
you know, he was on the phone and we were
right it was down in the training room and he
had made that call. But they said, oh, yeah, no,
you have to go out and practice. And you know,
with no water, one hundred and five degrees, we got through.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
It, you know it at the time. And maybe it's
just because you know, I wanted to make the team.
I wanted to do well like all of us did,
and I sort of, you know, just said, okay, it
makes sense, whether it made sense or not. But Jack
was really very strong on the point. He said, listen,
we're only out there for about less than ninety minutes
in the morning in shoulder pads and helmets. In the afternoon, yes,

(11:02):
full gear. Two hours we're going to hit. But it's
not like we're out here for three hours or something.
So hydrate and then let's get out on the field,
and his big thing was, I don't want to stop practice.
I don't want to break up our momentum in practice.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
Right and today there would be issues with that of
as far as not having water water on the field,
we ate a lot of salt salt tabs.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Which was even worse for us, but we.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Learned how to pre hydrate. Yeah, and not many guys
fell out. There were not many ivs going on. I
remember Sam McCollum having to do an IV a couple
of times here or there when he was even when
he was coming back from a game. He lost a
lot of Miami Waterway.

Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, in Miami against the Dolphins on that old awful turf.
And we came back and I remember we went into
the locker room after the game and it was a
close game. As I remember when we were we ran
our blue formation was three wide receivers, except you know,
I was always in the slot and Steve was on
one side and Sam on the other, and we were

(12:06):
trying to get back in that game, and we just ran,
like seemed like the whole second half that we were
in that and just running up and down the field.
We ended up losing the game. And I remember we
were back in the locker room and the receivers kind
of have their lockers over here at this point. Then
there's the rest of the offense and the defenses on
the other side of the room. And I remember looking
at Sam. This was at the old Orange Bowl, and

(12:29):
I looked at Sam. He was sitting on there was
a kind of a bench in front of the lockers,
and he was sitting there and he was just sort
of looking at me, and I thought, what the heck
are you looking at? And his eyes started to roll
back in his head and he just started to fall
off the bench and we grabbed him and we picked
him up and carried him into the training room and
they immediately gave him an IV and he started to feel,

(12:50):
you know, better, pretty quickly. But that whole trip back,
and if you remember, it was such a long trip
from Miami to Seattle in those days. We had to
off for fuel, like in North Dakota or something. We've
put down and we go back up again. But he
was laying across three of the seats and then he
had an IV hanging from the luggage compartment. He had

(13:13):
an IV.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
I do remember, Yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Know, some of the some of the things that you
go through when you're a when you're a player in
those days, it was just it was just so different.

Speaker 3 (13:22):
And the locker rooms were completely different. I remember coming
in and coming in at a halftime, going to my
locker kind of doing whatever I do, and I'm looking
or in the corner and there's Jack Pittera with Bob Newton.
They were both smoking a cigarette talking about, Hey, you know,

(13:43):
how'd you like the first half? You know, I don't
know what they were talking about, but here they are, Hey,
you got a light? Sure, I got a light in
the locker room.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
I remember Carl going into the restroom back there and
smoking a cigarette at halftime, and well there's there's a
picture of Lenny Dawson on the field between series with
at a dart in his hand, you know. And but again,
it was just a a whole different game.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
I think what changed our game or how we created
a competitive team early for the Hawks was when Howard
Mudd and Annie McDonald developed the Sprint Draw series. Because
I could throw on the run either way and I
could hand off to Sherman and utilize all kinds of

(14:31):
new concept with that with that one series. Because I
could set up off tackle on a play action I
could I could keep it, I could give it to Sherman,
or I could set up and throw back. There were
all there was all kinds of flexibility with that, and
people did not handle it right.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
I remember distinctly that that our offense was built around that,
and it was you know when you have, you know,
you kind of a patchwork offensive line that you're trying
to build. So you have veterans like Bob Newton and
Artie kun in the middle, and then you have some
younger guys, well Norm Evans, an old veteran from the
Miami Dolphins days, and then you're trying to sprinkle. They'd

(15:12):
be about, oh what a great player. I digress, I'll
but sprint draw. Yes was important. Be about just recently,
we had a big zoom call. You were supposed to
be there, you couldn't be there, but we had like
fifteen of us on zoom. And it was the day
after the draft this last spring, and the idea was

(15:32):
let's all get on there and talk about our draft
day stories. Well it was about as much fun. And
you know, we're all these old gray haired guys now.
But you know when you see this, you know, think
about it, folks, when you're on your computer and you
have eight, ten, twelve people on the screen at the
same time in a zoom interview, And that's the way

(15:53):
this was. And the stories were just hysterical. Fred Hogland
was our center that for year. Remember Fred, great coach
in this.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
Perfect short snapper. I held. Yeah, all my career, I
held for every kicker that came around. It didn't matter
where I was. I wanted to be the holder because
I didn't. I trusted myself, I guess, and I had
a lot of confidence I was going to get the
ball down. Fred Hoagland said where are you going to
put your hands? And I said, okay, right here. And
he he was such a great snapper. He could have

(16:25):
the laces in front every single time, and he had
this great spin on the ball. Yeah. And he was
an awesome center and became a longtime coach in the
National Football League.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
Yeah, and he was on the call. He was on
the call. He's in his eighties. I think he's early
eighties now. I mean a lot of these guys remember
that we played with, They were already in their mid
to late thirties. When you and I were in our
early twenties as rookies. But Fred was telling his draft
day story today. I mean, people just don't get it.
How you know, the draft is like the biggest thing

(17:01):
short of the World Series. It's the second biggest sporting event.
The draft is behind the Super Bowl for Kranella. So
in back in our day, you know, you just got
a phone call and they told you, okay, you're going
to go to so and so, and you say, okay, great,
and you hung up the phone and then you went
about your business. Hoagland I think he said something to
the effect he thought he was going to go in
one of the early rounds and he didn't, and so

