Several weeks ago I walked into the kitchen where my mom was watching a Seahawks game. I paused for a moment, leaning my elbows on the counter, and tried to concentrate on the television. "That's called a snap," my mom explained, proud to contribute in some small way to my growing football vocabulary. "I'm aware of that, Mother," I answered. "I know a couple things about football." She turned her head and raised an eyebrow. "And by 'a couple,'" I added, dropping my eyes to the floor, "I mean literally two."I have never been what you might call present in the realm of football fandom. For me the sport has always been an impossibly unsavory combination of machismo and childishness. The football players at my high school were some of the least likeable, most egotistical and self-satisfied young men I have ever known. And, naturally, everyone loved them. I came to understand that the sphere of football and the sphere of my life, though both rattling around in the same galaxy, were magnetically repellant. Try as I might--and I'll admit that I did not try very hard--I could not crack the code of the game, couldn't wrap my head around the series of rules that seemed specifically designed to widen the gap between those of us whose lives were our homework and those whose lives were avoiding it. The draw of a sport whose games lasted, in my rough estimation, upwards of twelve hours was just unfathomable to me. And the gloating and touchdown celebrations made me cringe. Where was the humility?
When the Seattle Sounders joined Major League Soccer in 2009, I finally had a reason to read the sports section. The team quickly established an impressive fan base--still the largest and most loyal in the league--but this city is, at its heart, pure football. I got used to the soccer stories being relegated to the seldom-seen back page to make room for the latest news on the NFL Draft. The Seahawks will always be bigger news in their offseason than the Sounders ever are in the middle of theirs. I got used to this, yes, but I was never okay with it. I didn't care about a terrible call that summoned the nation to Twitter. There are mind-numbingly horrific game- and season-changing calls made every weekend in soccer and the entire country doesn't erupt in outrage. (Though if you ask me, it should.) I just didn't care about football.
I still don't. Not really, anyway. But with the season the Seahawks just had it was hard not to wake up in the morning and feel that there was something different, an airiness to the city, that hasn't existed before. One of my good friends is a rabid Seahawks fan, and this season, during the run up to the Super Bowl, I found myself watching games with her minutes at a time, voluntarily. Minutes turned into quarters, and as of today I have probably watched a grand total of five full football games in my life--which is an astronomical number for me, you see.
In the past month I've seen my city inhabited by what I can only describe as otherworldliness. Seattleites have always been remarkably pleasant people, but when the Seahawks made the playoffs the dial was turned up to eleven. You couldn't walk half a block without seeing 12th Man flags waving at the top of every flag pole, 12th Man jerseys on every person on the sidewalk, the number 12 constructed out of computer paper and taped up in office building windows. "Go Hawks!" became the official sign-off to every conversation, and the way our local news stations were covering the excitement you'd think the rest of the world--all the civil unrest and natural disasters--had ceased to be. The news coverage was a little much for me, but the mood around the city was, simply put, enchanting. People were more excited than I had ever seen them. They were united. Bathed in a pregnant glow. This great big thing was happening to them, to us, and we were stepping up and proclaiming, "This is who we are, and we are proud of it."
I work in Ballard, a quaint Scandinavian neighborhood in northwestern Seattle. While working on the morning of Super Bowl Sunday, I looked out the window and saw two young men throwing a football back and forth across two lanes of traffic. Uh-oh, I thought. This can't end well. But the car horns I heard were long and continuous--blares of jubilation rather than irritation. A man marched down the sidewalk with a green mohawk, waving a 12th Man flag that was easily twice his height. My thoughts changed from Uh-oh to Am I living in a Norman Rockwell painting? By the time I left work at 3:30, just at the start of the game, I had absorbed so much residual excitement that I--and I hope you're sitting down for this--turned the car radio to the game. It's hard for me to explain just how unprecedented this kind of behavior is for me. I just couldn't help it. I wanted in on the excitement.
I still think the news coverage was over-the-top, and the parade that drew more spectators than there are residents of Seattle was over-the-top as well. I will never understand the jargon, or probably ever care enough to try. I still roll my eyes at the absurd displays of machismo after every sack. My heart will never belong to football. But my heart does belong to this city, and belonging to this city means standing behind what unites us. I may not care about the sport, but I care about what it means in the greater sphere of my life. Amid the cold and the rain, it transformed my city into a place of light, and for that reason I will always be grateful for the Seahawks.
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