ESPN
How can't you love the Seahawks now?
By Duff McKagan
I do know that this ESPN gig is a national thing -- and I also know that some of you mused out loud about me having too much of a Seattle slant from week to week. Well, I'm not sure about next week … but for this one, yes, my column will definitely be about a Seattle team. At least someone will be writing about the The Hawks.
I get it. We are not a big market and we are tucked all of the way up here in the Pacific Northwest, where we are perceived to be still chopping down trees and living in tepees or igloos or whatever … and we are all hippies playing hacky sack, listening to Phish or some such jam-band. Or we still listen purely just to grunge music and/or Heart.
But this medium-market team just took down the defending Super Bowl champions, and now suddenly … this fish-throwing, coffee-drinking town has got a new face and attitude, perhaps best personified by Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch's forearm-shiver delivered to the Saints defense on Saturday. I guess the Hawks just had nothing to lose; they certainly played like it.
If you like your freedom, your Internets, espresso and good rock and roll, well then you should also be a Seahawks fan. Here is why: During World War II, Seattle's own Boeing airplane plant pumped out all of those B-24s, B-25s, and B-29s that helped to win that war. In the 1940s, Jimi Hendrix was born in this great city; his vanguard lead guitar playing eventually influenced so many great rock bands that it is almost impossible to register it all. Lead guitar solos may have very well been set back many years without his genius. In the '70s, Starbucks opened a little shop in the Pike Place Market that eventually informed our whole nation that coffee is dark black and not almost clear -- not to mention, from a can, weak or brownish. In the 1970s, Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft; without which, a home computer would still be the size of, well, a home. The globalization of modern ideas and instantaneous sharing of information could have been a thing that we might still be waiting for. Just think, no ESPN.com or NFL.com … or, God forbid, no Twitter!
A few readers chastised me pretty good for a comment I made about "suddenly wearing my dusty Seahawks jersey" last week after we made it into the playoffs. The truth is though -- I am such a sports fan that if I am bummed out about how the coaching staff or players or front office people are running things -- I will not just sit idly by and root for my team and wear the colors for the true-fan-ness of it all. I have done it in the past and have felt like a moron as, say, my favorite player gets traded or backroom dealings are being done to create space for next season … again!
Have you ever been a fan of a rock band that had a killer first and second record, and then somehow lost you after that? Did you still wear the Styx concert T-shirt after they went into the whole "Mr. Roboto" thing? You may still love the band somewhere deep down inside, but you reserve the right to be pissed-off about what is currently happening. Are you any less of a fan then?
You can read the full article here.
No comments:
Post a Comment