(17:24):
he took off went fishing from his dorm room in
wherever he went to school. He was gone for three days.
He came back and his roommate left him a note. Oh,
by the way, the Cleveland Browns called, they drafted you.
You might want to give him a call back. Oh okay, Yeah,
that's that's how unimpressive the draft was in those days.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
You were a second round draft choice.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
I was a bone. I always like to say this
because it's it's it's a diss on real second round
draft choices, but I was a bonus pick in the
second round. Sherman and I were at the end of
the second round, and both Seattle and Tampa Bay, the
two expansion teams, had two bonus picks in the second round,
and so Sherman was one obviously a huge success. And

(18:09):
then there was me and then but.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
About okay, let's talk about Sherman. He was at a
Miami of Ohio and he was a quarterback option quarter
left handed. Yes, And he was drafted as a wide
receiver in the second round, and he was our starting
running back. We projected a lot of things. Steve Rabel,

(18:34):
second pick in the second round, second Seahawk pick, bonus.
You're such a bonus guy. You were at Georgia Tech.
But as I remember you telling me, and this is
this is public knowledge, you were a tight end.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Tight end for the last two years in the wishbone.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
In the wishbone, and you were drafted as a wide receiver.
We did that often where early in the tenure of
the Seahawks would draft and project, Hey, this guy wasn't Piggy.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Peter Crown linebacker Peter Boston College.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
Wasn't he a nose guard?

Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (19:17):
At Boston College, and then he was I think as
a linebacker. So we did this, yeah, trying to think, hey,
we're gonna cash in on right.

Speaker 2 (19:25):
And and you know, when I came out of school
at six to almost two hundred pounds four three five forty,
you know, so I ran track and played football, So
that was that projection that that, okay, he can be
an effective outside receiver even though I really had never
run routes. I was never really coached to run routes.
And I'm not using this as an excuse, but as

(19:46):
you mentioned, Jerry Rome was you know, play caller, quarterback coach,
receivers coach, tight ends coach. So when it came time
for independent or individual drills, he was with you guys
and Steve and Sam and myself and whoever was the
fourth wide receiver, and that person varied over the years
that we were all together. Then we just go off

(20:08):
someplace and we just you know, we just throw the
ball and kind of practice a little bit of route.
You know. I sometimes I beat up on myself for
not maybe working harder sometimes to be a better receiver.
But then I also think, you know what, I didn't
know what some of those things were what Steve did.
I tried to emulate and I couldn't. Physically, I couldn't

(20:30):
do what he did.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
You used your speed, You used your speed really well,
as I remember, But you were a speed break sort
of guy. And Steve was a route runner, absolutely type
of a player where he could, he he could, and
you know, he's got really short legs. He's got short legs,
so his center gravity was way down there, and he

(20:52):
could run at his four to six speed right up
to a guy with that speed sink and then get
out of a break, whereas you had. You had some
serious speed and you had to break.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
And I had to chop it down to try to
make the break. You know, I've told this story many times.
You you probably remember it. But everybody says, well, you
know large and you know one of the greatest picks
by the Seahawks. Well, he wasn't a pick by the Seahawks.
We picked him up in the trade with the Houston Oilers.
Bum Phillips said later it's the worst deal he ever

(21:27):
made because Yoda, obviously, and by the way, I fall
into that category sometimes I still call him Yoda every
solid that his nickname.

Speaker 3 (21:33):
But Steve Largent we should probably at some point tell
everybody how how you got Peaches, but then that didn't
really stick all that well. But Yoda definitely.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
Yes, we'll talk Yoda stories too, because we had a
Halloween party and Terry actually came as as Yoda and
Steve came as Princess Leah. But the Yoda mask that
Terry wore looked just like Steve's face, honest to god,
with the big no was and all that, so we
started calling him Yoda, and so it's it's Yoda to

(22:03):
this day. Anyway. Yoda. Uh, we get him in a
trade with with Houston. Houston was going to cut him
and then they pulled him back right away. You could
do that then pull him back and the Seahawks offered,
what would we offer a seventh or a twelfth?

Speaker 3 (22:17):
I think he's better than that. He was a fourth
round pick and I think we got him for a
fifth round.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Is that what it was? Well, Jerry coached him at Tulsa,
so Jerry knew that this guy was the real deal.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
And he kept saying, Jim, You're just you're going to
really like this guy. Wait until you wait until he
shows up. I mean he was almost like, wait, a minute. Uh,
you coach for the Seahawks. You're not in Tulsa anymore.
This is but he loved Steve right.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
Well, and what's not to love. I mean, I think
he led the nation in touchdown receptions or something his
senior year. I mean, some incredible thing. This short.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
You remember Tulsa. Do you remember him coming to practice?

Speaker 2 (22:54):
I was just going to tell that story. Yeah, tell
the very first practice he gets there. Maybe there may
be more to the story than what I remember, but
I remember it was like after practice.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
No, it was it was during practice and he comes down.
We're in We're in the middle of team drill.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Was he on the porch up there?

Speaker 3 (23:11):
And he was on the porch and he comes down
and Jack or Jerry said, is take a couple of laps.
Is you're going to go in? You know you're going
to go in? Really, this is right in the middle
of practice.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Well, I remember when he first got there, before he
even came to the field, and I think Gary Wright
was standing next to him, or Don Anderson or somebody,
and there.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Might have been the day before they.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Were they were on the porch and it was practice
had basically ended, and so the receivers. We were just
out there throwing the ball around with you guys, and
so you had me run. Let's see, A three was
a three? A slant quick slant?

