If the NFL nation was a High School, the Seahawks and all us Twelves would be amongst the wastoids, dweebies, and dickheads of Rozelle High. We don't get asked to prom, and most of us are either in band, Knowledge Bowl or working for the school paper. The Steelers, Cowboys, Patriots, Giants, and Colts fans mock us mercilessly while wearing their letterman jackets, and the latest tsunami of Seahawks mockery is centered around our bright green alternate jerseys. Unfortunately our team has been the butt of jokes for my entire life. I even have a vague memory of a joke on Taxi about "Seattle winning the Super Bowl" before something else happened, and that was probably 1980 or 1981... Then there was The Boz, the overall crappiness of the '90s, "We Want the Ball and We're Gonna Score," and so on... When we aren't being ignored, we're being ridiculed/marginalized. That DEFINITELY sounds like my high school experience. Jesus Christ, I fucking hated high school.
Since our team is from strange, exotic Seattle, we're always working at a disadvantage with the national media and other NFL fans. We're perpetually the "new kid," no matter how many new teams join the league, evidently. When you add in the fact that we haven't really played an overtly physical "smash-mouth" style of football since the days of Chuck Knox, the rest of the league sees us as Poindextery little wusses. If you want to really get down to it, there's probably some around the country that mix all this info in with the fact that Seattle is politically liberal and LGBT friendly and conclude: The Seahawks are gay.
See, I have no problem with this. I'd rather Seattle outsmart other teams than play caveman ball, and yeah, the Seahawks are probably up there with the Niners among teams with the biggest LGBT fan bases. Since I'm a big fat lib-rul, I say Huzzah to that, but I think that's a dirty little secret component to national disrespect/mockery of the Hawks. A lot of people find Seattle scary/weird/gay in the midwest and on the east coast, so they take that out on our Seahawks.
I don't think we should change. I like our bright green jerseys. They're unique and colorful in a largely drab league. Of course any NFL team needs to be physically tough, but I like that our philosophy is descended from Bill Walsh and his ability to outwit opposing teams. I want the Seahawks to win, but I also want them to win the right way, if possible.
Becoming the popular kids? Pfft. That's a long wait for a train don't come, plus, we all know the nerds end up running things when they grow up anyway.
3 comments:
I love your analogy and I think it rings true. However, I hate the green. Maybe it's because of the blue sleeves so it ends up looking cheap, like they are wearing temporary jerseys over their real jersey (you know, like in high school gym when you get the old smelly basketball tank to throw over your t-shirt). I thought our deep blue looked classy and I loved that the accent was the green. So my vote is "yuck" to the green jersey. I sort of liked that the Sounders were the inverse of the Seahawks. It showed the continuity but without forcing duplication completely.
Just my thoughts.
I love the Freaks and Geeks comparison. I instantly thought of this clip when you mentioned "the latest tsunami of Seahawks mockery is centered around our bright green alternate jerseys."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kMkBcoxTxo
Toftie,
I get what you are saying, and I somewhat agree. If I had my choice of a 3rd jersey, it would be a DARK blue version with more bright green accents (to match the new pants we busted out on Sunday)... But I like the Lime Green fine as long as we only wear it a couple of times a season.
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