I Am the 12th Man

Let me put it right out there that I’m not what you’d call a “sports guy.” For many, Sports is a religion. They read the Monday Morning Quarterback like scripture. They attend games like tent revivals and watch them on TV with the conviction of church-goers. They will cheer on their teams like evangelical holy-rollers, and they will argue the finer points of the game like zealots. But, while I don’t hate sports, I’ve just always been on the sidelines (literally and figuratively), managing to take only a passing interest.

I tried, though. I really did.

When I was in the 7th grade, having just moved to Moses Lake, Washington, I tried out for the football team at Chief Moses Junior High, and I made the squad because Chief Mo had a no-cut policy for 7th graders. At the first practice after the first day of school, I walked up to this kid Brian whom I’d met that day and asked him what position he wanted to play. When he told me, in an effort to find common ground and make friends, I said, “Maybe I’ll do that, too.” Irritated, he told me I couldn’t, because that’s the position he wanted. He stared at me like I was trying to steal lunch money from a much bigger bully, and then walked away in a huff. I didn’t know any of the positions on the field, so it never occurred to me that we both couldn’t be on the field doing the same job. (Spoiler: I still don’t know what all the positions are or what they do.) Worse still, I realized then that it wasn’t Brian I was talking to, but some other kid that looked vaguely similar.

Unable to run, throw or catch, the coach put me on the offensive line, and I played Left Tackle for the Braves. All I had to do was stand there and try not to let a guy run me over, which was harder than it sounds.

Our first game (out of a season consisting of only four games) was against our big rival—the Quincy Jackrabbits. The kid I was supposed to block was huge, like 3rd-year-7th-grader huge. I was tall, but I wasn’t big, and he was pushing me all over the field like a dust mop. I finally gave myself a pep talk, slapped my own helmet a few times (that’s really loud!), summoned every cubic centimeter of adrenaline to the surface and got into my three-point stance, ready to cream this kid. Full of piss and vinegar, breathing hard and with a ringing in my ears from the helmet-slapping, I stared him in the eye as we waited for the snap, letting him know that I really meant business this time. The Center hiked the ball, and I lunged forward with all my strength, sailing right into thin air. The grass came up at me and I hit the ground face first as the kid ran right around me and nearly sacked our Quarterback. He’d accurately gauged my intentions and simply dodged me. I was called off the field and spent the next five minutes picking grass out of my face mask.

Always the optimist, the coach decided to try me on defense and put me back in the game as a Right End. On the first play, their quarterback passed the ball to another big kid who started rushing up the field with it. I chased him down and leaped onto his back like an angry house cat. He kept right on running, dragging me behind him, for at least fifteen yards while I hung on for dear life. It was like that scene in The Princes Bride where Wesley jumps on the back of Fezzik (played by André the Giant). I guess I slowed him down enough for one of my teammates to catch up and hit him low like you’re supposed to, but that didn’t give me a stat for a tackle. After that game, I was largely responsible for keeping the bench warm.

I played basketball badly for a few years, too, getting put onto teams for the sole virtue of being the tallest kid in my class. The only game where I walked onto the court as a starter was the last game of my 9th grade year when Coach Johnson decided to start everyone who’d never started before. I got to start that game for no other reason than the fact that I hadn’t earned it.

Though I played sports for a while, though, I’ve never really followed sports teams. I haven’t known any of the major players since the days of Magic and Kareem, Jordan and Pippen, Payton and Kemp. I just can’t seem to summon the will to peruse the stats, learn the nuances, follow the players, make predictions and participate in conversations about any of these things. That kind of trivia seems, well, trivial.

But here’s the thing. I love the city of Seattle. I was born here, and while I spent my teen years and early 20s in Eastern Washington, I came back to my “home town” as fast as I could. I love the vibe, I love the buildings, I love the culture. Seattle is big enough to be interesting, and small enough to feel like home. It offers just the right balance between complete anonymity and running into people you know on the street. When I’m returning home from visiting my family in Eastern Washington, I still feel my heart race when I emerge from the tunnel onto the I-90 floating bridge and can see the tops of several skyscrapers peaking over Leschi. Seattle is my home, and my love of the city extends to our sports teams.

When we lost the Sonics, I was as heartbroken as anybody, even though I’d only been to one game (and that game was with my boss at the time, who’d gotten free tickets as a perq for advertising with the Tacoma News Tribune). I was excited as hell when we got the Sounders FC, though I’ve never been to a soccer match. I’ve been to a handful of Mariners games in my life and I still don’t understand all the rules of Major League Baseball (why do they paint a box for the 3rd Base Coach to stand in when he never stands in it?), but damn it, I fully approved of building Safeco Field for them.

When I was seven years old, I answered the phone to hear my uncle Keith, brimming with excitement, ask me, “How would you like to go see the Yankees?!” I had no idea what that was. There was something salacious about the way he said “Yankees,” and I pictured a chorus line of scantily clad women doing the can-can. “You better talk to my dad,” I told him, and handed the phone over. After he hung up the phone, my dad explained to me that my uncle had gotten tickets to a baseball game and that the Seattle Mariners were playing another team called the New York Yankees. I recognized the Mariners, because one of my tee shirts had their logo on it (the old trident M), so I got pretty excited.

And, I’ve attended one Seahawks game—a preseason game a few years ago—and can’t remember who they played, but I’m pretty sure we won.

But last year was—forgive the expression—a game changer. Something changed in Seattle. After a lifetime of rooting for the home team (and by “rooting,” I mean a perfunctory preference for any of Seattle’s teams), the Seahawks started to win. They started to make waves and make news. Coach Pete Carroll was doing big things. Rookie Russell Wilson had secured the starting quarterback position. The Legion of Boom was a thing. Beast Mode was a thing. Hashtag #GoHawks was a thing. And the 12th Man was more a thing than it had ever been before. In every window, on every bumper, on shirts and scarves and hats, the number 12 became ubiquitous. I hadn’t seen so many 12s since we read the Bible in Sunday school, or better, on Sesame Street:

One piece of good news after another followed. We made it into the playoffs. We won the conference championship. We made it to the Super Bowl for only the second time in franchise history. This was big. The city was abuzz. I took notice.

I’ve never owned a TV in my adult life, and I didn’t make any plans for Super Bowl Sunday. But, it did seem like I should do something for the occasion. I walked to the grocery store and bought a metric fuck-ton of frozen chicken wings, chips and dip. I cooked that shit up, sat down in front of my computer, and clicked refresh every couple of minutes to see the score update on the Fox Sports website. I couldn’t see the action, but what I could see was almost unbelievable.