Speaker 3 (23:44):
That was three? No, No, A quick slant was two.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Okay, waiting. Two was a quick out, okay. One was
a hitch three okay. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
You know, I don't.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Remember much of today, but I remember that anyway. You said.
You just pointed, said three. Okay. So I'm thinking about
running this great route, you know, and trying to make
a little move at the back end of it, and
turned and then really exploding out of my as soon
as I came out of the break, the ball was
already there. It went off my hands, off my helmet,
straight up in the air. Yoda is standing on the
porch watching all this, and he turned to somebody and said, oh,

(24:21):
I know I can play here.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
I know that is that is a That's the first
time I've heard this.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
And I tell it and Steve laughs and he he
sometimes he sort of says, yeah, that sort of happened,
or denies it. But I firmly believed that that's the case.
And I also know that he was absolutely right, because
he sure could and he sure did well.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
He was doing some contract stuff and that's why he
came out in the middle of that next day. Oh,
next practice. So he comes in and we're do you
remember the play seventy six? Yes, absolutely, and it was yep,
you're exactly right. So he show everyone that you run
corner routes versus cover two versus a rolled corner, and

(25:07):
a deep outside safety. But if it was three deep,
you run a curl route. Okay, that's seventy six. And
he said, I want you to call seventy six. And
he said, Jerry, this is Steve's first play. You're going
to have him read the coverage while he's running his
Just call the play, please, just call the play. So
I called seventy six, and sure enough, they go too deep.

(25:29):
Steve runs a burst corner. I throw it to him.
I hate him right score in the hands. He drops
the ball. I kid you, not first pass, I throw
it to Steve.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
I didn't remember that.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
Maybe a couple plays later in practice, he's running seventy
one or whatever, you know, a slants and a little
arrow route by the tied end. He drops the ball
again and I look over at Jerry, and Jerry looks
at me and says, don't you worry about him? And

(26:00):
then he, as Steve tells it, he came up to
Steve and said, don't even you know, don't sweat it. Basically,
you're gonna You're gonna be fine. And you know, he
didn't drop many balls, but he dropped those two balls
in that first practice that we practiced. But he did
run the right route and he did get open right.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Well. It was the same system that he ran a Tulsa,
so he knew it, you know, as we said, Jerry
coached it. And so the rest is history, and he
goes on to be goes on to be a Hall
of Famer.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Steve, I've always wanted to know. I don't really remember
what how all this happened, but you ran a out
I think it was seventy two. I threw you the
ball and for some reason you got tangled up with
the yard markers or something. Oh yeah, But as I

(26:49):
remember you, also, you had a punctured lung. Yeah, a
collapsed lung on that was it that play. Yeah, So
how I don't get how a how a yard mark
can can collapse your slung short.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
Of taking it and impaling you on it, which hals
but happily did not happen. Uh, well, we were playing
was it the was it the Cardinals or the Raiders somebody?
It was a preseason game. It was my it was
my last year. It was eighty one or eighty one
season in preseason. And yeah, just a simple out route
and so I caught the ball and I don't remember

(27:24):
that the one the I do remember, I got blasted
in the back as soon as I caught it. And
I heard later on from doctors that that in and
of itself could have done it. It's if there's a
little weak spot on your lung that with a concussion
like that, and the you know the that you get
from a shot like.

Speaker 3 (27:43):
Because you're probably trying to keep your feet in bound
and whatever.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
Focus and then you're getting hitches back with a helmet. It's, oh,
you gotta love it. And and so I get then
I get knocked out of bound. So you know, we've
all been hit. If you play this game, you've been
hit like that thousand times. So I didn't think anything
of it. I get knocked out of bounds. Well, the
guy holding the marker instead of dropping it, which was

(28:06):
the rule. You dropped it because they're padded and you
can roll over it. He kind of put his leg
behind it and stood there. And so now I roll
into the down and down marker and I kind of,
you know, ended up in sort of a U shape
against my back and I just you know, it hurt
for a second, but I popped up. I went back
in the game you called. The next play you called

(28:29):
was me clearing out. So I had to just you know,
haul butt downfield to clear out. It probably Yoda coming
on a crossing route or a tight end, you know,
coming out to the flat or something. So I had
to get out of there and take my guy with me.
So I get all the way, I'm you know, running,
I ran fifty yards downfield or something. By the time
I got down there, I'm thinking, holy smokes, am I

(28:49):
out of shape or what. I'm having a tough time
catching my breath and I come off to the sidelines.
I think I played two more plays. I finally come
off the field and I said to Jimmy Whitzel, our
assistant trainer. I said, Whites, I can't get my breath.
That's the first thing. He said, Well, you're out of shape.
I said, no, I'm not. I said, I've been working
my tail off. I'm in great shape. But I said

(29:09):
I can't breathe, and he said, well, tell me, what's
what's up. I said, it feels like I'm getting stabbed
in my back. I said, it feels like I've been,
you know, stabbed with a sword or something. And I
can't breathe. And he looks at me and he says, well,
that sounds like a collapse lung. You don't have a
collapse lung. And it gets worse and worse, and he says, oh,

(29:29):
come on, let's run you into the locker room real fast.
And they ran me back there and sure enough, collapse
lung and it's going down. And now my chest cavity
is starting to get blood in it from where the
collapse is. So they put me in the ambulance to
take me up to the hospital, up to Swedish and Justice.

(29:51):
We're getting ready, sorry, I laughed. Just as we're getting
ready to leave, one of the trainers comes running down
the tunnel waving his arm at the ambulance and said,
don't leave yet, and they wheel Joe Norman into the van.
He just tore his knee up and he missed that
whole season with a torn up knee, had knee surgery.
So here we are. I can't breathe, my lung, my

(30:14):
chest cavity is starting to get blood in it. He's
sitting there with a torn up knee. He knows he's
gonna have knee surgery. We're on our way to the hospital. Meantime,
the the somebody from the Seahawks went up into the
stands and found Sharon and she was with her stepdad,
and he said, listen, Steve's on his way to the hospital.
We're not sure what it is, but I just wanted

(30:34):
to tell you. So they took off. They left. Remember
the wives and girlfriends sat, Yeah, you know, just under
the scoreboard. They were so far.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
We just pat so high, right, and we we parked
where everybody else with the fans today. That's I'm doing. Well,
that's right.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
We come walking in on Sunday with the fans. You know,
that's that's terrific. You know, you park your little VW
bug and samaring.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Can you get the car?

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, that's right. So Sharon and Larry, her stepdad, go
up to the hospital and they ask people along the way, Hey,
did a couple of seahawks come in here. You know,
we still had our gear on, you know, And so
they said, yeah, they I think they went that way,
and so they directed them up to the floor. She
gets off the elevator, she's walking down the hall just
about the time that the team doctor is injecting between

(31:24):
my ribs with painkiller so they could set a chest
tube to start a draining the blood out. This sounds awful,
but be it also takes the air out of the
out of your lung cavity so your lung can heal
naturally and start to reinflate. Just about that time and
she hears me just go bananas yell and you know,

(31:46):
and basically I scream and she thought, oh, this is
not going to be good. But anyway, NAS producers sitting
over here laughing, But anyway, and that's the way it was.
I was in that place for over a week. They
set three different chest tubes to try to get that
thing to reinflate.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
Steve, did I come and see you?

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Noah, did you? I don't think you did. I don't
think you could in training cap, Yeah it couldn't.

Speaker 3 (32:10):
And what was really interesting you telling you telling me
this story? I didn't even think you got hit. I
thought you were kind of you know a week what's
this guy? He hits a he hits a yard marker
and collapses lung. And I remember looking. I was so
mad at the officials. I remember seeing the yard marker

(32:31):
just bent. That's what I was mad at. I didn't
know you got hit by somebody else, you know, I thought, oh, raves,
come on, it's not just you know how much people.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Get whacked, right, how much dumb luck can a person have?
In one plas that I shot that you take to
the back and then the guy holding the sticks and
you end up in the hospital for a week. And
so I went on IR and missed the first six
games and one I remember the very week we came back,
played the Giants and got beat thirty to nothing. What

(33:03):
a welcome home. And Jack had his practicing Monday full gear.
The next day we practiced and ran about a thousand
gassers because he thought we weren't in shape.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
But we played the Denver Broncos one year and you
talk about a collapse long. I didn't have a collapse lung,
but I got hit. I I ran to my right
and I got hit by a linebacker and fell on
the ball and it actually tore my, uh the cartilage

(33:34):
of my rib cage, and I thought it tore the
front of it. So I get carried. I can't play
the next place, so uh, I think, I think. I
think Sam came in at first. So I'm in the
locker room and it's the first quarter. So in the
second quarter, I'm in there and Walt Kringle, remember doctor Kringle,

(33:57):
And I think Jimmy U Whitzel was in there. And
Walt says, Okay, you you have some cartilage damage. I'm
going to shoot some xylocane on your ribcage. You can't
flinch when I shoot this thing because if I hit
your lung, it'll it'll paralyze your lung and we'll have

(34:18):
other problems. I said, okay. So he takes the needle
and I I'm just just because I want to get
back on the field because he's gonna numb it, because
it's not going to get any worse. He said, okay,
so and this so he shoots me and it doesn't
it doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
We're turning off a phone. By the way, we're of
the generation that forgets to turn our phones off.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Thank you very much, Steve, welcome for that announcement. Well,
he he shoots me twice. Well, I now you know,
and it's the wrong place because it's still I can't breathe.
I can't breathe. So after the second shot, I faint.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
I didn't know that because I was out on the field.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
I think, because you know, I mean, it's painful or
whatever me. So I faint, And as Jimmy Whitesell would
tell the story, Walt Kringle faints because he thinks he
hit my lungs. So here's Jimmy Whiteell and he's got
two guys laid out on these on these benches right,

(35:25):
and he thinks, oh my gosh, what am I going
to do now? So I finally revive, and Walt revives.
He had to shoot me two more times. And the
cartilage that was making helping me, not or aiding and
not allowing me to breathe was in my back. So
he shoots me two more times and I don't feel

(35:47):
any pain at all. So at halftime, everybody comes in.
I went out and I played the whole second half
of that football game. I can't remember whether we want
or loss to be honest with you. But the next
week I could hardly sure, I could hardly breathe, you know,
because once that numbing, they're not going to numb me again.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
We think about how hard those lungs had to work
at altitude no less.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
So no, this was in the Kingdome.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Oh oh, I'm sorry I thought this.

Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah, no, this was in the Kingdome. Well anyway, man,
we all pulled. We all pulled through.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
Here we all are even after all this. Now a
lot of our guys, Sam we mentioned Sam Adkins. I
mean he's had now knees and hips and I think
every have you had.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
I have an ankle replacement in my left ankle because
of a game that got my ankle twisted completely around
almost against the Raiders. Yeah. So I've been battling arthritis
and kind of weird, uh, you know, different things going

(36:53):
on with my ankle for all these years. I even
played on it the following the following year, But year
after year I've needed to get something done. Sure with
bone spurs.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
And yeah, I gets the same thing on my upper spine,
you know, from taking shots in the head and using
your head, which is again another great reason for the
league kind of saying, you know, no more, get your
head out of the game. And that's one of the
best things that along with the great helmets that they
have today. Let's broaden it out a little, Jim. We

(37:26):
could sit here and talk about between injuries and plays
and all that stuff, but of our time in those
early years of the Seahawks, what do you remember about
the first couple of years about being here in the city,
about what we kind of meant to this community coming
in and what it meant to you to be a

(37:47):
part of the Seahawks in the very first team in
nineteen seventy six. Two years from now, we're going to
celebrate fifty years, my friend, if you and I knockohot
Wood are still with us.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
You know, when I first came, I I wanted to
make sure it was an NFL team, right because it
was expansion and it was Sandy Gregory and Gary Wright
who were the first people you really meet for pictures
and talking about what you know, talking about the other
things that go on that they're trying to develop and

(38:19):
things like that. I was I was Seahawk before Jack
Ptera was a Seahawk.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
That's right. You're a free agent out of the Dallas.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yes, and so coming to training camp for the first time,
I was I had it in my mind. I wanted
to be the starter. And so in these first in
these first games, these first couple of years, I think
Jerry saw that we were going to have to do
something a little bit different than other teams as an

(38:51):
expansion team, kind of the history of expansion teams. And
Howard was tremendous, Andy McDonald, all these guys really worked
to try to help us. We had fake field goals,
we had surprise on side kicks, we had a couple
of fake punts, and Jack knew he had to call
these things to give us a better chance. So I

(39:16):
think the memories that fit in my mind were the
confidence that I think we had early in our tenure
because of you know, a tight knit group. We were
the first guinea pigs, if you will, for the expansion
team in Seattle. But I'll never forget the fans and

(39:36):
what it meant to the fans to have a team
in Seattle. You know, we were two and fourteen our
first season.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
We were two and twelve, I mean.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Two and twelve, I'm sorry. We had fourteen games. We
had six preseason games, we were two and twelve and
you would have thought we'd nearly made the playoffs. That's
the fan base I think continues today. You know, we
can say, well they backed off here and there, they
have not backed off at all about supporting the Seahawks

(40:09):
football team. And I was amazed because I went to
cal Poly Pomona, where we had the band and our parents,
and to have to have people just so rabid, if
you will, about the Seahawks and what they meant to
the city, to the state, and to see other NFL teams.

(40:33):
We rarely had other NFL teams coming out here in support.
When you got in the Kingdom, it was all Seahawks fans.
I think.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
Yeah, I remember after the draft, we had a rookie orientation,
like the week after the draft or two weeks after
the draft. So they had had the veteran allocation group.
Maybe you were in that one.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
That was out here for one because I was a
free agent.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
Okay, So then the rookies and free agents came in
on a weekend and I'll never forget this. We're I
think I'm in a cab or maybe one of the
drivers picked me up from the Seahawks. One of the
ball Boys or something. But we come the back way
down Highway ninety nine going north and we kind of
come over that rise where the city suddenly is there,

(41:20):
and I just thought, what a beautiful place. I'd never
been west of the Mississippi, so I you know, from
back in the South, and so to see this gem
of a city and right on Elliott Bay and then
there in the foreground as you start to get a
little closer, is this mushroom that is the Kingdome. And

(41:42):
I thought, what a beautiful place. I hope I can,
you know, hang on for a couple of weeks, because
I had no idea. You know, at that time, even
though you're a bonus pick in the second round, you know,
there was nothing guaranteed with an expansion team. So I
thought that that was really amazing. And then I remember
us being out in the dome running those two days

(42:03):
on that weekend. Then we went I think we went
out to Blake Island for a salmon feed or something
on boats, and you really got a sense for what
the Northwest was like, and I thought, this is really great.
And then then the other thing when you mentioned fans
that I remember is what you talked about earlier, and
that is we would park. We just pull into the
parking lot there just to the south of the dome,

(42:26):
and we'd pull in right next to where the fans
were literally with them, and so we'd get out of
our cars and we'd all walk up to the Hey,
I hope you guys have a great game. Well, thanks,
cheer loud. We hope to play well. And we walk
in the gate there and just go in and play
our game. Then you come out and there are all
the fans there and you just kind of walk with
everybody out to the car. And in some cases there

(42:46):
were folks out there who had been tailgating, might have
an extra beverage still in the cooler, and thank you, Sam,
and I would not turn that down. But those kinds
of memories of really being a part of building something
here in the community was something really special.

Speaker 3 (43:04):
Yeah, And even though we did not know how, we
didn't have a history, we were creating our own traditions
walking in and out with the fans. I don't think
the fans knew what was really going on either. I
mean they were all new and everybody was trying to
get educated. And I think as the fans became more experienced,

(43:28):
they finally could say, ooh, I know what our expectations like,
and prices started going up right the expectations. You know,
the fan became an intelligent fan here in Seattle. They know.
And that's why there's those fan oriented statistics up in
the stadium today in Lumenfield, because the fans are totally

(43:51):
integrated with what the Seahawks are doing, and the Seahawks
have done a wonderful job of creating that for the fan,
and you know, many things go along with that.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
I will tell everybody that I remember, not that the fans'
attitudes changed, but they suddenly got even more excited on
a Sunday morning when we'd all pull into the parking
lot together after Jim and Steve did their milk commercial,
the milk mustache. That commercial, and for those of you
that are you know, in your fifties, sixties, and a

(44:24):
whole lot of you great grandparents remember that commercial. They
actually sang and we were forever giving you guys a
hard time about that, but it was one of those
things that kind of cemented us in the community that
people thought, gosh, you guys are just you know, you're
really nice kids. You're just nice young men, and we're

(44:45):
glad that you're all here. And I think that's one
of the things that fans will remember to this day,
those drink glasses that we got from McDonald's that they
had all our pictures on. They had a set of
four of them, and to this day, I'll get a
shoe box sent to me. Well, I used to get
it at the station at Cairo when I worked there,
and it'd be a shoe box and it be filled

(45:06):
with paper and inside was one of those glasses, and
you and I and I think Sam were on one glass,
and Steve and Sherman and somebody else on another glass.
There were four of them and in a set and
somebody the note with the box would be dear Steve.
We were cleaning out Aunt Gladys's garage. She passed away

(45:27):
last month at ninety three, and she had this glass
and we just thought you'd want it. So I'd walk,
I'd come home after work and tell Sharon we got Sharon,
we got another glass. We got to find another spot
for it. So now I have this huge set of
these glasses with all our pictures on them. And by
the way, we looked very good.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Very I can imagine people coming over at your house
for dinner and that's of eight to ten people around
the table, and they're all Steve Rabel.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Glass, White Wine, are red In, Steve in a, Steve Rabel,
Jim Zorn, Sam McCollum, Glass. Oh, just just so much
of that, So many of those those great, great times
with the fans. And then after two years when we
started to kind of build the franchise around you and

(46:13):
Steve and Smittye, and we started to get you know,
guys like Jacob coming in and some of those guys,
some of the younger guys on defense.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
Dave Brown, Jeff Well, Dave Brown was there at the start,
very beginning, because we got him in the expansion draft.
But I remember Jeff Bryant, Yeah, yeah, And I even
remember were you there when Cortes came in?

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yes, no, not as a player. I was there obviously, okay,
but not as a player. But by seventy nine, all
of a sudden, it sort of all came together and
here we go. You know, that's when they moved to
the sixteen game schedule, and here we go nine and
seven and surprised, I think just about everybody except us,
because we knew that we were a pretty good football team,

(46:56):
and we had had now a couple of years to
to figure this system out. And obviously you and Steve
were on the same page, and we had a defense
now that could go with it. And we had a
couple of years there that were really fun. I think
we missed the playoffs by a game or something in
seventy nine and beat some pretty good teams. We did,

(47:18):
and then I had this conversation with Nick. We were
talking about Nick Bebout. They decided to trade Nick to
Atlanta or someplace back east in like eighty seventy nine
or eighty, and that's when we kind of had a
little setback because they were trying to integrate some young
players on that offensive front, and a guy like Nick

(47:39):
Bebout is tough to replace. Was he the best tackle
that ever played? No, of course not. But was he
a leader up front? Did guys rally around him? Did
he know what to do every time? Absolutely? And you know,
nothing against the young guys and nothing against the guys
that drafted him, but he was one of those players
that was I think that was one of those moves

(48:00):
that was made. And then we had some injuries too.
I think Sherman got hurt in nineteen eighty and everything
kind of went backwards.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
I'll never forget Nick Beebout. We're in the huddle in Philadelphia.
Do you remember this? Yes? Do you ever tell this story?

Speaker 2 (48:14):
I do? And I was in the huddle too.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
I remember it where you know, it's a break, we're
in the huddle, and I remember they had a pretty
good team, but they had this crowd.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
That was just crazy, you know, you.

Speaker 3 (48:26):
Know, bottle throwing and orange throwing or whatever they were throwing.
But Nick, we're The reason that we mentioned Nick is
because we're in the huddle and there's a time out
and all of a sudden, he goes, ah, and what
is wrong with you? Nick? He settled down and he
goes hey, he said what and he looks down and

(48:49):
he had been shot with a pellet rifle or a
pellet gun, and he picks up the pellet. He goes,
somebody just shot me. And he had a welt on
the back of his leg or something like that, as
I remember. Do you remember it any different way?

Speaker 2 (49:02):
No?

Speaker 3 (49:02):
I remember exactly. Oh my gosh, what is going on
around here? And that was from a long way because
we were in the middle of the field. You know,
we were not It wasn't like we were in the
red zone or backed up or anything like that. We
were kind of in the middle of the field. And
he yells out and he had been shot with a pellet.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
You can't make this stuff up. I mean, today, the
security to get into a stadium. I mean, you know,
you can't take your purse. I've tried. You can't take
your person. You have to take a plastic bag, right,
and it's got to be clear, and it's got to
be clear. In those days, there was nothing. Just people
rushed the gates. You had a ticket, you got in,
and somebody brought a pellet gun with him and shot

(49:40):
be bad and yeah, and I thought it was in
his butt, but the back of his legs somewhere, and
I remember him kind of yelling and jumping, and I
thought the same thing as yeah, are you all right?
What's wrong? You know, it was a clear day, so
he didn't get struck by lightning or anything, but yeah,
he got shot. Just some of the crazy things that

(50:01):
would happen either on the road. But all that being said,
we still found a way to win a lot of
those games, you know, we remember I mentioned a minute ago.
We got beat in eighty one by the Giants thirty
to nothing. That week that I returned from the injured
reserve list, and I think the next week we went
out and beat somebody because we were just so angry
at Jack that we went out. So we better win

(50:23):
this one because we can't go through this again.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
Do you remember we played the Green Bay Packers in
Green Bay? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (50:30):
If you remember rookie season seventy six in Milwaukee.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
In Milwaukee, yes, okay, we're down twenty eight to nothing
in the first quarter.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Well, I didn't remember that.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
Okay, I tried to block that as well. But the
story that that, I don't know if you remember this.
They had a rule in the National Football League that
if the fans, and this is a fan related story,
if you were loud, the quarterback could step back from
the center sure and turn mister official and I had

(51:01):
to have my arms up, and I knew the mechanics
of it. The crowd would yell peep. The old line
could not hear the crowd, so there was no there
was no silent count. So I would step back, turn
to mister official and he he did one of two things.
He would either say, you know you're wrong, get back

(51:23):
underneath there. Your time's still running. He would point at me,
or he would blow the whistle stop the game, and
then the announcer at some point would say, would everybody
please be quiet?

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Craziest rule well on the planet.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
Jack Petera and Howard Mud told me, don't you ever
don't you snap the ball? Don't you snap the ball
if if the crowd noise? So I had this. So
I've got Jack and you know he can bring the
fear of God towards you. And Howard was no joke either.

(52:00):
Howard was really quick and he so I stepped back
one time. We're losing, but I stepped back. It's in
the middle of the game now, in the second half,
and I turned to mister official with my hands up.
He stops the and you know what that does. That
incites the shower. So Blay got just really loud, and

(52:23):
so I kid you not, And you're right. This rule
was not going to be for very long because I
stood there for twenty minutes. We stopped the game for
twenty minutes. Oh and Howard's still mad about it, because
after you know, after so long, the official probably three times,

(52:46):
said would you please snap the ball? Can we get
this thing going? You know, if you snap the ball,
they'll quiet down. So he talked me into getting the
ball snapped. So I went up there and said, you know,
we're in the huddle, and I said, guys, I'm going
to get it snapped the time regardless. And so we
get up there, we snap, and you would have thought

(53:06):
that I had done the worst thing I could have
ever done in a football game. When I came off
to the sideline, Howard was all.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Or me, why did you?

Speaker 3 (53:17):
Why did you snap the ball? And what they were
trying to do was prove the point that this rule
was not going to work in the National Football League.
But we had stopped the television game. Can you imagine
that now, Steve, Oh my god, we had stopped the
television game for twenty minutes with me just backing up.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
All I remembered about that game, the Packers game was
donniedufect blocking a pot and I picked it up and
ran for a touchdown. That's what I remember about. Give
me some how about that mapp Yeah right place.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
I did not remember that.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
Yeah, you remembered stand and I don't remember the thing
that lasted twenty minutes. But I do remember after I retired,
we're playing the Raiders in the Kingdome and the quarterback
for the Raiders was a kid that played at the
University of Washington. I can't remember his name.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
He was a tall sky not Billy Joho, No, no.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
No, byu tall skinny kid. Oh yeah, Mark uh Mark
something maybe.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
But the rule was the same if it gets too loud,
and so he kept turning around to the official and
wanting to you know, and they were gonna call. They
got to the point where they say, we're gonna call
a penalty, a fifteen yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the fans.
Can you imagine that today? I mean in Philadelphia, if
that happened, they'd burned the building down for crying out

(54:33):
loud and the Seahawks fans would be none too happy
about it either. So, yeah, it took a while for
the league to kind of figure that that was pretty dumb.
Let's just get him out there, go ahead and play.
If it's loud, it's loud. We didn't have shotgun. You
didn't run off shotgun in those days.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Well, later on, we later, but not Yeah, we were
underneath the center because of the Sprint draw series.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Basically, yeah, so you know, it was just it was
just nuts the way all that stuff worked out. Let
me let me look at our list here. There's a
couple of other things that I know we wanted to
to talk about because then the next time we do this,
hopefully we'll get a guest that you know, of our
ilk and we gonna have Are we gonna we're gonna
have guests all this sure? Oh yeah, whether they come

(55:17):
in here and sit with us, or we'll get them
on the phone and we can chat with them, you.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
Know, and hopefully you won't have to BEG fans to
know you.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Once they hear this, we're never gonna have to BEG fans.
They're gonna demand that we're out. They're gonna try to
get us to do five days a week. I just can't.
I've retired from five days a week work. It's said
one of the one of the one of the topics
here was the Zorn to Rabel connection. Well, let me
tell you it wasn't all that much of a connection.
But I'm gonna tell it because you're proud to say it,

(55:46):
and I'm doubly proud that the best corner route you
ever threw was in a game in Oakland against the Raiders,
against a team that ended up going to the Super
Bowl that we beat twice that season with Kenny Stay
and all those guys. We beat him down there, and
you threw an absolutely perfect pass that I caught for

(56:06):
a touchdown. And uh, and it was one of the
great when again, as I said, if you if you
can remember all your highlights, you didn't have enough of them,
but that was a real.

Speaker 3 (56:14):
Highlight, right Jerry had taught uh taught me, Uh, you're
you're not really ever throwing to spots, so you're really
throwing to the receiver. So don't throw to a spot.
You're throwing throw to the receiver. But you have to
take your arm and throw the ball where the receiver
where you know it's going to intersect right at chest
high going away. And I still remember it was it

(56:37):
was a corner route and you ran it on the
right side and you ended up in the corner of
the end zone in the right with your arms out
and full speed or whatever. Uh. And it truly was
the best corner route I ever threw. It was an
absolutely a touchdown.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
And it was also the game that I got knocked
unconscious by Jack Tatum. Later in the game. Oh right,
I didn't know how the game finished. You know. The
game ended with Efron kicking a field goal.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
We had a last ten seconds, we had a last
chance drive, and I still remember being mad because we didn't.
We didn't get this first down that we needed. And
all of a sudden, I see Effren Cup coming in.
I'm looking around and gosh, we were in field goal range.
I had no idea because I want to go in
and score, and so here comes Efron and he kicks

(57:26):
it and it ruined the Raiders day with no time
left on the clock, and he got it through.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
It was it was that drive that I got knocked out,
literally knocked unconscious. I did a speaking engagement here about
three months ago for a group of young sportscasters, young
people wanting to get into the business, and so they
mentioned said, what was the hardest hit you ever gott
And I said, well, I got my glung collapse. That
was bad. I got my bell rung a bunch. But
I said, Jack Tatum hit me as I ran a
crossing route, I said, and the ball was just a

(57:56):
little bit back and maybe, yes, I know, just a
little bit back here. So and I kind of did this,
and then Tatum came through with a forearm and hit
me right square in the side of the face and
the head and boom. The next thing I know, I'm
on the sidelines. The next thing I know, I'm standing
there with a towel over my head. I don't know
what's going on. And we go to the locker room

(58:17):
and everybody's celebrating. So I thought, oh, this is great.
In fact, point of fact, the next day I had
to go to a dinner party. I spent a night
in the hospital when we got back to Seattle with
things on my head, you know, for a concussion. Got
out the next day and had a concussion. Went to
this dinner party because I had promised these people i'd
be there. There was only one other single person there

(58:37):
was Sharon, my wife of now forty two years. So
just think, had I not made that dinner party, you know,
who knows what would have happened to my miserable life. Anyway,
so I get knocked out. I go to this sportscaster's
thing and I mentioned this story, and some kid sitting

(59:00):
out there with an iPad. He's doing this and I'm
not paying any attention. And the guy who was moderating
the thing says, hey, Steve, do you want to see
that play? And I said what play? He said, the
play where Tatum knocked you out. And I said, well,
that's I said, that was like on game film. I said,
I haven't seen that in forty six years, probably forty
five years. He said, he just found it. I said,

(59:23):
are you kidding me? So I saw it for the
first time in forty five years three weeks ago, would
illegal Oh my god, he'd have been arrested. He should
have been arrested anyway, because he you know, he paralyzed
Darryl Stingley with a hit like that. But that's who
these guys were, that's who he was, especially, uh, And
he yeah. I was still kind of turned around and

(59:46):
one guy spun me around as I was trying to
make the catch, and he just came through with a forearm.
And what I didn't remember was I went down and
I started to get up, and then I went down
to one knee and then I just fell over on
my back. And John Brody, you remember John, great guy,
great quarterback and a really Good Broadcast was doing the
game that day, and he was saying he tried to describe.

(01:00:09):
They showed the replay of it and slowed it down,
and Statum just drilling me, and he was saying something
to the effect that, oh boy, you got when you
go in there, buddy, you gotta be ready and uh
get gets tough, tough, gets going in there and just
let it be quiet online on the ground. The trainers
kneeling over me. But we won that game, and that
was so cool to go down there and beat the Raiders.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Well, I don't remember you getting knocked out in that,
you know. Isn't that funny how we all have different flashes.
I can remember throws, I can remember plays, but those
guys you remember different situations, and they they spur those
thoughts in my mind about different things that you know.

(01:00:53):
Quite frankly, you shove you shove down there. I've always
admired you, though, because you were the UH in the
first year, or maybe it was the second year. I
always remember Steve Rabel having a Jensen Healey and I
don't even know what year it was, but I'd never
heard of Jensen he I've heard of Austin healely, But

(01:01:16):
what was this? So I thought maybe it's just, you know,
something that he could afford. But it looked it was
really a slick car. And I remember you you were
the consummate bachelor because you had a red, bright red
and it was that orange red, beautiful, and you had
waxed at a bunch and it had a brown saddle

(01:01:37):
interior with a brown saddle, and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
You were soft top stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Yeah, And I thought, Man Raves is an NFL player,
and he's on my team, and he drives a Jensen Healing, and.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Jim had a yellow Beetle Volkswagen Beetle that you kept
for years.

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
I probably had a better wax job on my Volkswagen
than you had on your Jensen Healey.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
You had to the Jensen I bought in seven. I
didn't buy anything else. I rented some furniture. I rented
a little one bedroom apartment, but with part of my
bonus money that I got, which wasn't much for us
in those days. You've got a bonus sort of you
could call it that. I'd be couch money right now

(01:02:18):
and for players today. Seattle. I bought it in Seattle,
and the guy who sold it to me ended up
becoming a lifelong friend. He passed away a couple of
years ago. Wonderful man. But I'll never forget that car.
I had it for thirty plus years. I took it
to Arizona and we had a condo down in Arizona,
so I left it down there for a long time.
Finally I just thought, let somebody else use it. I
sold it to a guy who now puts it in

(01:02:39):
car shows down in Arizona, and.

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
It was great.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
I kept care of it. Was a beautiful car. Going
back to the Oakland story, So I get out of
the hospital, I go to that dinner party I told
you about a friend and parked the car in the driveway.
Sharon pulls up afterwards and she saw the car, so
she knew I was there's She thought two things. First,

(01:03:03):
I don't want to meet a football player. That's the
last thing I want to do. But secondly, he looks
like he might have pretty good taste if he's got
a sports car, the British sports car like.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
That was he was? She stunking you?

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
No. She drove around the block and almost left, and
then finally she came back in and we met and
we started dating. And we got married, and that's that's
the end of that story. And I'm getting the wind
up from from NASA because we've taken way too much
of people's time. But here's the deal. We're you and
I are going to do this again on a semi
regular basis because we've got more stuff we can talk about. Right,

(01:03:36):
we got teammates that we can talk about.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
If this is all we do, we might as well
just be at a cafe somewhere that's right, doing a meal.
But we hope to.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Bring in different guys. We've got, you know, just the
guys that we played with, the large Ands, the mccullums,
the Sherman Smiths, who's back in Nashville these days now
back there, retired. There's just so many of those. Just
as we get we talked about him, so Nick be
about on. He is Artie Kune, your center, your roommate,
These guys Sam Adkins, oh my gosh, Well we'll never

(01:04:09):
get through an hour if the three of us, because
Sam is here, he's in town so he can come
in and sit down with us, We'll never get through it.
It's it's just brutal. We want to though, thank all
of you, folks out there if you stuck with us
for this hour. First of all, God bless you, because
I don't know if I could, but we enjoyed it. NASA,

(01:04:29):
Nasa Choby, our producer, director, and all things broadcast here
with the Seahawks, thank you for what you did. And
I think both of us would say thanks to an
organization that has let us be a part of this
now for almost fifty years. This has been a great ride,
and part of it, in fact, for me, the largest
part was the friendships that we made half a century

(01:04:52):
ago that we still have and that means so much.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
Well, it means a lot to me that you and
I are still in contact, even beyond you being on
the radio or me still being in Seattle. I mean
we It's been really fun to know you for all
these years. And also it's fun and I want to
learn more about you. Know how you were, how you

(01:05:15):
came in. I want to know how you were a
tight end in at Georgia Tech and got to be
a receiver for the Seahawks.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
What, Yes, I know, kind of a scary story.

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
Yeah, and you had some I want you to describe
your tuxedo that you had when you did all night marathon,
you know marathon telethons that you asked me to come
to at two in the morning. Hey, can you come
at two? There's a slot open that too.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
Okay, we'll talk about all that stuff, shall we, And mostly,
if you have enjoyed this podcast, do you know send
us a note. We got a way to do that,
don't we, NASA. There's a way for people to respond,
And if you have a question, send in your question
because after a while, I mean, NASA's is a smart
as anybody I've ever met, but he's going to run
out of stuff for us to talk about, and so

(01:06:04):
are we because we're both old. So if you have
a question or two, send it in and we'd be
happy to address that if it's a situation, a game,
a player. But just know that it's been terrific over
all these years and still for both of us skating
to be a part of this organization is something that's
one that never forgets. Jim, I will see you next time.

(01:06:25):
Thank you for doing this. Sounds great, Thank all you
folks out there, and we will join you again next
time on what are We? Kind of the Legends podcast?
Is that what we can you know?

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
We'll have to come up with some super slight name,
and I'll remind you not to tell the same stories
that you just told this time, and you remind me okay,
because that could get really bad.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
That's a very real possibility. Thanks everybody, we'll talk to
you next time.